From Military Heroes to “Cute Uncles”: The Politics of Cuteness and Middle-Aged Masculinity in Neoliberal South Korea

This paper explores the phenomenon of the so-called “cute uncles” (kwiyŏun ajae), middle-aged South Korean men who have seemingly overcome the old-fashioned, militaristic masculinity hegemonic in South Korea during the late twentieth century. In the twenty-first century, responding to women’s increasing economic power and catering to their desires, as well as reflecting the neoliberal imperatives for self-improvement, the South Korean culture industry has replaced the macho masculinity with images of boyish, gentle, sensitive, and carefully groomed men, epitomized by youthful K-pop idols. Middle-aged men, associated with the ideal of the work-focused patriarchal breadwinner of militarized modernity (Moon 2005), began to be reviled as outdated, entitled, uncouth, and abusive of their traditional gender- and seniority-based authority. In this context, “cute uncles” are middle-aged men who escape this negative stereotype because of their well-groomed appearance and voluntary relinquishment of socially granted authority to encourage more comfortable relations with women and juniors. A "cute uncle" might wear fashionable brands, remain good-humored about juniors making fun of him, and display “cute” behaviors (aegyo) in social situations.
The paper questions the work of cuteness in this context, by combining an analysis of public discourse about “cute uncles” with a case study of one of the celebrated macho heroes of militarized modernity, the historical general Kang Gamchan (948 –1031), who was reinvented as a cute municipal mascot in the 2010s. In dialogue with scholarship on “authority cuteness” (McVeigh 2000) and on cute masculinity as a response to traditional masculinity crisis (McIntyre 2017), the study seeks to contribute to critiques of the politics of masculinity in South Korea and globally, by drawing out how socially prescribed cuteness can mitigate and soften masculinist authority while leaving underlying power dynamics intact.