Gone with the Dance

Personally, after watching the film Madame Freedom, I was able to understand why it was the most controversial and mainstream film during the postwar period. With correlations of attention grabbing characteristics of contemporary Korean dramas, such as love triangles and slapping of cheeks, the movie depicts the emergence of independent women in the work class with the influence of American culture during the post-war period. Once confined in their own homes doing merely housework, it seemed that the change in their social standing brought not only desire for women to be set free outside the homes but also the possibility of other men showing interest in the women. The scene where the flirtatious neighbor(Lee Min) took a picture of sunyoung seemed to imply that as sunyoung was to work outside the house, she was to be captured in this space where other men other than her husband would be the subjects of love.  

The film also shows a luxury boom and women's materialism as the they are so focused on exterior sides, such as makeup, and western goods, such as bags that are considered as the most expensive and the best. The owner of the western-style store even says modern women are slaves of makeup and the more women focus on their exterior looks, the more they become prostitute-like, wanting to objectify themselves. At the reunion, sunyoung and her friend talk about other friend's diamond rings, and look at them with their jealous eyes. Dancing served as a huge part in the film as social dances were how sunyoung fell in the temptations of other men, and dancing was also the main activity they had for reunions. Also, as the dance hall, western music and western style clothing, which seemed to be the major trend, showed western cultures huge influence on the music and the entertainment for the Koreans.     

Overall, the film Madame Freedom is an interesting depiction of the phase of the conflict between modernity and tradition that the Korean women went through. There is a conspicuous difference on the attitude and the facial expression of sunyoung as she was stern but becomes rather flirtatious and promiscuous later on. Sunyoung may have been so caught up by the fact that she can now work independently and live more like a 'modern woman', thus, not able to see how 'free', or selfish in this case, she has become.