Abstract 

This paper is an attempt at highlighting and illuminating the precarity of Lee Ji-An, the protagonist in a popular Korean drama My Mister. The drama is a slice-of-life narrativization of struggles, challenges and disappointments faced by temporary workers engaged in inhumane conditions beneath what their education should be able to afford them. Through this discussion, the endeavor is to investigate how the precarised lives of selected main and supporting characters function as a screen, projected-upon and reflecting the precarity of millions of people whose everyday lives resembles that of the characters. Cinema as a medium is a potent tool that allows for the viewer to walk in the shoes of the protagonist, the longer form of dramas allow for a sustained engagement and therefore are even more poignant in their affect. Precarity essentially stands for a feeling of insecurity that can only be felt and not very well explained, dramas like My Mister also acts as a linguistic tool for putting into affect and emotion what cannot be put into words. The discussion will seek to carve out the sources and expression of four main emotional responses to precarity through the life trajectories of characters that qualify as Precariat (Guy Standing). The effect of a life of abject insecurity and uncertainty on the life, body and mind of the sufferer and their family members are highlighted to challenges popular notions and accepted definitions of the bodies that qualify as being worth attention and consideration (Judith Butler).

Keywords precarity, Korean drama, affective labour, cinema of precarity, capitalism