SYNOPSIS
¡®Sabangji¡¯(played by Lee Hye-young) is equipped with both male and female sexual organs. The widowed daughter-in-law of the Kim family, Madame Lee (played by Bang Hee), becomes passionately involved with her maid, ¡®Sabangji¡¯. However, jealousy from her neighbors and difference in social rank causes great turbulence in their relationship. ¡®Sabangji¡¯ becomes a sex toy for numerous lonely women, from high society wives to salon mistresses, but in the end she rejects her fate by cutting off her ¡®male organ¡¯. Madame Lee ends her life by hanging herself.
Depicted as a being endowed with the soul of a snail whose ¡®top is woman and bottom is man¡¯, ¡®Sabangji¡¯ is a hermaphrodite. Her appearance and her behavior are those of a woman, yet the sexual pleasures she/he offers are presented as ¡®male,¡¯ and for such deviation, love and sex with other women are condemned as ¡®improper¡¯. By changing sex and ruling over women who are privileged with power in a traditional society but deprived of their sexual desires - such as widows and mistresses of noble families and wives of eunuchs- ¡®Sabangji¡¯ fights a war against an oppressive and hierarchal society with her ambiguous sexual identity and liberal attitude to sex.
(Joo You-shin)
PROGRAM NOTE
¡®Sabangji¡¯(played by Lee Hye-young) is equipped with both male and female sexual organs. The widowed daughter-in-law of the Kim family, Madame Lee (played by Bang Hee), becomes passionately involved with her maid, ¡®Sabangji¡¯. However, jealousy from her neighbors and difference in social rank causes great turbulence in their relationship. ¡®Sabangji¡¯ becomes a sex toy for numerous lonely women, from high society wives to salon mistresses, but in the end she rejects her fate by cutting off her ¡®male organ¡¯. Madame Lee ends her life by hanging herself.
Depicted as a being endowed with the soul of a snail whose ¡®top is woman and bottom is man¡¯, ¡®Sabangji¡¯ is a hermaphrodite. Her appearance and her behavior are those of a woman, yet the sexual pleasures she/he offers are presented as ¡®male,¡¯ and for such deviation, love and sex with other women are condemned as ¡®improper¡¯. By changing sex and ruling over women who are privileged with power in a traditional society but deprived of their sexual desires - such as widows and mistresses of noble families and wives of eunuchs- ¡®Sabangji¡¯ fights a war against an oppressive and hierarchal society with her ambiguous sexual identity and liberal attitude to sex.
(Joo You-shin)