Initial Thoughts and Conclusions

I had a very naive perception of Korean Popular Culture back in January. I initially thought that Korean Popular Culture was completely a product of modern capitalism and that it was all about offering Americanized products. I also thought that Korea's current popular culture had nothing to do with any former Korean history or cultural practice. Furthermore, I falsely equated Korean Popular Culture to only Korean popular music, or current kpop (BoA for example). Many of these thoughts were disproved though during our first few weeks when we studied the immensely popular historical dramas.

The historical dramas contained authentic Korean elements like the battle scenes from "The Admiral Yi Sun-Sin" and the Korean cuisine in "Jewel in the Palace". The dramas were not purely entertainment though; they commented and reflected on tensions with Japan and women's roles. John Storey's cultural theory book complicated things for me though in the middle of the semester. It seemed that Korean popular culture was simply recycling or quoting history to generate nostalgia which in turn would increase profits for the cultural industries. I began to think that maybe my original thoughts were correct and that Korean Popular culture is something forced on cunsumers and that it does not reflect the acutal sentiments of the people. I learned though through post-modernist theories that it is almost impossible to seperate the cultural from the economic.

For example, Korean punk music initially seems like something completely created from below (or from the masses) and not from capitalistic entities. It is not that simple though because the 'punk' image itself is marketed and treated as a commodity in many instances. So essentially by the end of this course, I have realized that Korean and popular culture in general does not follow a single linear model. Popular culture bounces around in a continuum between both cultural and economic forces. Furthermore, the relationship between the two forces is never static but constantly redefining itself.