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Cultural Adaptation of Foreign Migrants and Film as a Multicultural Representation

Oh, Youn-ho 1

1이화여자대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

This study aims at investigating Korean society and a crisis of identity that foreign migrants from North Korea and Bangladesh experience while analyzing films representing a life of migrants in Korea such as “Hello, Stranger,” “Bandhobi,” and “The Journals of Musan.” Also, the study investigates a sense of solidarity and otherization of foreign migrants in Korean society. With these purposes, the study compares imagery of foreign migrants represented in novels and films, proves that the differences—description by narrative in a novel and representation by camera in a film—are made because of different characteristics of media, and above all, attempts to find significance of imagery of migrants in films because a more active independence can be depicted in a film. Korean society and culture that foreign migrants face and experience in films are not an unique tradition in Korea or a society with cultural particularities, but a “system” itself made up by a materialized metropolis and its citizens. In films, foreign migrants are more “humane” than materialistic Koreans. In spite of cultural differences, they have sympathy for the minority and try to help them (Jin-uk), live with their own traditional values and hopes for happiness instead of materialistic desires (Karim), and can’t help but compromise with the reality (Seung-cheol). In a capitalist society, the characters in films try their best to live a better life with humanistic solidarity and sympathy and obtain their own independence. What is the possibility of hospitality for foreign migrants who have to live as the economic minority class in a capitalist system? With analyzing various scenes in films, it would be possible to discuss ethical attitudes from different theories like tolerance, solidarity, and hospitality. But before understanding the discourse, critical under- standing of problems in a capitalist society must precede dreaming of multicultural environment and cultural hybridity.

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* References for papers published after 2023 are currently being built.

This paper was written with support from the National Research Foundation of Korea.
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