#15. Pop Culture in my Culture

Protest Culture in Korean Film

Slide 1: Intro 

Before starting, I will show you a movie trailer. Can you guess what is this movie about?

Over 12 M people watched this movie, one for five people/about 25% of Korean people watched the movie in 2017. This is based on true story in the 80s. 

택시운전사(2017) example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bB7z4Xn5oNA

Slide 2: Background

What happened in South Korea in the 80s ?

There were two major dictators in South Korea who control the country using military power. 

-Gwangju Uprising (1980): democratic protest by students and citizens in a local city, 600 killed/3000 wounded. But students in Gwangju, local city, started protest against the military dictatorship.

Also, In 1987, two college students killed by government, it made people very angry, so tons of people participated in this protest nationally. June struggle led to changing the law for democracy and labor (working class) movement. 

Slide 3: movie posters

After finishing dictatorship, since the 90s, movies with protests has started to come out. Many Korean people are proud of their protest history and accomplishment that people made. Even though there are still many people who don’t like protests in Korea, young people experience protest culture indirectly through these movies. Also, there are lots of protests scenes in Korean TV shows. 

 Slide 4: President withdrawal movement

2016/10~2017/4

the most amazing event got influent from protest culture was president withdrawal movement. the President committed lots of corruption and it made people very angry so many people started gather every weekend to impeach (kick off) the President. All protest were peaceful demonstrations with holding only one candle. Finally, the president was impeached and went to a jail. I also participated this protest with my friends. Most impressive thing about this pretest was that there were many families joined. Young parents came to the main plaza with their young kids.  

Also, I met various people in other protests. There were disabled, young women, LGBTQ, and teenagers.

Slide 5: Why I choose this topic?

Protest culture in Korean movies make us think about human right and it helps seeing the government from a critical perspective. see how to express our opinion against our government. 

My generation didn’t learn about 80s protests at school. Also, there was no adult who told me about it at home. However, pop culture (movies) teach me important thing that I didn’t learn at school and home.      

It’s been more than 30 years, Korean people can see our distorted history and younger generation who don’t know about the 80s can experience indirectly through movies and see their government from a critical perspective.