Masculinity in Transit: Steven Yeun, John Cho, and the Korean American Diaspora Onscreen Main Menu

Now Playing: John Cho and Steven Yeun in Columbus and Burning

37912 Steven Yeun: As Seen on The Walking Dead, Sorry To Bother You, and YouTube A recollection of Steven Yeun’s early career and a look at his guest spot on CONAN.
As can be seen in our Star Studies section (for John Cho, click here; for Steven Yeun, click here), Yeun and Cho provide particularly potent case studies of the transnational Korean American male in contemporary media cultures. We investigated how they must navigate the press circuit when promoting films, how certain media outlets are oriented towards or away from Korean American audiences, and what limitations actors face as they attempt to speak about the struggle Korean American experience in Hollywood and global products and celebrity culture. Now, I want to take a look at Burning and Columbus. These are two films that reveal how masculinity and transnationality are inexplicably intertwined and can both feed into simultaneous hegemonic and rebellious discourses. 

2017 and 2018 brought landmark shifts to both John Cho and Steven Yeun's careers. They both went from having largely comedic, genre-work behind them to facing a new era of dramatic roles. Cho starred in Columbus (dir. Kogonada) and Yeun starred in Burning (dir. Lee Chang-dong). Cho plays Jin Lee, the son of a world renowned architecture professor who suddenly falls ill in Columbus, Indiana. Lee must travel from Korea, where he currently works as a publishing translator, and return to the States. Through the course of the film, he will speak about his father and their distant relationship and meet Casey (played by Haley Lu Richardson), a college-aged student who wants to pursue architectural studies. In Burning, Steven Yeun portrays Ben, a young Korean who simultaneously befriends and antagonizes the lead character, Lee Jong-su (played by Yoo Ah-in). Although Yeun and director Lee Chang-dong have denied his character as being explicitly Korean American, his use of the English name Ben, his nonstandard Americanized Korean accent, and general sense of seclusion from contemporary Korean society marks him as a symbol of the transnational Korean American man. 

In the ensuing section of pages, I largely investigate these films through the lenses of traditional film studies, Asian American studies, globalization studies, and tropes on Asian American masculinities. These pages are forums to explore these themes and theoretical writings that provide further understanding of how Burning and Columbus respond to contemporary issues surrounding diaspora and masculinity. Many of my investigations will take place in either video essay or video montage format. This visuality is key to both viewing the films themselves, but also in creating false interactions between Cho and Yeun who, as of 2021, have not actually collaborated together. As will be further discussed, these films are largely about isolation, denying communal structures and belonging. By creating these montages, I hope to imagine community where there is none. 

This page has paths:

  1. Envisioning Korean American Identity: Redux Jackson Wright
  2. Cho Change: After Columbus Jackson Wright
  3. Portals, Pathways, and Project Proposal Jackson Wright

Contents of this path:

  1. (Korean) American Psycho: The Reflection Pool of Diaspora
  2. Columbus: Korean Grief and the Minority Masculinity Stress Theory
  3. Free jazz, free association: Americanism in Burning
  4. A twist and a twirl: Examining two scenes of dancing
  5. Separation Anxiety: Masculine Rage & Transnational Desire