Media Texts
Snowpiercer is a film that is set in a dystopic future, but explores many contemporary issues facing South Korean society. List one issue that the film explores.
Environmental change, class/status, neocolonialism, neoliberalism, inequality, etc.
What is semiotics?
The study of signs and their meanings.
What is/are Koryo Kayo?
Anonymous popular, vernacular songs during the Koryo Dynasty (918-1392 CE). Written down in the Choson dynasty (1392-1910) and found in the Collected Works of Koryo Songs.
Misaeng follows the life of Jang Geu-rae as he enters the workplace with nothing but the equivalent of a high school equivalency exam on his resume. List two of the problems Geu-rae faced as depicted in the first episode.
Ailing single mother, lack of specs = temporary jobs; coworker bullying based on his special recommendation, lack of skills (other languages, how to copy), etc.
Identify which of our authors wrote the following quotation: “When race and ethnicity become commodified as resources for pleasure, the culture of specific groups, as well as the bodies of individuals, can be seen as constituting an alternative playground where members of dominating races, genders, sexual practices affirm their power-over in intimate relations with the Other”
*Assertion of power and prestige
*Essentialism
*Cultural appropriation
*Dehistoricization
If you had to choose one category, which category of the cinema does Sŏp’yŏnje fit more neatly into: national cinema or global cinema?
You can make a good case for either (or both):
__________________ can be summed up as three processes: 1) the ever-wider diffusion of symbols and products, including ideas; 2) a growing repertoire of shared knowledge and knowhow that results from social relations and activities that span the globe; 3) an increasing volume of shared norms and principles that concerns how the world should work.
a) Reterritorialization
b) Globalization
c) Liveness
d) Orientalism
Globalization - see Isar, 220
Sŏp’yŏnje depicts the life of p’ansori singers over several periods of South Korean history beginning with the colonial period. What kinds of themes did these p’ansori performances often focus on?
Based on Confucian thought including themes of filial piety and loyalty. Often focusing on the relationship between father and daughter.
Based on your reading of Mina, what does a typical day look like for South Korean youths?
Education system: college entrance exam, 14 hours/day at school, cram school, little sleep, lack of adult supervision, etc.
In her article, Youna Kim argues that there are 5 reasons why K-pop has become popular in the global internet age. List 4 of those 5 arguments:
CL’s MV “Lifted,” touts a reggae-inspired vibe and the Korean rapper references drugs and liquor liberally while roaming around New York City. Which of Richard Rogers’ 4 categories of cultural appropriation do you think best describes CL’s MV and why? Hint: There are multiple correct answers to this question, but you must build your case for your answer.
Answer:
Richard Roger’s 4 categories: exchange, dominance, exploitation, or transculturation.
1. Cultural exchange: the reciprocal exchange of symbols, artifacts, rituals, genres, and/or technologies between cultures with roughly equal levels of power.
2. Cultural dominance: the use of elements of a dominant culture by members of a subordinated culture in a context in which the dominant culture has been imposed onto the subordinated culture, including appropriations that enact resistance.
3. Cultural exploitation: the appropriation of elements of a subordinated culture by a dominant culture without substantive reciprocity, permission, and/or compensation.
4. Transculturation: cultural elements created from and/or by multiple cultures, such that identification of a single originating culture is problematic, for example, multiple cultural appropriations structured in the dynamics of globalization and transnational capitalism creating hybrid forms.
Cultural commodification is a concept that explains a process by which aspects of a particular culture are packaged and availed to be bought and sold in the market. List one example of cultural commodification.
Various
Describe the difference between New Tendency literature and what Professor Kim and other scholars consider New, New Tendency literature?
New Tendency literature is from the 1920s: Extremely emotional, descriptions of poverty, catastrophe, etc. set on by historical condition of living under Japanese colonial rule and patriarchy. Anger
New, New Tendency Literature of the 21st century: Violence, murder, blood and gore, madness, etc. Young Korean female authors
What does the term "Spec generation" mean and who does it describe?
Spec=specifications, neoliberalism and the idea of human capital
People born in the 80s, went to college in the mid-2000s.
According to Lie in his article, “How did we get here,” the rise of popular music in South Korea was inextricably linked to new technologies and social settings. List three technologies and/or social settings.
Technology: phonograph, Walkman, radio, mp3 player (technology expanded access to music for non-elites), new formats (LPs to cassettes, CDs to digital files)
Social Settings: urban phenomenon (cafes, dance halls, concert venues)
Using semiotics identify one signifier and what it signifies (one sigh) from BTS’s MV N.O. Remember a sign is the signifier (physical object) +signified (idea or concept of a thing).
Kinds of signifiers: Icons, symbols, indices
Symbols: Desks and orientation of the room (signified = classroom setting), riot gear/military outfits (signified = oppression)
Iconic/index: teacher pointing at students with tools (signified=strict discipline)
What is glocalization?
Who initiated the policy of Segyehwa?
Segyehwa = policy of globalization promoted by Kim Young-sam in the 90s in which he thought investments in culture could be used to make South Korea an economic power along with export-oriented development. Investments in entertainment and education. Development of areas in Seoul.
According to Um, the process of appropriation of African American hip-hop and rap into a Korean popular musical form has come about through multiple selective strategies of adoption and adaptation with respect to the associated cultural, musical and linguistic components of the genre. List three of these adoptions/adaptations as described by Um.
Rap dance, themes of education and stress, introducing elements of Korean music, mixing Korean and English lyrics, “clean version” of clothing = semi fitting clothing, brand images, underground =use of digital spaces/ internet communities and conceptions of marginality.
According to Robin Zheng, racial fetishes are problematic even if they are not caused by racial stereotypes (however unlikely that may be), for at least two reasons. List one of those reasons.
Depersonalize and otherize their targets, subjecting them to disproportionate psychological burdens of doubt, suspicions, and insecurity on account of their race.
Regardless of origin, racial fetishes in a racially stratified society are still interpreted and explained by racial stereotypic social meanings.
According to Suk-Young Kim, how does the MV “Twinkle” by TaeTiSeo simulates liveness and why?
Liveness: “What makes an event live is either a real-time connection or a shared sense of immediacy and authenticity stemming from participants who congregate either online or offline. More than a media platform or the simple mingling of performers and spectators, what matters for liveness is not ontology but perception…. Not just about being physically present at the moment when the event unfolds; it’s about the phenomenological experience, which tends to differ depending on the degree of attention paid rather than on the presence of live corporeal bodies” (16).
Answer: K (Kaleidoscopic) pop: flamboyant mixing of classical and kitschy, foreign and local elements that travel across borders. This phenomenon that combines opposites gives the “recorded” music of MVs a semblance of a “live” performance (97).
Twinkle: Copy the hallmarks of revue-style performances of 1920s; pop-diva like; appropriation of Broadway, Hollywood (in particular), Camden Town, Harajuku to simulate liveness.
Why?: Artistic authenticity for the genre. Significance of invoking various performing-arts traditions, such as revues, Broadway-style musicals, and Hollywood musicals to make K-pop more approachable for foreign audiences.
Define cultural reterritorialization
Reterritorialization is the reconstructing of a place, culture that has gone through deterritorialization. Media forces this process
Reterritorialization: embraces two coactive phenomena, 1) the foundations of cultural territory (i.e. ways of life, artefacts, symbols and contexts) are ‘all open to new interpretations and understandings’. 2), reterritorialization also implies that culture ‘is constantly reconstituted through social interaction, sometimes by creative uses of personal communication, technology and the mass media’. The process of cultural reterritorialization, ‘recasts cultural forms as malleable resources that can be inscribed with new meanings relating to the particular local contexts within which such products are appropriated’. (Um, 53)
Example: Drunken Tiger, second album incorporating the national flag of Korea on the internal design of the CD, signifying repatriation to their home country, beginning their own process of cultural reterritorialization (Um, 57).
According to Choi and Maliangkay, the rise of K-pop in the Global South brings to light questions of global cultural geometry and hegemony of the Big Three league – an exclusive circle governing the global flow of cultural products. Who are identified as the Big Three in the article? (Hint: Think nations and regions).
Answer: US (commercial movies, TV shows, popular music, and character industry), Western Europe (in fashion/design/ luxury goods, literary criticism/products, arts and artistic films), and Japan (starting in the 1980s, the pre/teenage market with manga, anime, and video games) (11)
“Audiences across Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America have long lost patience with US products that are saturated with violence, drugs, and obscenity…. Nations in shortage of locally produced programs of decent quality began turning to the Korean option, known for ideological and ethical soundness on top of dexterity in whipping up a cocktail for the best ingredients/formats from America, Europe, and Japan.
In his article on “Hallyu vs Hallyu-hwa,” Choi argues that it would be a mistake to limit the term Hallyu or the “Korean Wave” to a “cultural” matter in the narrowest sense because…
“The plastic and networked nature of Hallyu defies any certitude regarding the border between culture in general and the economy or politics, let alone the one between popular cultures and daily routine” (32).
Transnational cultural phenomenon and also national-institutional campaign (policy initiative)
According to Suk-Young Kim, what defines “Korean Liveness”?
The malleable interchangeability of positions between various agents of K-pop and the communal sensibility forged in the process are what gives an inimitable coloration to K-pop as a cultural scene—and characterizes the Korean variation of the notion of liveness…the live spirit that brings participant and observer, producer, and consumer into a dynamic dance would very much resonate with what Koreans refer to as “heung” (17)
Heung: shared understanding among native speakers of Korean that heung refers to the innate energy in every human being that is reserved for the spontaneous joy of playing that shines through despite counterforces….communal rapport despite difficulties and hardship. Illustrates emotional registers related to fun and excitement. Connected to Korean folk music traditions, shoulder dance. Success of K-pop culture is Korea’s ability to freely express its heung (17-18).