Disability in K-dramas needs to be more than a tool for the able-bodied

One of the joys of South Korean TV is that no matter the genre, you’re always watching fantasy. K-dramas are idealised renderings of the world, filled with riches, destined love, and bad guys getting theirs; in which nothing can stand in the way of a happy ending, least of all disability.

Which is why, though it boasts six disabled characters, Lee Ho-su (Park Jin-young) is Our Unwritten Seoul’s most instructive. Deaf in one ear following a childhood accident, he is portrayed at stages without any hearing, at others able to hear through only his right ear, but most of the time without impairment. At one point, Yu Mi-ji (one of two twins played by Park Bo-young) even wakes him while he’s sleeping on his right side by gently saying his name.

It’s an inconsistency that haunts Our Unwritten Seoul. Writer Lee Kang uses disability as a means to incite drama and sympathy (mostly for able-bodied characters), yet keeps it mostly out of view. Though, as a disabled person, I feel this is taken to the extreme when Kim Ro-sa’s (Won Mi-kyung) son, a nameless institutionalized man who is never seen on-screen, becomes the catalyst for the series’ central land dispute, Ho-su remains the best representation of how Netflix’s latest South Korean hit is also the definitive example of K-drama’s most problematic recent trend. To find love—and be worthy of love—disabled characters must resemble the able-bodied as closely as possible.

K-drama ableism in focus

This is dialed up to open disdain by Lee as characters repeat that disability is a “weakness,” a “flaw” that makes them burdens for which those around them should be lauded for bearing, and, as Ho-su says, “a puzzle piece that doesn’t fit” that can only be remedied by finding others with whom to form an “unconventional whole.” As Ho-su finds love, however, it is not this tired ableist rhetoric that disappears, but his—and other characters’—disabilities.

A curiously close comparison can be made to 2020’s It’s Okay to Not Be Okay, in which the mental health crises of protagonists Gang-tae (Kim Soo-hyun) and Moon-young (Seo Ye-ji) vanish in much the same way so they can date. How problematic the series is about mental health extends well beyond its central characters, but ironically it also includes one of the best portrayals of autism in South Korean media. Sang-tae (Oh Jung-se), Gang-tae’s artist brother, embodies a more complete image of autistic behaviours and relationships. A similar character exists in Our Unwritten Seoul. Despite being the series’ secondary antagonist, Lee Chung-gu (Lim Chul-soo), Ho-su’s mentor and an ambulatory wheelchair user, is mostly immune to Lee Kang’s unsettling use of disability—though not from repeating Lee’s assertion that disability is a weakness ad nauseam. Nor is Chung-gu a villain because of his disability. He even rightly calls Ho-su out for defining him and their relationship through his disability. It’s a strangely insightful moment for a series that is otherwise so disdainful of disability. What links both these outliers in their series? Neither have to fit into the ableist romantic expectations of K-drama viewers.

This is an idea further illustrated by Extraordinary Attorney Woo. The series’ autistic protagonist, Woo Young-woo (Park Eun-bin), is already a rehash of the stereotypical prodigious savant (despite being the basis of many representations of autism, there are fewer than 75 “genius” savants in the world—though the series’ creators say, “Woo can't represent all of the autistic people in the world”), but she is also stripped of any behavior neurotypical audiences might find “off-putting,” creating a cute pastiche of neurodiversity. In 2022, I wrote that this was a continuation of another trend: fabricating an image of autism as close to neurotypicality as possible to pretend that tolerance is easy. Returning to the show in 2025—a remarkable own goal on my part—it’s clearer that erasing the reality of Young-woo's autism is also about creating a palatable romantic lead for able-bodied and neurotypical audiences.

An unfortunate history

It’s the trope that won’t quit. Even as writers rely more and more on disability to create points of difference in increasingly repetitive storylines, they continue to push disability into the background, unable to fathom that disabled people could also live happy lives. This is often achieved by using invisible illnesses, generally presenting mental illness less openly and with minimal effects on the individual. This disappearing act is increasingly being brute-forced onto presentations of disability that aren’t so easily and realistically masked, however—through a sudden recovery, a fantastical cure, or, in the case of The Good Bad Mother, abusing the disability out of your character and waiting for the Baeksang award nominations to roll in. Most often, however, writers simply ditch disability when it becomes inconvenient to romance. 

The Atypical Family employs shallow renderings of PTSD and alcoholism to justify and foster sympathy for neglectful father Bok Gwi-ju (Jang Ki-yong). Both of which vaporize the moment romance with Do Da-hae (Chun Woo-hee) is in the cards. Or consider Lovely Runner, Viki’s runaway 2024 hit. Literally, as protagonist Lim Sol’s (Kim Hye-yoon) happy ending is largely predicated on her getting out of her wheelchair. Similarly, Twinkling Watermelon’s basic premise is that a hearing person goes back in time to save his family from deafness. Check out Queen of Tears instead, in which Hae-in (Kim Ji-won) escapes all-but-certain disabling ramifications of brain surgery because of love. These narratives are commonly referred to as “healing dramas,” but in K-dramas, healing is less about recovery than erasure. These aren’t disabled characters, but able-bodied archetypes clothed in disability and, like an old coat, writers simply discard it when it’s no longer appealing or useful—when it can no longer incite sympathy from able-bodied viewers or appear quirky.

A recent bright spot

Except in Moving. Disney’s word-of-mouth sensation is a rare imagination of superpowers as disabilities (and not in a “your disability is your superpower” way). Moving’s is a world in which a petty government punishes a frightened and desperate superpowered population simply for fear of their perceived difference. Cementing the allegory is Lee Jae-man (Kim Sun-kyun), a developmentally disabled man with super-strength. Writer Kang Full never assumes incompetency and presents Jae-man as a valued member of his community, a loved and loving husband, and an outstanding father. Things disabled people are rarely allowed to be in media depictions.

Moving is far from perfect. Jae-man is played by an able-bodied actor (all characters mentioned throughout this piece are) and Moving still has villains using unchallenged slurs to demonstrate how evil they are. But where series like Our Unwritten Seoul are explicitly about difference, Moving challenges the perceived barriers we erect between us and those we don’t immediately understand. By treating disability, and disabled people, as human—it really is that simple—Moving actually says something about disability to rank among the best representations of disability around.

The lesson writers and performers take from the success of series like Moving—and a mention for Daily Dose of Sunshine, a sincere study of mental health care that bucked trends by showing love during recovery—is that disability is exploitable. They can indulge stereotypes, erase the realities of our stories, and reduce us to dramatic artifice without ramifications. Park Eun-bin can even win a Baeksang Grand Prize for her troubling portrayal of autism. As we, the viewers, make these stories global hits, we’re increasingly proving them right.

That’s not to say we shouldn’t be watching, nor that disability shouldn’t be part of K-drama—one in 20 Koreans are registered as disabled. Rather, a vaguely humanizing view of disability should not be limited to vanishingly rare bright spots and non-romantic supporting characters. Our lives, our experiences, are not plot devices, not an aesthetic, nor a convenient tragic backstory.

Writers must start interrogating why they feel compelled to tell disabled stories in their dramas. Is it to ground the hyperreal fantasies of K-dramas in reality and tell human stories? Or is it to take advantage of perceived differences as shortcuts to sympathy and pity? Watching Lee Kang treat disability with such apathy in Our Unwritten Soul only makes it clearer that these stories need to be told with, if not by, those with lived experience, who can challenge the assumptions and biases that form the core of so many recent K-dramas. Not just for realism, but so that K-dramas don’t continue to portray us as unworthy of love, make us feel something other than pain, and, as is so often the case, stop scratching us out of existence for the sake of a late-series kiss.