Fox Spirit Matchmaker is Bad, But Is It “Grooming” Bad?

*TW: this post contains discussions relating to abuse/grooming. 

If you stumble upon this post by accident, I promise, I don’t write about serious subjects like this often. In fact, I prefer to take the easy route most of the time and just have a few laughs with dramas.

Anyway, let’s get this over with.

It is really no question that at this point in our digital age, online communities love to label things. Heck, we as humans love to categorize and label things. From book websites to film blogs, to, well, drama and TV show discussions, we love to go back and condemn the things we used to enjoy and to shout about how problematic they are.

Most of the time, it is a good thing to recognize flaws in these products and recognize how they are the products of their time. Most other times, this obsession with labelling things makes it seem like these comments have no idea what the terms they use mean.

For the sake of this discussion, I will use the most recent example in C-dramaland: Fox Spirit Matchmaker (2024) is being called left and right a “grooming” and “pedo” drama.

Where that theory first originated, I suppose we will never know.

Most of the comments/reviews that declare this drama glorifies grooming usually do not provide any evidence from the drama beyond the detail that an immortal female lead brings under her roof a boy who later on falls in love with her. And these conclusions about “grooming” are drawn under the assumption that this female lead Tushan Honghong adopts the boy as her son.

So, what else does that make her? A pedo. A creep. Illegal. So on and so on. So many trendy labels to choose from to hop on the bandwagon and hopefully make your own opinion into a trend too.

Now, let me make it clear here that I do not defend this drama: it is one absolutely dull and disappointing thing I have seen recently. But bored as I was while watching the first few episodes, I do not remember Fox Queen Tushan Honghong officially adopting this boy as her child. At most, she begrudgingly lets him stay at her village for his safety and because his identity contains secrets that she wants to keep under wrap.

Before the boy comes of age — aka turning into the male lead — we also do not see that much interaction between him and Tushan Honghong, since interactions of this kind would require nuanced acting and we all know that’s too much to ask from Yang Mi.

The transformation from the boy to the man happens in one episode and the most “interaction” we see in between is a scene here and there with them practising magic together. At no point does this boy act like Tushan Honghong is his mother. It could be that Honghong takes care of him and guides him like a parent would, it could be that she lets him run free and only whacks him when he puts his toes somewhere he shouldn’t. Given Honghong’s personality, I’d go with the latter.

According to the definition of “grooming”, where, then, is the proof of “grooming” in this relationship?

Now we get to it. Did any of those critics bother to look up the real definition of “grooming” before they slapped this label on the drama? Not to mention that it’s one thing to research for yourself, but another to research in order to present your work to an audience. And the latter requires even more accountability, no matter if that audience is your college professor or just the 20+ people who subscribe to your stuff online.

So, the definition: sexual grooming is defined as a deceptive process used by an intentional abuser to develop trust, isolate, and gain physical contact with a minor (Smith, 2). To put it mildly.

If any of those things happen in Fox Spirit Matchmaker, let me know.

The closest thing to this definition I can think of right now is Chongzi. And it happens in Chongzi not because the writers purposefully wanted to glorify a “pedo” relationship, but because they had no idea what they were doing and they hoped we would be too swept up in the “romance” to notice.

If, in Fox Spirit, Honghong raises this boy with the intention of preparing him for a sacrifice later on to save her kingdom or whatever, then yes, you may go ahead and put a label on that. It is definitely a kind of grooming. For now, I have not seen it yet.

And from the criticism of Fox Spirit, some comments lead us to Return of the Condor Heroes, where an older female lead also takes on a younger boy as her student and later falls in love with him.

I didn’t expect Condor Heroes to be spared these labels at all. In fact, it’s probably only a matter of time before all of the romances in Louis Cha’s works are cancelled by netizens. It’s traditional that everything gets cancelled at least once nowadays.

Xiaolongnu, even though older than Yang Guo, is painfully undereducated and naive. She accepts Yang Guo as her student and teaches him martial arts. Where does “grooming” or “pedo” happen in here? I have no idea. Or do people believe that an age gap directly equals grooming? In that case, does Bai Qian groom Yehua? Does Donghua groom Fengjiu? Does Jiuchen groom Lingxi? He first met her when she was a swaddled baby, remember? Then he takes her under his care while she is mentally underdeveloped and completely clueless about her own identity; he even intends to let her freeze to death once too.

Does Arwen groom Aragorn? Does Victor Krum groom Hermione?

If we’re going to go by the vaguely implied fact that the Fox Queen takes in a boy disciple then… does that mean Zhousheng Chen grooms Shiyi (One and Only)?

One opinion even goes so far as to say that Stockholm Syndrome is present in Fox Spirit Matchmaker.

I will not attempt to make this article more tedious than it already is by listing all the symptoms of Stockholm Syndrome. But you get the point: just because a story contains a captor, a captive, and love does not mean there is Stockholm Syndrome. Not to mention that in Fox Spirit case, the boy is not even held captive. He is kept inside the Fox Village, but he clearly has a social life and is allowed to have opinions and beliefs.

Does this mean that I am on board with this “romantic” relationship Fox Spirit Matchmaker is trying to sell me? Absolutely not. As stated in my previous post about this drama, these two feel like siblings, the female lead is too wise while the guy is green, and Gong Jun may well generate more chemistry with a wooden bench. But I will not go so far as to put on them a label that I am not qualified to give.

The most I can say about this problematic romance is just that: it is problematic. And this is the result of many things: a poor script, lack of creativity, dull acting, etc.

And perhaps we can say this too: this kind of setup can enable grooming and pedophilia. Just like in Condor Heroes, there’s that vibe. It’s never a good thing to introduce a romance where one participant starts out as a child and the other as an adult.

If it were up to me, I would say stop making these casting choices with a medium that people consume like fast food and so accessible to kids and teens.

Likewise, also be considerate in your judgements of these products.

After a while, I have come to the conclusion that these terms that keep getting thrown around are either knee-jerk reactions or the result of a lack of research, which is fine: you are entitled to your reactions and not everyone has the time for research. And of course, drama/movie reviews are not academic papers. If a drama gives you problematic “vibes”, by all means, make it known. But it would be more responsible not to push forth those knee-jerk reactions as objective opinions without the sources to back them up.

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For further reading:

Smith, Taylor C. “They Should Know Better”

Johnson, Afrooz. “Grooming and Child Sexual Abuse in Organizational Settings”

Winters, Georgia. “I knew it All Along”. 

Want to know more about Stockholm Syndrome but have no time for research? This video explains the basics fairly well.

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