Over in the IHT, James Brooke discusses how Kim Jong-il has become America’s new “bad guy”:
In real life, American intelligence analysts are scrutinizing satellite photos of North Korea’s Yongbyon nuclear center, trying to determine if North Korea is making bomb fuel from a plutonium-based reactor.
But American video game players don’t have to sit on their hands. Manning the controls of a new LucasArts video game, players can blast away at an ominous gray building marked in large red Korean script: “Yongbyon Nuclear Material Reprocessing.”
At movie theaters, Vin Diesel in “The Pacifier” plays a U.S. Navy Seal who baby-sits five wild suburban kids who come under attack from a mystery couple next door - treacherous North Korean military agents.
In “Dragon Squad,” a ruthless North Korean hit squad attacks an Interpol team. In “Tides of War,” a North Korean submarine stalks a U.S. Navy submarine trying to tap an underwater cable from the North.
After Nazis, Japanese, Soviets and Colombian drug dealers, North Koreans are joining Islamic fundamentalists as Hollywood villains.
While the Bush administration says it does not want to attack North Korea, psychologists say that by denouncing North Korea’s leader as “evil,” President George W. Bush gave the green light to a wide-ranging demonization.
Here’s some quotes for you to ponder:
But for South Koreans, the strongest memory seems to be that of the American president calling Kim Jong Il a “tyrant” on world television.
“The Bush administration needs an enemy,” said Paik Hak Soon, director of the Sejong Institute’s Center for North Korean Studies. “It needs a bad guy for its policy of combating terrorism and weapons of mass destruction.
“What is happening in the popular culture in America, the movies, the cartoons, the jokes, could lead to more demonization of the North Korean leadership and North Korean system.”
This is my favorite:
“Kim Jong Il has replaced Saddam Hussein as the fall guy, the bad guy, the despicable guy,” said Yim Yong Soon, an international relations professor at Sungkyunkwan University. “It frightens me. If Kim Jong Il is a bad guy, and North Korea has no rationale to exist, what might happen in the future?”
Of course, when it comes to “demonization,” nobody does it quite as well as the North Koreans:
North Korea’s Korea Central TV, running a story on Kim Jong-suk Nursery School in Moranbong District, Pyongyang, showed images Wednesday of children playing a game called “Beat the American Bastard.”
See also the winners Pyongyang TV dropped on Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (Chosun Ilbo, BBC). I’m still waiting for them to refer to her by a racial slur.
9 Comments
Speaking of demonization of the migooks, have you seen this story?: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asi.....599109.stm
“In what media watchers are calling a first for North Korea, state radio in Pyongyang has turned to the medium of the comic sketch to mock two of the leading figures in the US administration.”
It made me think someone in Pyongyang had just read “Animal Farm,” and a little ironic too coming from that bunch…or maybe they’ve just discovered irony as well, which puts them well ahead of S. Korea
I’m assuming it was our own Marmot who turned the phrase “gems of totalitarian wit” that resulted in the Chosun getting big-ups from the Beeb. Well done sir - you’ve done your part for ??œ???, now ask for a raise!
These kids are just like Iraqi kids. One minute they’re attacking effigies of Uncle Sam, the next they’re vandalizing portraits of Saddam, the next they’re setting IED’s.
Kids are fickle; Korean kids just take a little longer to grow out of their fickleness.
?€œKim Jong Il has replaced Saddam Hussein as the fall guy, the bad guy, the despicable guy,?€? said Yim Yong Soon, an international relations professor at Sungkyunkwan University. ?€œIt frightens me. If Kim Jong Il is a bad guy, and North Korea has no rationale to exist, what might happen in the future??€? Wow, this guy is really clueless. I would like to think that he said something more meaningful and intellegent. I did like the one quote: “David Letterman joked one night that Kim Jong Il had announced that he planned to pass political power to his son, ‘Mentally Ill.’” That is classic.
?€œThe Roh administration needs an enemy,?€? said Joe Blow, director of the USA Institute Center for South Korean Studies. ?€œIt needs a bad guy for its policy of whipping up popular hysteria in order to retain its electoral grip on office”.
?€œWhat is happening in the popular culture in ROK, the movies, the cartoons, the jokes, could lead to more demonization of the Japanese leadership and system.?€?
Ok, a little creative transposition of terms and selective editing here. Now somebody give my phoney quote some substance by citing current ROK movies, cartoons, jokes that support it.
Even better, there’s got to be some new video games that are hits with ROK gamer fanatics. How about one that has brave ROK machine gunners shooting down wave after wave of fanatical Japanese Marines trying to storm ashore on Dokdo?
Paul, you already know about that Tokto game, but shock value from the papers notwithstanding, I don’t think it is the runaway hit you suggest it might be.
For the most part, despite the noise about Tokto (which you would know was not a universal chorus if you were here and asking people about it, not just talking with those here who sought to tell you their opinion), runs contrary to the general trend in mainstream media, where Japanese movies and Japanese TV series are being shown with greater and greater frequency. ROK views of Japanese people (not of Koizumi) in “dramatic” pop culture, at least, are more and more “normal.”
One of the biggest reasons, I believe, behind certain groups’ opposition to the opening of Japanese pop culture in Korea was that it would be harder and harder to demonize Japan as a whole. The emotional reaction to Tokto notwitstanding (which many Westerners in Korea cannot understand because they never get emotional about any issue), Koreans have a much more “normal” view of Japan (even a postive one) as a people than before.
Yes, I always want to be careful to specify that I am a non-resident non-visitor who is just interested deeply in the place in a historical way. That way my opinions can always be placed in perspective by a critical reader.
What is scary (to me) is how often something I have sensed about the peninsula is confirmed here at the time or even much later, by someone like you with first hand experience as a visitor, or expat resident, or personal ties to ROK (ethnic background or marriage). So I give myself credit for some discernment in these matters, hopefully no more than I deserve though.
Paul, I think you often do seem to have a good sense of the place. I wasn’t trying to disparage you in any way for talking about Korea without being here. Sorry if it came across that way.
What I meant was that if you talk to average people on the ground about a lot of this, you often get a VERY different impression than if you read some of the press, the blogs, and a few of the Korean-language websites.
I find myself getting a huge disparity when I go up and randomly choose someone to talk about some issue compared to when someone comes up to me wanting to share their opinion (the former is usually less emotional, better thought-out, and/or neutral or undecided, while the latter is more agenda-oriented, emotional, and often racist and/or nationalistic).
But you being over there and not over here, you can’t always get the benefit of that. There’s a lot less anti-American and anti-Japanese sentiment than you might think. There’s also a lot more distrust than you might think. Just the other day, a young man (education major at a major school) was telling me how he supported his sociology (?) professor’s idea that Korea, Japan, Mongolia, and Taiwan create a ??°????? (a federated country of sorts) to counter Chinese influence. In my classes where the students are mostly Korean, I get an overwhelmingly negative response about Koizumi but from the same people an overwhelmingly positive response about Japan. This kind of nuance can’t always be picked up in an article about people cutting their fingers off.
Is it the terrorist training camp?