No, you're quite right: I watched a lot of sageuk before Dae Jang Geum, and they were all focused on men. Not only that, they were also focused on royal/aristocratic families rather than on the servants--that was the other ground-breaking aspect of the series. Before then, the audience for sageuk was mostly middle-aged men (i.e. my father's demographic), but Dae Jang Geum completely turned the tables and made producers realized that they could make sageuk that appealed to all audiences. It was a bit of a zeitgeist, I think, because I think there were other women-centric historical dramas being released around the same time, but Dae Jang Geum certainly marked the turning point.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2010-03-20 08:04 pm (UTC)