So I tried Madame Antoine out earlier this year, but gave up for a multitude of reasons. The female lead was supposedly perceptive, but actually a complete idiot. The male lead so desperately held on to his lie that I'm convinced he doesn't deserve love at all. I don't think I'm missing much by not finishing it - here's why it not only fails as a decent romance drama, but also why it fails as a drama focused on psychology.
I'm a psychology student now - you don't have to study a social science in order to realise how disgusting the central experiment of this show is, but it sure helps.
In short, I was interested in the opposites-attract part of this drama - cold hard leading psychologist Choi Soo-hyun decides to conduct a study proving his null hypothesis true: love doesn't actually exist (that a girl will always fall for a rich guy). Out of spite, he makes fortune-teller Go Hye-rim, who he doesn't get along with, his subject.
So, that was bound to go south, right? It gets worse; he wants her to fall for one of three men that he places in front of her, just to prove she'll be attracted to a certain type. Thus, he ropes in his assistant and his brother to romance her, since they fill the kind of criteria he needs. And then, he inserts himself into the experiment too, since the perfect revenge to give to this woman he hates is to make her fall in love with him. This alone sets off a siren in my head - sure, participant observation (where the researcher pretends to be a participant) is necessary sometimes, but this is just a whole new level of stupid. The researcher bias is off the charts here.
For a while, I thought this would be the drama to help me like Sung Joon. I was wrong. His character is disgusting. This study, in itself, is a disgusting thing to do to a woman - the age old question in Psychology is whether or not it's worth breaking the rules (hence doing questionable things) in order to learn new things. The biggest problem with Madame Antoine is that it blatantly ignores ethics. There are six ethical things a Psychologist must consider when conducting an experiment: deception, right to withdraw, debrief, protection of participants, confidentiality, and informed consent.
The central experiment of Madame Antoine is in violation of not just one, but at least three of these. Let's think about this. Hye-rim is deceived regarding the true nature of the experiment (she thought they were just looking at how her brain reacts to seeing men that are her 'type', or something like that) meaning she can't possibly give informed consent to be observed because she hasn't been rightly informed. In addition, if she is ever told the truth, she'll be absolutely heartbroken, meaning Soo-hyun hasn't protected her mental well-being. I can't speak for the other conditions just yet, since I may not ever finish the show, but it's possible that confidentiality will be an issue. If Soo-hyun does truly love her, he'll debrief her and give her the right to withdraw.
But seriously, when will he tell her the truth? At the point I've reached, he's confessed to having genuine feelings for her, and yet he's still lying to her. Constantly. He can't seem to abandon his experiment, even though all the reliability and validity is down the drain. She's come close to figuring out the truth several times, and always confronted him and asked for the truth, but he just smooths things over with more lies and hopes for the best. This is not a healthy relationship. If I ever decide to continue watching this, I want to see him beg. Beg hard. If she forgives him without some grovelling, there will be hell to pay. I may even write another rage post.
I have even more I can cover - I mean, if I go deeper into reliability and validity in Psychology, it'll become obvious that Soo-hyun's experiment is so juvenile it'll become impossible to believe he's an expert in his field. But I think you get the jist.
So, that was bound to go south, right? It gets worse; he wants her to fall for one of three men that he places in front of her, just to prove she'll be attracted to a certain type. Thus, he ropes in his assistant and his brother to romance her, since they fill the kind of criteria he needs. And then, he inserts himself into the experiment too, since the perfect revenge to give to this woman he hates is to make her fall in love with him. This alone sets off a siren in my head - sure, participant observation (where the researcher pretends to be a participant) is necessary sometimes, but this is just a whole new level of stupid. The researcher bias is off the charts here.
For a while, I thought this would be the drama to help me like Sung Joon. I was wrong. His character is disgusting. This study, in itself, is a disgusting thing to do to a woman - the age old question in Psychology is whether or not it's worth breaking the rules (hence doing questionable things) in order to learn new things. The biggest problem with Madame Antoine is that it blatantly ignores ethics. There are six ethical things a Psychologist must consider when conducting an experiment: deception, right to withdraw, debrief, protection of participants, confidentiality, and informed consent.
The central experiment of Madame Antoine is in violation of not just one, but at least three of these. Let's think about this. Hye-rim is deceived regarding the true nature of the experiment (she thought they were just looking at how her brain reacts to seeing men that are her 'type', or something like that) meaning she can't possibly give informed consent to be observed because she hasn't been rightly informed. In addition, if she is ever told the truth, she'll be absolutely heartbroken, meaning Soo-hyun hasn't protected her mental well-being. I can't speak for the other conditions just yet, since I may not ever finish the show, but it's possible that confidentiality will be an issue. If Soo-hyun does truly love her, he'll debrief her and give her the right to withdraw.But seriously, when will he tell her the truth? At the point I've reached, he's confessed to having genuine feelings for her, and yet he's still lying to her. Constantly. He can't seem to abandon his experiment, even though all the reliability and validity is down the drain. She's come close to figuring out the truth several times, and always confronted him and asked for the truth, but he just smooths things over with more lies and hopes for the best. This is not a healthy relationship. If I ever decide to continue watching this, I want to see him beg. Beg hard. If she forgives him without some grovelling, there will be hell to pay. I may even write another rage post.
I have even more I can cover - I mean, if I go deeper into reliability and validity in Psychology, it'll become obvious that Soo-hyun's experiment is so juvenile it'll become impossible to believe he's an expert in his field. But I think you get the jist.
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