The Herbivore Male and The Carnivore Female

          In the film My Sassy Girl, there is a reversal of gender roles taking place.  This is noted very early on the film when the protagonist, Gyeon-woo, talks about how he thought he was a girl until he was seven due to him being raised as one by his parents who originally wanted a daughter.  And because of this childhood, the audience is able to identify more feminine properties than masculine properties in the protagonist while the heroine, the Girl, is quite the opposite.  Watching this film reminded me of the concept of herbivore males that is present in Japan.  Herbivore males are depicted to be calm and kind men who tend to play a more passive role in a love relationship.  They tend to have difficulty to express themselves and often find themselves being the follower type of person instead of a leader.  A carnivore person is the opposite being that they are often portrayed to be more confident people who play a more active role in the relationship.  Unlike the gentle nature of the herbivore, the carnivore are depicted to be more aggressive in fulfilling their desire in a relationship with their partner.

          Some of the carnivore concept could be applied to the heroine, who has a strong and somewhat eccentric personality, and the herbivore concept could be applied to Gyeon-woo who has a more soft personality that ends up enduring most of the hardships caused by his girlfriend.  Thus the relationship between Gyeon-woo and the heroine could be referred to as the relationship between the herbivore male and the carnivore woman.  It is important to note, however, that in the relationship between these two, there is no sense of gender superiority despite the reversal in gender roles.  The scene that best describes their relationship is when the heroine kindly “suggests” that they should exchange the shoes they are wearing in which to Gyeon-woo’s dismay, he is then required to walk in the heels the heroine was wearing.  This results in the heroine laughing at Gyeon-woo’s struggle with her heels while she walks comfortably in his sneakers.  While it may seem that Gyeon-woo is playing the inferior role in the relationship, from a different perspective this could be seen as Gyeon-woo’s kind act of liberating the heroine from a restrictive role.  Which as a result, makes their relationship successful at the end of the film.

Lenin Amaya