Romance in the Recent Past: Our Beloved Summer and First Love in the Ecology of Netflix Global Programming
This article offers a reflection on two recent romance series offered by Netflix: Our Beloved Summer (2021) from Korea and First Love (2022) from Japan. Both series were seen as successes for their local industries, and a review of their production histories as well as their place within a broader N...
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| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Michigan Publishing
2024-12-01
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| Series: | Global Storytelling |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://journals.publishing.umich.edu/gs/article/id/6414/ |
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| Summary: | This article offers a reflection on two recent romance series offered by Netflix: Our Beloved Summer (2021) from Korea and First Love (2022) from Japan. Both series were seen as successes for their local industries, and a review of their production histories as well as their place within a broader Netflix programming ecology highlights the strategies Netflix is taking with its increased investment in the drama production industries of both nations. Importantly, both series also share a temporality in their romance storytelling, one that moves between a youthful, recent past and a lackluster, adult present. Though the texts are not necessarily adjacently marked in the Netflix interface itself, both series present key similarities that hint at a winning narrative formula. Drawing on key scholarly literature on popular romance and modernity, I argue that while the temporality of “romance in the recent past” might not necessarily be marked as a working microgenre in the Netflix algorithm, it certainly presents as a transnationally translatable storytelling mode that narrativizes, entertains, and consoles audiences coming from similar experiences of modernity. |
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| ISSN: | 2769-4941 |