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A Study on the Representation of the US in North - Korean Films (1994~2010, the period of Kim Jong-il Regime)

  • Journal of Popular Narrative
  • 2022, 28(3), pp.317-351
  • DOI : 10.18856/jpn.2022.28.3.009
  • Publisher : The Association of Popular Narrative
  • Research Area : Interdisciplinary Studies > Interdisciplinary Research
  • Received : September 26, 2022
  • Accepted : October 11, 2022
  • Published : October 30, 2022

Lee, Hyun-joong 1

1군산대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

In the 1990s, North Korea faced a crisis at home and abroad. North Korea was isolated from the international community due to the fall of Eastern socialism and the collapse of the Soviet Union. The death of Kim Il-sung in 1994 became a crisis for the North Korean regime. Successor Kim Jong-il induced unity of the regime, but the "Arduous March" came due to food shortages caused by floods and drought. The North Korea-U.S. relations and inter-Korean relations have been strained by the North Korean nuclear issue, and the resulting international sanctions have intensified economic difficulties. This situation was reflected in North Korean films. North Korea produced a military-first film as a propaganda tool to overcome this situation. Due to the nature of the military-first films, the past “great fatherland liberation war” was summoned, and the military's hostile representation was the United States. This paper aims to analyze the US representation of North Korean films at the time and confirm the direction of the North Korean regime at the time through cinematic propaganda. During this period, changes are found in the way North Korean films represent the US. Before the 1990s, the way North Korean films expressed the US was to create an image of a villain directly through characters emphasizing violence. On the other hand, North Korean films during this period tend to use the U.S. as a device to praise Kim Jong-il and to unite the inside. In the process, the US is set as the cause of the current crisis. For that reason, in North Korean films of this period, the representation of the US serves as an evil located in the background, rather than being expressed as a direct image. Even in war movies, the US is exposed as a material screen rather than directly appearing as a character. Even in movies dealing with economic difficulties, the US exists as a cause of hardship, but it is not used as a device to directly intervene in the narrative between characters. Therefore, although the purpose of propaganda for system unity is the same, in North Korean films of this period, the representation of the US can be interpreted as having a different meaning. This is not the purpose of uniting the inside through the external enemy of the US as in the past. By promoting a new leader Kim Jong-il, it is intended to induce internal solidarity and educate the public. As a device for this purpose, the tendency of the US to be consumed conventionally can be found through the cinematic representation.

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