How XO, Kitty represents Korean culture better than To All The Boys? Explained

Netflix's XO, Kitty, is back for a sophomore season, and so is Anna Cachcart's Kitty, with new decisions about her love and school life.

The show is based on the To All the Boys I Have Loved Before movie trilogy, where Lara Jean Covey's baby sister Kitty decides to move to Seoul for a year and attend her mother's high school.

The Covey sisters are half-Korean and had a Korean mother who passed away when Kitty was a child. However, apart from Lara acknowledging her half-Korean identity, there was almost zero Korean representation in the movies, which is adequately made up in the spin-off show.

Not only is XO, Kitty set in the Korean Independent School of Seoul (KISS), Korea, but Kitty's love interest and close friends are Korean, which gives the character a chance to explore her Korean identity.

More on XO, Kitty's Korean representation in our story.

*Disclaimer- This article is based on the author's opinion. Reader's discretion is advised.*

XO, Kitty has Korean main characters unlike the film trilogy

While To All the Boys' Lara Jean did acknowledge her mother's cultural identity as a Korean woman, the movies did nothing for her character to understand her other cultural identity. Apart from the one Korea trip in the final installment of the movie, the trilogy does little exploration into the Korean culture, something which XO, Kitty does beautifully.

In addition to the setting of the show, which is Seoul itself, Kitty's love interests and friends are primarily Korean, which makes up for the Korean representation on the show. Lara's two crushes, Peter and Josh, are both white and so are the other characters she interacts with, which nullifies the Korean representation in the movies.

XO, Kitty improves on this Korean representation by including Korean actors as its main cast. Korean actor Choi Min-young plays Kitty's love interest, Dae-heon "Dae" Kim, on the show, who also goes to her school. In addition, Korean actors Sang Heon Lee and Gia Kim are also the primary characters with whom Kitty interacts on the show.

In an interview with Refinery29 Australia, Cathcart addressed Kitty's new world in her series, which represents her Korean identity as much as her American one:

"You definitely can still feel the magic of To All The Boys in the spirit of Kitty that she had in the movies. But I think it's exciting because we get to see a new world within the universe that we know,"

XO, Kitty makes it possible for her protagonist to explore her Korean identity

While Lara does not get any active chance to explore her Korean identity because the movies primarily focus on her love story with Peter, XO, Kitty does not only have romantic love at its center. In moving to Korea, Kitty also learns about family love, especially about her mother and Korean culture, which is a part of her identity.

While speaking to Refinery29 Australia, Cathcart touches on this theme:

"It's not just romantic love. It's family love as well, and it's its love for your identity and your background and your roots...She's learning more about Korean culture overall with multiple people in different ways, which I think is really cool to see on screen — and really special for Kitty."

Since the show has gained a lot of Korean audiences, it has opened doors for them to witness queer love, which is something that is often not shown in Korean dramas.

Anthony Keyvan's Q is Kitty's gay roommate, and the show explores queer sexuality through his character, which is not a common theme for Korean audiences. Cathcart discussed this:

"I think in Korean culture as well, and in K-Drama culture, it's [queer love] not a common storyline that you see...We were talking to our classmates who grew up in Korea, and they were saying that's just not a thing [not just on] TV, but you just don't even talk about it in day-to-day life."

While the show is a spin-off to To All the Boys, it does a good job crediting its protagonist's half-Korean representation