The reason why this Professor, who was reluctant to join “Woo Young-woo”, changed his mind and participated in the drama
Professor Kim Byung-gun, who was in charge of consulting the ENA drama “Extraordinary Attorney Woo,” honestly expressed his feelings when he first see the drama script.
KBS radio “Choi Man-young’s Strongest Currents,” which aired on July 22nd, featured Professor Kim Byung-gun of the Special Education Department at Korea Nazarene University and his behind-the-scenes story of how he started contributing to the drama “Extraordinary Attorney Woo” team.
Professor Kim Byung-gun frankly confessed that he was reluctant to take charge as the drama’s advisor at first.
Professor Kim Byung-gun explained the reason, saying, “If you describe autism well, people will only see it as a must, and if you describe it incorrectly, social displeasure will be enormous.”
Professor Kim Byung-gun, who hesitated to step in as an advisot, changed his mind after reading the script for the drama.
Professor Kim Byung-gun, who read the script, thought that “Extraordinary Attorney Woo,” would help raise awareness of autism socially.
In the end, Professor Kim Byung-gun decided to join the advisor team for the drama, which he believes could have a positive impact on the perception change of the autism spectrum.
But there was another difficulty for him, which is how to build a character named Woo Young-woo, who suffers from autism spectrum disorder in the drama.
Professor Kim Byung-gun expressed his cautious position, saying, “I thought a lot about whether to express this character like a drama or documentary.”
“When I look at movies and dramas that used the image of autism, I think those characters have stereotyped autism. For example, they make it seems like they only need help, there were countless inconvenient things. A lot of those things were highlighted,” he analyzed.
After much consideration, Professor Kim Byung-gun put his heart and soul into showing different aspects of autism spectrum disorder, unlike the autism spectrum characteristics commonly expressed in previous works.
Professor Kim Byung-gun said, “Change of social perspective is more important than institutional support (for autism spectrum disorder).” He stressed, “We have to approach each other step by step while taking into consideration the differences of the other person, and in order for this to be possible, we must have an understanding of what ‘different’ is.”
Source: insight
