2020, Vol.26, No.4

On the (Un-)Possibility of a Labor Film in the Early Period of Democratization—A Study of Guro Arirang

Oh, Ja-eun | 2020, 26(4) | pp.9~41 | number of Cited : 0

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Park Jong-won’s debut film “Guro Arirang,” based on a short story of the same title by Lee Moon-yeol, is the first commercial film to deal with labor struggles from a worker’s point of view in the wake of the 1987 democratic movement, and a pioneering work in terms of representing female workers the Korean cinema has traditionally turned away from. In this film Park Jong-won tried to win the sympathy of the middle class for labor movement in spite of the red scare which still stood firm in the Korean society at that time. To convey its progressive message in a form acceptable to the middle class public, the film portrays labor issues in the light of universal humanity and ethics, not in terms of class hostility or struggle. Park Jong-won calls this point of view “common sense of normal people” and emphasizes its universality and objectivity. This study critically examines the cinematic strategies to deal with labor issues in a form acceptable to the public in a conventional and commercial film and the ideological implications of the “common sense of normal people” reflected in such strategies. The first chapter of the study reveals that the film destroys the irony of the original story and reduces the complex constellation of the characters to the conflict between pure good and evil, creating a melodramatic composition in which the good falls victim to evil. The tragedies suffered by the workers in the film are of course intended to arouse the audience’s strong sympathy and solidarity with them. The second chapter shows that the film’s various scenes and episodes converge on the them of compassion and grief, and are mostly based on cultural and real experiences and events that caused great public sensations at that time. Especially in the last decisive scene of the movie, the memory of the June 1987 uprising is strongly recalled. So “Guro Arirang” can be seen as a patchwork of proven cases of compassion and grief. The third chapter examines the implications of the scene where the workers turn back demands for wages and put the issues of human treatment and trust to the forefront at the crucial moment of their struggle. It appeals to universal moral values and sentiments that everyone has to acknowledge and removes the political dimension from the workers’ campaign. While the film tends to become a pure story of humanity marginalizing irreconcilable conflicts of class interest, the workers fall to the position of passive victims who can be deeply sympathetic on the one hand, and on the other, are idealized as leaders with noble attitude keeping themselves aloof from the hard reality. As a result, the movie loses its realistic ground and weakens its narrative probability. The scenes reminiscent of the 1987 uprising which evoke the solidarity between working and middle class fail to integrate harmoniously into the whole story of the film and remain only as fragmentary parts of the patchwork of compassion and grief.

Comparison of the Video Dramas Based on Yoon Sim-duk, Kim Woo-jin and Reconsidering the Movie Praise of Death(1991)

Woo Suk Chung | 2020, 26(4) | pp.43~76 | number of Cited : 1

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After comparing three video dramas based on Yoon Sim-duk and Kim Woo-jin, this paper intensively explores the movie Praise of Death(1991), which has the most meaningful traits in embodying the characters, focusing on the relationship with the previous works of the director or an actress. The movie Yoon Sim-duk(1969) focuses on meiodramatic narrative around the issue like love triangle or a relationship between out-of-wedlock woman and the wife of one man. The TV drama Praise of Death(2018) is pursuing ideal youth genre between attractive two lovers adorning even the suffering of the Japanese occupation with customary visual image. In comparison, the movie Praise of Death(1991) focuses on visual beauty, while overlaps the agony of two characters as pioneering artists with frustrated love narrative. In the process, this film reveals two-sided characteristics, especially the heroine, compared to the other two. She shows a rift between the passivity for the salvation of man and the activity of choosing even the fall of her own life. In order to examine this trait, we have to explore the other works which affect the movie Praise of Death. This came from the tendency director Kim Ho-sun and actress Jang Mi-hee had built in 1970s films. It also relates in the movies Jang Mi-hee had worked with director bae Chang-ho in the 1980s. The tendency to show a pursuit of classical cultures in the field of popular movies, and to overlap the problems of desire, including sexuality, with mental and intellectual issues, continues from the previous films to the movie Praise of Death for shaping a main female character. This study results in examining the movie Praise of Death in two contexts. One is the context of three video dramas having same materials, Yoon Sim-duk and Kim Woo-jin. And other is the context of the works that director Kim Ho-sun and actress Jang Mi-hee have continued together, or the works that Jang Mi-hee have continued with director Bae Chang-ho. Until now, Yoon Sim-duk and Kim Woo-jin has been used as a material for cultural contents in the various genres over and over again. Under this circumstance, by looking at this movie, one of representative case dealing with Yoon and Kim, in the complex context, it can reaffirm the effect and difficulty in fictionalisation of them as a subject matter.

A Study on the Sinpa of Along With the Gods and the Korean Sinpa—Focusing on the comparison between the Sinpa of Singwahamkke Jeoseung and the Sinpa of Along With the Gods: The Two Worlds

Park JaeYeon | 2020, 26(4) | pp.77~114 | number of Cited : 7

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This article aims to examine the Sinpa of Along With the Gods: The Two Worlds. Along with the Gods: The Two Worlds was a box office hit with a 10 million attendance mark, but it was also criticized as a ‘Korean Sinpa’ at the time of its release. The original version of Along with the Gods is a Webtoon called Singwahamkke in Korean. The popularity of Singwahamkke and its adaptation, Along with the Gods was enormous, which prompted a very active research to be carried about the work. However there are only a few articles which analyze the Along with the Gods: The Two Worlds focusing on the Sinpa, even though the Sinpa of the Along with the Gods: The Two Worlds was a highly controversial issue when the movie was released. In this regard, this article tries to examine the Sinpa of the Along with the Gods: The Two Worlds closely, especially by comparing it with the original webtoon Singwahamkke Jeoseung. The body part of this article is composed of three major parts: chapters 2, 3, and 4. Chapter 2 contains an in depth explanation about the notion of Sinpa, the main conceptual research tool for this study. In chapter 3, the original webtoon Singwahamkke Jeoseung is examined closely. This chapter analyzes the ‘Sinpajeok moment’ in Singwahamkke Jeoseung and argues that despite the presence of Sinpa elements, the webtoon cannot be considered a ‘Sinpajeok text’. On the other hand the main subject of chapter 4 is discovering what effect the adaptation from webtoon to movie had on this work, with a particular focus on the gender of Sinpa and Kim Ja-hong. Chapter 5, which corresponds to the conclusion, briefly evaluates the social significance of the controversy arisen in South Korea about the Sinpa in Along with the Gods: The Two Worlds. Sinpa is one of the most repeated code in the realm of Korean popular narrative. This is why the Sinpa of contemporary text is examined continuously even though there are already plenty of studies on the Sinpa. Everyone has called Along with the Gods: The Two Worlds Sinpa but no one has properly analyzed it. It is hoped that this article which closesly examined the Sinpa in Along with the Gods: The Two Worlds contribute to the field of Sinpa. It is also expected that this article can find appropriate contextual meaning of the series of Along with the Gods.

Burning and The Ethical Subject

Kwak, Han Ju | 2020, 26(4) | pp.117~144 | number of Cited : 2

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Type Variations of ‘Stepmother’ and ‘Sister’ in the Novels of Park Kyong-Ni and Their Meanings—Focused on Jaegwiyeol, Eunha, Kimyakgukeue Ddaldeul, Nabiwa Unggungkwi

Cho, Yun A | 2020, 26(4) | pp.145~181 | number of Cited : 0

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This study analyzes type variations of the ‘stepmother’ and ‘sister’ in the full-length novels of Park Kyong-Ni and attempted to point out their meanings. The pattern of “negative stepmother” that appeared in classical and new novels also appeared repeatedly in Park Kyong-Ni’s full-length novels and this was because a change took place in later full-length novels. Novels analyzed with focus were Jaegwiyeol(1959), Eunha(1960), Kimyakgukeue Ddaldeul(1962), and Nabiwa Unggungkwi(1969). The stepmother that appears in Eunha is a type that appears often in the classic and new novels of Korea. While the stepmother newly gained the role and status of ‘mother’, she forms a competitive relationship with the daughter of the former wife while still refusing to be a member of the family and she puts the former wife’s daughter in critical situations by committing misdeeds. However, the young stepmother in Nabiwa Unggungkwi actually becomes a victim to the malicious and morbid harassment of the former wife’s daughter. This stepmother is a good-natured figure who shows a sense of guilt for failing to fulfill her responsibilities of upbringing and education and she eventually dies as a victim to a bomb during the war, leaving her young biological daughter behind. On one hand, the sisters in Jaegwiyeol and Kimyakgukeue Ddaldeul are not strongly bonded but when one is caught in a crisis, the other one claims to be of help. Unlike this, the sisters in Nabiwa Unggungkwi have a bond that cannot be broken. They are half-sisters that bind each other so severely that they hinder each other’s growth and they eventually end up disintegrating. Through such analyses, it is shown that issues of human nature are dealt with more acutely by breaking the ‘young stepmother’ away from convention by placing her in the position of the victim to amplify the conflicting relationship between sisters, unlike in previous pieces. This study was significant in that it looked into how previously repetitive character type changes appeared in full-length novels in conditions that clearly display the writer’s determination to leave behind a masterpiece.

Romance between Women in the Age of ‘Feminism Reboot’—Focusing on Biwan seri’s Her Simcheong(justoon, 2017-2019)

Heo Yoon | 2020, 26(4) | pp.183~212 | number of Cited : 5

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Collection of Philosophical Concepts for Video Games—Theory of Art in the Age of Artificial Intelligence by Shinji Matsunaga’s The Aesthetics of Video Games

KIM ILLIM | 2020, 26(4) | pp.215~237 | number of Cited : 0

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Journal of Popular Narrative 2023 KCI Impact Factor : 0.85

2020, Vol.26, No.4