With "Freedom" comes responsibility

  The 1956 film Madame Freedom, directed by Han Hyung-mo, explores the theme of sexual liberation of women from the strong western influence.  Madame Oh, the protagonist of the film best represents the transition from the traditional to the modern model of women.  She first starts as a good wife and mother of the household, even asking for her husband’s permission when she wanted to try the management position at a western-style clothing store.  This was initially to help support the family’s financial situation since her husband, being a professor, had a relatively low income.  But as the film progresses and as she gains more economic freedom, she starts to go through a sort of ‘modernization’ that is given a very negative connotation.  Her clothing shifts from the traditional Korean clothing to a ‘modern’ western dressing and her interests starts to pour into alcohol and dancing as she reaches a realization of her liberation from just being a professor’s wife.
  This is regarded as vanity by her husband, Jang Tae-yun, especially regarding her neglect of her duties as a mother, leaving the son semi-abandoned.  Which in turn, this raises the question whether childcare is the sole duty of the mother, and how this view changes in the modern perspective.  Going back to the vanity, Madame Oh is presented to the audience to be unlikeable due to her selfish nature arising from her fascination with the americanized sexual liberation particularly when she accepts to be her boss‘s girlfriend.  Her husband is presented as the moral figure in the film, who treats his relation or admiration of Yang Mi-hui, a young pretty typist whom he teaches grammar, in a mature manner knowing that nothing good will come out and it will just ruin his household.  Madame Oh can be said that is acting as if she is a single woman, whereas the professor acts as a father figure of the household.  Due to this, when Madame Oh loses everything at the end of the film, she is also shut out of the house.  Jang Tae-yun heavily criticizes and condemns her for vanity and her neglect of her household duties.  She is ultimately forgiven when her son begs his father to open the door for her with a desperate cry.
  So the question arises whether the film is trying to warn the vanity that can come from the ‘freedom’ these modern women are being exposed to or if it’s trying to reaffirm the male moral superiority in the house in this new movement of women becoming more independent with their new found ’freedom’.  The ending in particular, although somewhat of a happy ending, is very open to interpretation.  One might see this as a “re-taming” of women (Korean Film Archive), while others could see this a representation of danger that the western sexual liberation could bring, or it could be a lesson that with more freedom comes greater responsibility.

Lenin Amaya