South Korean Golden-Age Comedy Film: Industry, Genre, and Popular Culture (1953 -1970)
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SOUTH KOREAN GOLDEN-AGE COMEDY FILM: INDUSTRY, GENRE, AND POPULAR CULTURE (1953 -1970) BY CHUNG-KANG KIM DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in East Asian Languages and Cultures in the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2010 Urbana, Illinois Doctoral Committee: Professor Nancy Abelmann, Chair Associate Professor Ramona Curry Professor Ronald Toby Assistant Professor Theodore Hughes, Columbia University Assistant Professor Jinsoo An, Hong-ik University ABSTRACT This dissertation, “South Korean Golden-Age Comedy Film: Industry, Genre, and Popular Culture (1953 -1970),” examines the socio-cultural and political aspects of comedy films made in South Korea in the 1950s and 1960s, the era in which the South Korean nation mobilized in the name of “development” and “progress.” Comedy film enjoyed particular growth and popularity during the post-war reconstruction movement (late 1950s) when the film industry began to take shape; the democratic social atmosphere in the aftermath of the April Revolution (1960) enveloped the whole society; and the government-centered film industry waned with the dawn of Yushin, President Park Chung Hee’s drastic measures to control the society (1971). While operating at a far remove from the depressing images of post-War devastation and the propaganda images of the South Korean totalitarian regime, comedy film was both incredibly popular, and can be appreciated as a politically maneuvered genre. I trace the socio-political and industry origins of the production of the comedy film genre, and examine its cultural contexts and effects through the Syngman Rhee regime (1948-1960) to the April Revolution, and into the pre-Yushin Park Chung Hee era (1961-1970). I argue that structural changes in the South Korean film industry, especially its highly gendered and state-orchestrated consolidation, were critical to the image production, film language, and frame and narrative structures of comedy films. On the other hand, the style of comedy film -- distinguished by its remarkable generic hybridity and considerable transnational circulation -- appealed to the Korean audience. The comedies combine colonial popular performance (e.g., akkŭk, a Japanese-influenced, Korean style vaudeville), the visual techniques and mise-en-scène of Classical Hollywood film, and the star-power of comedians. Transnational ii and cross-cultural fantasy, I argue that, is disjunctively combined with didactic/state-centered descriptions of family and gender, and thus, comedy films both satisfied and disciplined the industrial, national, and popular needs of immediate post-colonial South Korean society as it struggled to cultivate a modern developed nation. iii To Woo-jeung, Ju-hyup, Sa-rang and Suah iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation could not have been completed without the support of countless people. My advisor, Prof. Nancy Abelmann, was an incredible teacher and role-model as both a scholar and a mother of three kids. I feel the limits of language in expressing my gratitude to her. Thinking back to my early days of graduate school, when I was not particularly passionate about anything in life, I remember how my love of Korean film started in her film course and has grown under her warm love and support. Her enduring guidance, patience, and generosity are the main reasons why I have this dissertation in hand. My special thanks also goes to Prof. Ramona Curry who let me embark on film studies, nurtured me to become a film specialist, and shared the joys of comedy films from the beginning stages of my graduate studies to their end. I was also lucky to work closely with Prof. Theodore Hughes before he left for Columbia University. I am greatly indebted to his generosity and keen comments on my project. Professor Jinsoo An is another generous scholar who guided my long journey through Korean film studies. I also learned a lot from Prof. Ronald Toby’s teaching of visual theory. Prof. Jahyun Kim Haboush was a warm ground to rest on for the first two years of my graduate study at Illinois, before she also left for Columbia University. Finally, I want to express my gratitude to the Japanese Studies professors, David Goodman, Azuko Ueda, and Kevin Doak, who all helped me to expand the horizons of my study. Through Prof. Nancy Abelmann’s advisee group and the Korea Workshop, I could meet many Koreanists who nurtured me in many ways. There are also friends in Illinois who have nurtured and sustained me for many years. Hyunhee An, Hyongju Hur, Eugene Chung, Chungjoo v Lee, Sejong Moon, Sangsook Lee-Chung, Jin-kyong Park—I thank all of them for their friendship and love when I was in need. I am especially indebted to Chris Posadny and his reading of numerous manuscripts of this dissertation. My new colleagues and friends at the University of Colorado, Boulder encouraged me greatly as I put the final touches to this dissertation. I also thank John Cho for his excellent final editorial assistance. I also want to express my gratitude to the people in Korea. Most of all, Prof. Kie-chung Pang’s unconditional love for me from my freshmen year at Yonsei University to his untimely death in 2008, a month before my dissertation defense, has been the enormous spiritual ground of my study in the United States. I am also indebted to the Korean Popular Culture Study Group during my three-year research period in Korea. I want to express my special thanks to the leading members of this group, Yi Young-mi, Yi Sun-jin, Yi Ho-gǒl, and Kang Ok-hǔi. Watching films and reading and writing books together was the greatest joy of my research years. I also thank the film director, Yi Hyǒng-p’yo, for showing such warm interest in my research ever since I interviewed him in 2006. I also thank many people at the Korean Film Archive. Finally and foremost, my family and extended family were my greatest source of strength. My mother, Young-sook Sung, and my mother-in-law, Sook-ja Lee, often babysat for me. Without their help, I might have not continued to write this dissertation. I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks to my husband, Woo-jeung Dang, and my kids, Ju-hyup, Sa-rang and Suah, who have had to endure many days when I was not with them, and who have waited for the completion of this dissertation with the greatest patience. I dedicate this work to them. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………………………….1 Part I: THE HISTORY CHAPTER ONE: From Destruction to Construction: Golden-Age South Korean Cinema…………………………………………………………………………………………..13 The Making of an Anti-communistic Democratic Nation……………………………….....15 National Reconstruction of Cinema: Colonial Origins and Anti-colonial Discourse………26 Rescuing Cinema from Post-War Destruction……………………………………………...35 The Beginning of the Golden-Age…………………………………………….……….......41 PART II: THE 1950’S AND COMEDY FILM CHAPTER TWO: The Politics of Comedy Film Production……………..……………….46 Il-sa-il-chak, the Defect of National Culture………………………………...….………...47 The “Low-Quality” Problem…………………………………………………...………….50 The Need for Industrialization and Modernization…………………………………...…...56 From Akkŭk Industry to “Genre” Cinema……………..………………………………60 Cinema as National Asset………………………………...……...……...………………...68 The Politics of “Pure Entertainment” in an Anti-communistic Authoritarian Regime……74 CHAPTER THREE: The Forgotten Genre: The Aesthetics of Anarchistic Comey……....85 Korean “Cinema of Attraction”: Popular Consumption of Anarchistic Comedy………….87 Modernity of Anarchistic Comedy Film..…………………………………………..….…..92 The Punctuating Pleasure of Akkǔk….……………………….…………………………..98 The Visual Pleasure of Hollywood Cinema.………………….……………………….….104 Desiring Hollywood……………….……………...……………………………………....108 Comic Realism: Re-reading The Double Arc of Youth…………………….……...….…...118 PART III: THE 1960’S AND COMEDY FILM CHAPTER FOUR: The Euphoria of Democracy, Modernity as Ours….…….…….……126 The April Revolution and the Democratizing Movement……………….....……….…….131 Screening Resistance? “Realistic” Style in Question…………………………………….139 The Film Industry’s Free Market System.………………………………………...……...143 Technology Wars……………………………..……………………….………………..…148 Talking and Visualizing South Korean Modernity.…………………………………..…...154 CHAPTER FIVE: The Sign of Demise: Late 1960’s “Gender Comedy Films”.…………..169 The Demise of the Golden-Age and Emergence of B films………...……………...…..172 How Were B Films Made?.…………….………………….………….………….…...…178 The Rise of Gender Comedy.………………………………………………….……..184 Suturing Gender…………………………………………………………………………..191 vii Class Troubles……………...……………………………………………………………..195 The Strong Shield: Didactism and Nation in Gender Comedy…………..…….…………201 CONCLUSION: Why Do We Still Watch Comedy Films?……………………………….208 BIBLIOGRAPHY……………………………………………………………………………..214 viii INTRODUCTION This dissertation’s point of departure was my intellectual curiosity about a series of sensational film titles—Male Maid (Namja singmo, 1967), Male Hostess (Namja kisaeng, 1968) and Male Hairdresser (Namja miyongsa, 1968) —produced in the late 1960s in South Korea. When I first visited the Korean Film Archive in the summer of 2002 for pre-dissertation research, —in stark contrat to today’s developed facilities, I found only a few copies of old Korean film videotapes that were available to the public, and I only knew about this series of films only by title. Luckily enough, I found some videotapes of these films that an old Korean movie fan donated for film studies, and thus, I had the opportunity to watch over one hundred old Korean films. When I first watched these films that were coarsely recorded from regional television programs, I could not but be disappointed by their filmmaking quality. At the same time, however, somehow these unique films fascinated me. I laughed because of the strange and funny performance of old comedians as well as the strange meeting of didactism and comedic episodes. Then, I came to learn that these titles were part of a larger corpus of films that I call “gender comedy,“ which first appeared on the South Korean film scene in the mid-1960s, including titles such as I Prefer Being A Woman (Yǒjaga tǒ cho’a, 1965) and Bachelor Kimch’i (Ch’onggak kimch’i, 1966).