Images of North Korea in South Korean Pop Culture
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Volume 7 | Issue 10 | Number 2 | Article ID 3081 | Mar 04, 2009 The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus The Axis of Vaudeville: Images of North Korea in South Korean Pop Culture Stephen Epstein The Axis of Vaudeville: Images of Korean characters were almost inevitably North Korea in South Korean presented as spies or terrorists—cardboard Pop Culture caricatures of evil incarnate, or, at best, brainwashed automatons, victims of the state. Stephen Epstein Recent years have added, if not finely nuanced representations, at least a broader array of Summary hues to the palette from which depictions of the North are drawn. In the discussion I highlight This paper examines how South Korean significant but less noted developments. understanding of what it means to be—or to have been—a citizen of the DPRK has evolved I concentrate on an important but little noticed during the last decade. How does South Korean trend in the South's imagining of North Korea popular culture reflect that evolution and, in since the turn of the millennium. Dealing with turn, shape ongoing transformations in that the DPRK is of course serious business, and its understanding? These questions havenuclear program and chronic food shortages significant policy implications and take on a dominate media images of the country outside heightened salience given the recentof the Korean peninsula. In the last decade, deterioration in relations that has taken place however, South Korean cultural productions under the Lee Myung Bak administration: is the have often treated the North in modes that South Korean imagination being enlarged to draw on comedy, irony or farce in preference to make room for an inclusive but heterogeneous more straightforward, solemn readings. This identity that accepts both parts of the divided partially reflects a broader post-modern turn in nation? Or, conversely, is a hardening of mental Korean popular culture, but one might boundaries inscribing cultural/social difference hypothesize that the ironic mode has also in tandem with the previous decade’s (anything become a strategy for dealing with a growing but linear) progress in political/economic sense of heterogeneity on the Korean rapprochement? In examining these questions, peninsula. If North Korea is no longer viewed I sample key discursive sites where the South as an evil portion of the South Korean Self, but Korean imaginary expresses itself, including rather simply another country (albeit with a music, advertising, television comedyspecial relationship to South Korea), the South programs, film and literature. Korean imaginary becomes freer to treat these differences as humorous rather than Certainly, as widely noted, policies ofthreatening. engagement have led to noteworthy changes in the South's images of North Korea. Prior to Kim Introduction Dae Jung's presidency, South Korean popular representations of the North were one-Just over ten years ago, in 1998, Roy Richard dimensional, depicting it generally as aGrinker published his important bookKorea demonized object of fear or contempt. North and its Futures: Unification and the Unfinished 1 7 | 10 | 2 APJ | JF War. Grinker, bringing to bear keenvisited each other’s country for official and anthropological insight and a fresh comparative semi-official purposes in the last decade, in perspective, argued persuasively that the South contrast to a figure of 2980 for the entire Korean nation exhibited a collective desire to 1989-1997 period.[3] Equally significantly, by maintain the dream of unification rather than 2007 the number of former North Koreans in achieve it. In his cogent analysis, South Korea the South, whether one prefers to term them has wished to continue imagining at’albukja (“refugees from the North”) or homogenous Korea without confrontingsaet’ŏmin (“new settlers”),[4] surpassed 10,000 dissonant evidence to the contrary about its and they now form a substantial minority alienated sibling to the North. For Grinker, the within the Republic of Korea (ROK). There has general ignorance of most South Koreans about thus been exponential growth in the number of the everyday life of the North Korean people South Koreans who either have firsthand has allowed North Korea and a unified Korea to experience of the North or have met those who function in the Southern imagination as (1998: grew up in the Democratic People’s Republic of xi) “blank slates open to fantasy andKorea (DPRK). projection”; moreover, in his analysis, a resultant discourse of homogeneityCritical as well to a change in the South Korean (tongjilsŏng) disrupted by national division has imagination of North Korea, but perhaps less functioned as a stumbling block to unification. immediately obvious, are important internal developments in South Korean self- Much has changed, however, since Grinker's understanding. Since the turn of the book appeared, and his thesis deserves re- millennium, such factors as the Korean Wave, examination ten years on. Increasing contact success in the 2002 World Cup, and global with the North and its people has rendered leadership in digital technologies have South Korea’s neighbor more familiar but dramatically reconfigured the South’s sense of attitudes towards it more complex.[1] Despite its place in the region and in the world; the souring of the North-South relationship that simultaneously, greater labor migration and a has occurred since Lee Myung Bak assumed phenomenal spike in international marriage are the presidency in February 2008, a decade of altering the ethnic makeup and consciousness the Sunshine Policy, the partial demystification of South Korea itself.[5] Despite any nostalgia of the North that accompanied it, and the one might find for a purer Korean “essence” momentous 2000 summit meeting between Kim untainted by globalization, the South enjoys an Jong Il and Kim Dae Jung have all contributed unassailable confidence in the superiority of its to popular Southern reassessments of North system to that of the North.[6] Popular Korea and North Korean identity. Amidst a perceptions of the dangers the North poses to trajectory of increased interaction, in 1998 South Korea have focused in recent years more Hyundai Asan began tours to scenic Mount on its potential to inject instability by suddenly Kǔmgang, extending them in late 2007 to imploding or igniting a conflict with the United Kaesŏng, just across the border from Seoul. States than as an ideological menace. Although shepherded away from direct contact with the citizens of Kaesŏng, for the first time In this paper I consider how South Korean South Koreans in large numbers observed a understanding of what it means to be—or to North Korean city at close quarters.[2] In have been—a citizen of the DPRK has evolved addition to the 1.9 million South Korean during the last decade. How does South Korean tourists who set foot on North Korean soil popular culture reflect that evolution and, in before the tours were suspended last year, turn, shape ongoing transformations in that roughly half a million North and South Koreans understanding? These questions have 2 7 | 10 | 2 APJ | JF significant policy implications in light ofimages of the country outside of the Korean Grinker’s earlier argument: is the South Korean peninsula. In the last decade, however, cultural imagination being enlarged to make room for productions from South Korea have often an inclusive but heterogeneous identity that treated the North in modes that draw on accepts both parts of the divided nation? Or, comedy, irony or farce in preference to more conversely, is a hardening of mental boundaries straightforward, solemn readings. This partially inscribing cultural/social difference in tandem reflects a broader postmodern turn in Korean with (anything but linear) progress inpopular culture,[7] but one might hypothesize political/economic rapprochement? Inthat the ironic mode has also become a strategy examining these questions, I offer a diverse for dealing with a growing sense of sampling from key discursive sites where the heterogeneity on the Korean peninsula. If South Korean imaginary expresses itself, North Korea is no longer viewed as an evil including music, advertising, television comedy portion of the South Korean Self, but rather as programs, film and literature. another country and one with a special relationship to South Korea, the South Korean Certainly, as widely noted (cf. Lee 2007: 58; imaginary becomes freer to treat these Kim 2007; Kim and Jang 2007), policies of differences as humorous rather than engagement have led to noteworthy changes in threatening. the South’s images of North Korea. Although always subject to partial contestation, prior to Dancing at the DMZ Kim Dae Jung’s presidency, South Korean popular representations of the North were one- Let me begin with an intriguing case study. In dimensional, depicting it generally as a2006, observers of the South Korean music demonized object of fear or contempt, with scene may have noted a surprising entry in K- North Korean characters almost inevitably pop’s continual search for fresh sensations: the spies or terrorists—cardboard caricatures of industry’s appetite for local equivalents of the evil incarnate, or, at best, brainwashedSpice Girls—which has currently achieved an automatons, victims of the state. Evidence of apotheosis in the Wonder Girls—led to the evolution became particularly apparent with debut of the Ǔmaktan (the “Wild Rocambole the blockbuster movies Shiri (1999) and Joint Band,” as at least one source has translated Security Area (JSA) (2000), which put a more it).[8] Composed of five women who had human face on North Korean adversaries. trained as musicians and dancers in the North These films have drawn a great deal of and who had arrived separately as refugees in attention (see, e.g., Kim 2004: 257-276; Kim the South, the Ǔmaktan came together in the 2007), and I do not dwell on them here. hope of finding success in the competitive local pop scene.