Being Choosey

As Raymond Williams warned the public, selection and interpretation play an instrumental role in concocting ideas, images, or even the essence of a culture. For one, those who directly engage themselves in the process of perpetuation will actively seek to disseminate a certain aspect of the society while neglecting other possible presentations. Dramas can serve as a medium to depict a filtered view of one’s society. After reading Kim Hyun Mee’s “Korean TV Dramas in Taiwan: With an Emphasis on the Localization Process,” the readers can see the multitudes of different ramifications depending on a particular portrayal of the Korean society. Hence, the topic of the drama becomes the nuance of that society. This finding should alarm the drama producers, writers, or people in the entertainment business because it suggests that dramas do not just provide entertainment; they can shape one’s view even if that view consists of erroneous ideas.

The media representation of a culture or an ethnic group has its historic roots. The events leading up to the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II is such event that was unjustly depicted by the media. During the years preceeding Pearl Harbor, Japanese in America, aliens and citizens alike, contributed to the growing threat to national security in the eyes of the white Americans. The Memorandum proposed by the Commanding General and the Final Report by the U.S. Department of War reflected the brewing suspicion against the Japanese, which finally escalated to the internment. In echoing the climate of American wartime mentality of the 1940s, a Hollywood film entitled Little Tokyo U.S.A. presented the Japanese in America as untrustworthy and disloyal. This film functioned as wartime propaganda. A close examination of the film and the two articles revealed that these three works collaborated to disseminate the images of the Japanese as “un-American” and calculative people with only one goal in mind – destroying the United States as a part of their pro-Japanese agenda. By highlighting the cultural incompatibilities between the Japanese and Americans, and the potentials for sabotaging the U.S., the filmmakers collaborated with the writers of the proposals for an expedited Japanese exclusion.

The discourse of Korean dramas in Taiwan, although not as abominable as the Japanese internment case, revealed that dramas have the ability to instill distorted representations of one’s culture. It emphasizes the point that dramas should not be relegated to mindless entertainment with no grave consequences. As a Korean Wave behemoth, Korean TV dramas not only provide entertainment, but they also represent Korean culture to foreigners. The association of the elements of the drama and Korean culture may be done inadvertently. However, that does not excuse these dramas as one of the key players in disseminating “Korean culture.” For instance, Kim argues that dramas such as The Widow (Mimang) made an impression on the Taiwanese minds that Korea was still an impoverished country under male dominance. The stigma on Korean culture perpetuated with the import of historical Korean dramas. Because the early wave of Korean dramas to Taiwan dealt with more conservative and male-centered themes, the Taiwanese developed a biased view of Korean society as a male-centered society with a constant political turmoil. In order to erode this stigma, dramas that depicted a drastically different Korean society needed to be introduced. Spark in 2000 did the trick. This drama elevated women as key players, and this shift in gender power play became an icon in representing contemporary Korean society. As Kim points out this “new image of gender has been interpreted as a sign that Korean society has transformed itself from a male-centric society to a new womencentric one” (P.192). Her argument solidifies the question of the role of TV dramas. These dramas do serve as a representation of “contemporary” Korean society whether or not it is true.

This comment might be a bit disconnected but after writing my post, I thought about the earlier newspaper article on the obsession of the Japanese women on Korean men. The images these women have of Korean men were all created vis-à-vis TV dramas. Do these dramas really have significant amount of influences that the makers should be consciously aware of the topics that they use to make them? Or can we just resort to the fact that the viewers are gullible and pay no attention to it?