Park, Young-aKim, Young Seo2021-07-292021-07-292021http://hdl.handle.net/10125/75898Oftentimes, representation of marginalized groups in mass media comes short of actually representing the lived reality of the group that is on screen. The same is true for trans women in South Korea and elsewhere. Confronting the false and, at times, harmful representation by pointing out where the representation fails is important, but stopping there leaves out the nuance of the purpose of the mass media that gets the lived reality wrong. Rather than take the simple approach of describing the differences, this thesis describes and goes further to analyzes the reasons, cultural and sociopolitical, for trans women’s representation in South Korean cinema. The thesis focuses on the beginning of the 21st century and onward, and compares and contrasts the films with ethnographic data of lived experiences of trans women in South Korea. This comparison reveals the ways that the media attempts to present an understanding of trans women to the public that is radically different from the lived experiences of the trans women, while also critically examining what those similarities and differences mean for trans women.Transgender women in motion picturesThesis