The Good Bad Mother spoilers follow.
Netflix’s latest Korean drama, The Good Bad Mother, starts with an assumption that grief makes up for everything. It asks us to look at titular mother Jin Young-soon (Ra Mi-ran), and sympathise with the widowed pig farmer as she abuses her son, Kang-ho (Lee Do-hyun).
It’s a show possessed of a smattering of heartfelt, relatable moments as Kang-ho comes to terms with his mother’s abuse. None more so than Kang-ho tearfully accusing his mother of stealing his life in the first episode, a sequence that feels genuinely emotional.
Which makes it odd that writer, Bae Se-young, with the opportunity to say something meaningful about abuse, instead propagates tired clichés about disability. Abandoning Young-soon’s relentless abuse to double down on an off-base, albeit familiar, representation of disability.
It should be harrowing for Kang-ho to…