Focusing on the communication process between disabled and non-disabled people
“Strange people, enrich the world”
‘Witness’ Sun Me, an autistic dreaming lawyer
“I will probably never be a lawyer. Because I have autism. But could I be a witness?”
Ji-woo (Kim Hyang-gi), the only witness to the murder in the movie ‘Witness’ (2019), and with autism, says this in the play. Ji-woo helps lawyer Soon-ho (Jung Woo-sung) to find the real culprit, but he thinks he will not be able to become a lawyer due to his disability.
Writer Moon Ji-won, who wrote the screenplay for ‘Witness’, achieves Ji-woo’s dream three years later. It was through the ENA drama ‘Strange Lawyer Woo Young-woo’, which was first aired on the 29th of last month. ‘Weird… ‘ is a drama about a lawyer with autism spectrum disorder, Woo Young-woo (Park Eun-bin), who joins a large law firm and solves a case with his fellow lawyers. The viewer ratings of the first episode started with 0.9%, and in episode 4 aired on the 7th, the channel recorded the highest viewership rating of 5.2%. The Netflix streaming ranking, released on the 5th, is 1st in Korea and 10th in the world. The TV drama topicality index also climbed to No. 1, and the stock price of the production company, A-Story, has soared by more than 70% after the first episode aired. The worldview of the writer who wrote the screenplay with an autistic person as the main character is also attracting attention.
According to what writer Moon revealed through A Story, the focus of this work is on ‘strange’. Watching this drama is an experience to get to know something ‘weird Woo Young-woo’ at first sight with his unique gait and tone. Writer Moon said, “It is often called ‘strange’ to refer to a special person who is not common, unfamiliar, unique, erratic, eccentric, or common sense. Strange people tense and sometimes cause problems, but they change and enrich the world.” His worries about ‘strange’ are also shown in the movie ‘Witness’. This is the line that Ji-woo, who was bullied at a regular school, utters after transferring to a special school. “I like it because (my friends) are so weird. I can’t pretend I’m normal.”
Unlike Ji-woo, ‘strange… ‘ Woo Young-woo chooses to live together with non-disabled people. Woo Young-woo, who has a genius memory, graduated from Seoul National University Law School with a high school diploma and joined a large law firm to solve cases from a bizarre and fresh perspective. Woo Young-woo’s law firm colleagues do not sympathize with or turn away from him as a disabled person. He has no special treatment. The drama does not hide the prejudice against people with disabilities that non-disabled people have, but shows the process of people learning how to understand and coexist with the ‘strange Woo Young-woo’.
Both works are legal works, but rather than crime, they focus on the process of communication between people with autism and non-disabled people breaking down walls. Especially the ‘strange… ‘ is not a violent crime, but mainly deals with the struggles that occur in everyday life, such as brothers who are greedy for a legacy, and illuminates the reality of the common people. Deok-hyeon Jeong, a popular culture critic, said, “Unlike other works that depict atrocious events, the concept of the drama is that ‘goodness’ wins.
Reporter Lee Ji-hoon easyhoon@donga.com