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A Study on the Representation of the Interrelation South and North Korean Films (1960~1980)

  • The Journal of Northeast Asia Research
  • Abbr : NEA
  • 2021, 36(2), pp.39-66
  • DOI : 10.18013/jnar.2021.36.2.002
  • Publisher : The Institute for Northeast Asia Research
  • Research Area : Social Science > Political Science > International Politics > International Relations / Cooperation
  • Received : November 18, 2021
  • Accepted : December 23, 2021
  • Published : December 31, 2021

BAEK, Tae-hyun 1 Chungbeom Ham 2

1동국대학교
2한국영상대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

This study compares and analyzes the representation of North Korea in South Korean films from 1960 to 1980 with that of South Korea in North Korean films. This period was when both Koreas established and developed political systems under the influence of the Cold War. The two Koreas actively used the films as a propaganda, using the films for producing representations of its opponents. In the 1960s, the representation of North Korea in South Korean films was the appearance of confrontation with the war opponent itself. The film about the Korean War focused on the activities of the South Korean military and reproduced North Korea as an opponent to prove its activities. During this period, the representation of South Korea in North Korean films was a place where people with revolutionary capabilities suffered from the oppression of American Imperialism. After 1967, South Korean films began to antagonize North Korean representations. Meanwhile, the North Korean film was looking at South Korea with confidence in its postwar recovery. North Korea’s confidence in the system and economic growth led to the focus to South Korea’s People, which resulted in the film reflecting the North Korea’s Revolution Policy in South Korea. The late 1960s, when military tensions between the two Koreas reached their peak, was a time when the representations for each other were established. South Korean films began to build North Korea's representation in a hostile way as threat, and South Korea’s representaion in North Korean films began to appear as a place oppressed by American Imperialism. This representaion became a complete symbol of inter-Korean films in the 1970s. South Korea repeatedly produced the complete version of the hostile North Korean representaion in national policy propaganda film, and the North Korean film completed the South's representaion as a poor and oppressed space by American imperialism against the North Korean regime.

Citation status

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

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