Africa appears in South Korean television dramas less as a place than as a function — a setting that exists to build, cleanse or punish Korean characters who pass through it.
That is the finding of a new study by Osarugue Otebele, a scholar of film and media with a research focus on global Black art and film practices, who examined how and why the continent became a recurring trope in K-drama, particularly in rags-to-riches romances and melodramas.
Otebele traced Africa’s presence across three series — Shooting Stars (2022), Marry My Husband (2024) and Queen of Tears (2024) — and identified three recurring uses: Africa as a place in need of charity, as a site of rebellion and savagery, and as a place of punishment for a “troubled” child.
Writing in The Conversation, she is explicit that her aim was not to argue why these portrayals are bad, but to understand what they reveal about South Korea — how they function as a scale for measuring and emphasising the country’s own development.
The context matters. K-drama spread internationally from the late 1990s, well before K-pop powered the wider Hallyu Wave, and the format’s reach has only grown.
By 2024, the melodrama Queen of Tears ranked as the most-watched Korean series on Netflix and the 14th most-watched show of all time on the service, following earlier hits including Crash Landing on You and Marry My Husband.
No longer the poor post-war country of the late 1950s, South Korea can now position itself among leading world powers, having grown in both the global economic and cultural landscapes.
Otebele argues that what allows countries like this to define their developmental status is their ability to distinguish themselves from Africa — and that Africa’s presence in K-dramas works as a place maker, or more specifically an image-maker.
A place to do good
The theoretical frame comes from Cameroonian philosopher Achille Mbembe, who in On the Postcolony describes Africa as Europe’s “signifier” — meaning the way Europe comes to know and define itself is only possible through how it defines itself against Africa.
Otebele’s study contributes to showing that this is not just a western phenomenon. The ever-growing presence of eastern soft powers such as China and South Korea means that longstanding stereotypes of Africa have found new sites of replenishment.
One major thread across the three dramas is Africa as a place where non-Africans go to build character through volunteer work with an NGO.
In Marry My Husband, the show’s antagonist Oh Yu-ra loses her job in the family business and is sent to “join a volunteer foundation in Africa to build character.”
In Shooting Stars, the idea of Africa as the epicentre of charity is even more apparent: the opening sequence features the main character digging wells in Africa, accompanied by smiling village children and a sound one viewer described as “Lion King music.”
In both shows, South Korea is personified through the characters sent to Africa. While Yu-ra is sent as punishment, the character in Shooting Stars is an actor whose volunteer trip aids his public image back home.
Africa becomes what builds the image and character of others, but only by being relegated to a cliché.
Yu-ra’s punishment shows how Africa becomes the K-drama’s vessel to hold the unwanted or defamed of other nations, collecting what disrupts the happiness of romance and, by extension, of nation-making in South Korea.
That figuration of the continent reappears in Queen of Tears.
A lawless continent
Queen of Tears does not follow the Asian-saviour-in-Africa trope.
Instead, it presents Africa as a place for youthful inhibitions, with no sense of order or rule of law — the ideal setting for behaviours that might be illegal in the more “civilized” South Korean society the character inhabits.
In Africa’s brief cameo in the show’s third episode, the younger brother of the protagonist, Soo-Cheol, reminisces about his rebellious days: “I’m reminded of when I went to Africa. My twenties were filled with wildness and barbarism.”
When chided that he stayed in his hotel for most of the trip, Soo-Cheol comments, “I had enough of the wildness just looking out of the window.” Here, Africa is understood in proximity to danger and savagery.
Otebele asks whether there are no crimes, criminals, or places and people in need of saving in South Korea.
The obvious answer is no, but as her study finds, when viewed through these shows the answer reads more like, “Compared to Africa, yes.”
Where will Africa go next?
This treatment of Africa began long before the shows in the study. Africa’s character-building qualities appear, for example, in the 2018 film Burning, in which the female protagonist goes on a “soul-searching” quest to find life’s greater meaning.
In unscripted variety shows, African immigrants living in South Korea, such as Sam Okyere or Jonathan Yiombi, often feature as hosts or guests, but not without their share of racist backlash.
Okyere was subject to racist comments after criticising a video of South Korean students recreating a popular video from his home country, Ghana.
The same happened to Yiombi after South Korea was eliminated from the football World Cup because the DRC, his country of birth, defeated Uzbekistan, indirectly causing South Korea’s elimination.
For better or worse, Africa’s metaphorical and literal presence has come to occupy South Korea’s cultural and aesthetic imagination. Despite Africa also being a continent full of modern urban life, cultural riches and innovation, the clichés remain.
This presence is only possible through the expected and invented image of the savage, helpless and primitive, who is in need, even after independence, of more civilising — and not only from western colonial powers, but also from the growing economies of the east.
A symbol of lack
K-dramas are increasingly popular in Africa, yet when constantly viewed this way, Hallyu’s success on the continent comes with a heavy representational price.
Despite their engagement with K-drama, African audiences can only ever seem to see themselves represented through a colonial gaze that benefits South Korea’s pursuit of global power.
Africa then, while continuing to build South Korea’s cultural capital, can only ever exist as a symbol of lack.
Source: The Conversation
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