Blue Swallow: Modern Women

When watching Blue Swallow I couldn’t help but notice the intense shifts in the film. Whether shifting from a seemingly pro Japanese vibe to a negative one, or a pro feminist or con one. At the beginning of the film, young Park Kyung-won broke free from her constrictive home life to pursue a better and brighter future in Japan. The depicted Korea is old-fashioned and made unattractive with it’s strict script about how females should behave, whereas Japan is bustling with its modern technology and hip, liberated women. I realize that there was a time jump from when little Kyung-won was in Korea and her life in the future Japan, but this association of Korea-outdated and Japan-modern is obvious. 

The costume designers of the film went the extra mile to emphasize the “new woman” that Park Kyung-won, and also the other female characters, had become. They were often seen sporting suspenders and waistcoats, as well as white dress shirts, exactly like the men. An interesting shift occurs when the more “feminine” side of the characters arise. When Park Kyung-won begins her quest to travel to Korea she is often seen wearing more feminine clothing. For example, her red dress when she announces her plan to fly to Korea; from that point on her style changes. Along with her masculine attire her success and support disappear as well. All of a sudden, the celebrated female pilot is dropped and those who gladly took part in her success were nowhere to be found. She once again was seen by many as just a woman. Therefore, I find the film ambiguous on its stance on female empowerment. At first it seems to support women on the path to their dreams. Although, on the other hand, they continued to be suppressed. Much like Yoo said about the colonial views on feminism “to minimize the threat of the “new woman,” nationalist reformers sought to create new ideologies of womanhood that would appeal to her modern sensibilities while containing her within traditional gender boundaries.“ (60) Therefore, females were not truly liberated, they were just lead to believe that they were now autonomous. After the torture from the Japanese military, Park realized that this controlled freedom was at hand. This made her flying to Korea very bittersweet. Her flying to Korea could be seen as both a success, or her submitting to the Japanese imperialists.