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We've been watching the kdrama Mr. Queen, the premise of which is "fuckboy chef transmigrates into the body of historical Queen Cheorin", in large part (at least for me) out of a sense of intellectual fascination to see just how the showrunners were going to attempt to contort the premise to make it Technically Arguably Not Queer.
As it turns out ... well, I mean, I can't tell if they actually earnestly tried or if they were winking the whole time, but either way it was extremely funny to watch the show constantly walk the line to assure the producers it was straight whatever they did in a way that actually meant it was gay whatever they did. If a queen attempts to invent sexting with the royal concubines but instead enters into a passionate romantic correspondence with the king by mistake, is it straight? If a queen bangs the king by accident while attempting to drunkenly seduce a lady-in-waiting, then realizes that unfortunately it's the best night of sex this fuckboy has ever had, is that still straight?? Fellas, I don't know, but I do know it means the show feels itelf perfectly free to combine a lot of lesbian visuals (as our hero consistently and shamelessly attempts to hit on the other ladies of the inner court) with a lot of old-school nineties-fanfic-style bi panic (as our hero struggles not to fall in love with the king and, inevitably, fails.)
It is also a very funny show in general -- I mean you won't be shocked to hear that there is no understanding of the nuances of gender identity which means that it absolutely hits the dysphoria-for-humor beat a few times without in any way being aware of what it's doing, so caveat emptor (& I'm happy to give spoilers in this regard). But the majority of the comedy does primarily derive from the fact that "everyone expects the queen to act like a gently-bred noblewoman in a palace intrigue drama whose main priority is supporting her clan in maintaining the status quo against the revolutionary reforms of the king, and as a result everyone is consistently stymied and bewildered by the fact that the queen absolutely refuses to act like anything other than a fuckboy chef whose main priority is reinventing the perfect ramen from first principles" is simply a very screwball premise!
Also, big kudos to the actress playing Mr. Queen, who does an incredible job capturing the spirit of That Guy. This promo image is actually a big part of the reason I put this drama on the list:
One simply likes to see an actress in gorgeous historical hanbok project "how you doing?" for all she's worth.
Aside from the king and queen, other main cast members include:
- second male lead, the queen's faithfully pining but politically villainous cousin; has no real personality except being obsessed with the queen and as a result we referred to him only as "cousinfucker"
- second female lead, the king's first concubine; starts to dips towards the middle of the show into Defined By Jealousy territory but pulls it out again before the end for an overall solid and sympathetic arc
- the two evil rival Queen Dowagers, whom Mr. Queen valiantly attempts to teach the concept of 'doing brunch'
- the palace chef, whose life is nothing but frustration since Mr. Queen arrived with fancy future food ideas and turned the palace kitchen into a constant episode of Top Chef
Hong Yeon, the queen's kindest and most loyal palace servant, blithely oblivious to the fact that her queen is constantly looking on her with eyes that say 'you're extremely hot and HR lawsuits haven't been invented yet.'
- Mr. Queen's other cousin, the sweetest and most clueless soul in the court. head EMPTY. heart RIGHTEOUS
- The King's best friend, who is set to spy on the aforementioned empty-head cousin only to find he cannot help but fall for the mark, in the second most important B-plot of the show (to me)
- Court Lady Choi, the queen's extremely proper and incredibly long-suffering right-hand woman, whose discovery of friendship, affection, personal fulfillment, and true love in unexpected places is the the first most important B-plot of the show and in fact the A-plot of my heart
Given the givens, are you curious about how all this ends? WE WERE TOO. Once again, the show attempts to have its cake and eat it too: the king and Mr. Queen are now fully in love! Mr. Queen is perfectly reconciled to living happily ever after with the king in the past! But, at the climactic moment, when they're on the verge of storming the palace together and defeating the bad guys, Mr. Queen has a near-death experience and gets pitched forward back into his own body, where he races to find out the fate of the man he loved and learns that as a result of his actions history was changed and Korea has been a constitutional monarchy since the 1850s. What about all the other intervening years of history? Do NOT worry about it. Meanwhile, in the past, the king settles down with the real queen, whose buried spirit was dormant in her body while it was possessed by our protagonist all along, but nonetheless has a nagging feeling like he's lost something ....
As usual, this has the simultaneous effect of being like "no worries! look, it's straight now!" while kind of making it gayer than ever? Now admittedly they don't have a glimpse of the reincarnation of the king appear across the street in the present day, as would be standard in a het transmigration drama with this sort of ending, but that's only because they're cowards.
As it turns out ... well, I mean, I can't tell if they actually earnestly tried or if they were winking the whole time, but either way it was extremely funny to watch the show constantly walk the line to assure the producers it was straight whatever they did in a way that actually meant it was gay whatever they did. If a queen attempts to invent sexting with the royal concubines but instead enters into a passionate romantic correspondence with the king by mistake, is it straight? If a queen bangs the king by accident while attempting to drunkenly seduce a lady-in-waiting, then realizes that unfortunately it's the best night of sex this fuckboy has ever had, is that still straight?? Fellas, I don't know, but I do know it means the show feels itelf perfectly free to combine a lot of lesbian visuals (as our hero consistently and shamelessly attempts to hit on the other ladies of the inner court) with a lot of old-school nineties-fanfic-style bi panic (as our hero struggles not to fall in love with the king and, inevitably, fails.)
It is also a very funny show in general -- I mean you won't be shocked to hear that there is no understanding of the nuances of gender identity which means that it absolutely hits the dysphoria-for-humor beat a few times without in any way being aware of what it's doing, so caveat emptor (& I'm happy to give spoilers in this regard). But the majority of the comedy does primarily derive from the fact that "everyone expects the queen to act like a gently-bred noblewoman in a palace intrigue drama whose main priority is supporting her clan in maintaining the status quo against the revolutionary reforms of the king, and as a result everyone is consistently stymied and bewildered by the fact that the queen absolutely refuses to act like anything other than a fuckboy chef whose main priority is reinventing the perfect ramen from first principles" is simply a very screwball premise!
Also, big kudos to the actress playing Mr. Queen, who does an incredible job capturing the spirit of That Guy. This promo image is actually a big part of the reason I put this drama on the list:
One simply likes to see an actress in gorgeous historical hanbok project "how you doing?" for all she's worth.
Aside from the king and queen, other main cast members include:
- second male lead, the queen's faithfully pining but politically villainous cousin; has no real personality except being obsessed with the queen and as a result we referred to him only as "cousinfucker"
- second female lead, the king's first concubine; starts to dips towards the middle of the show into Defined By Jealousy territory but pulls it out again before the end for an overall solid and sympathetic arc
- the two evil rival Queen Dowagers, whom Mr. Queen valiantly attempts to teach the concept of 'doing brunch'
- the palace chef, whose life is nothing but frustration since Mr. Queen arrived with fancy future food ideas and turned the palace kitchen into a constant episode of Top Chef
Hong Yeon, the queen's kindest and most loyal palace servant, blithely oblivious to the fact that her queen is constantly looking on her with eyes that say 'you're extremely hot and HR lawsuits haven't been invented yet.'
- Mr. Queen's other cousin, the sweetest and most clueless soul in the court. head EMPTY. heart RIGHTEOUS
- The King's best friend, who is set to spy on the aforementioned empty-head cousin only to find he cannot help but fall for the mark, in the second most important B-plot of the show (to me)
- Court Lady Choi, the queen's extremely proper and incredibly long-suffering right-hand woman, whose discovery of friendship, affection, personal fulfillment, and true love in unexpected places is the the first most important B-plot of the show and in fact the A-plot of my heart
Given the givens, are you curious about how all this ends? WE WERE TOO. Once again, the show attempts to have its cake and eat it too: the king and Mr. Queen are now fully in love! Mr. Queen is perfectly reconciled to living happily ever after with the king in the past! But, at the climactic moment, when they're on the verge of storming the palace together and defeating the bad guys, Mr. Queen has a near-death experience and gets pitched forward back into his own body, where he races to find out the fate of the man he loved and learns that as a result of his actions history was changed and Korea has been a constitutional monarchy since the 1850s. What about all the other intervening years of history? Do NOT worry about it. Meanwhile, in the past, the king settles down with the real queen, whose buried spirit was dormant in her body while it was possessed by our protagonist all along, but nonetheless has a nagging feeling like he's lost something ....
As usual, this has the simultaneous effect of being like "no worries! look, it's straight now!" while kind of making it gayer than ever? Now admittedly they don't have a glimpse of the reincarnation of the king appear across the street in the present day, as would be standard in a het transmigration drama with this sort of ending, but that's only because they're cowards.
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