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Korean Comedy Films and “Anti-Communism” in the 1950s and 1960s

  • The Journal of Korean drama and theatre
  • 2024, (82), pp.39-81
  • DOI : 10.17938/tjkdat.2024..82.39
  • Publisher : The Learned Society Of Korean Drama And Theatre
  • Research Area : Arts and Kinesiology > Other Arts and Kinesiology
  • Received : July 14, 2024
  • Accepted : August 8, 2024
  • Published : August 31, 2024

Yun Youjeong 1

1서울대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

This study aims to examine the politics of ‘anti-communist’ comedy films in the 1950s and 1960s, which can be understood as the formative years of anti-communism, by examining specific works that frequently engaged with ‘anti-communist’ codes. Studies of comedy films from this period have tended to oscillate between ambivalent interpretations of conformity and resistance. However, comedy films that attracted ‘anti-communist’ audiences during this period show signs of both embodying anti-communist propaganda and enlightenment messages, as well as transforming them. This is especially evident in the sudden process of integration that the comedies of this period undergo at the end, when they transform their characters into wholesome subjects. The “anti-communist” comedies of the 1950s and 1960s can be broadly categorized according to their main content: 1) training camp films, 2) military films, 3) counter intelligence films, and 4) espionage films. Training camp films and military films, which depict men becoming soldiers in an anti-communist society, emphasize their militaristic masculinity through sudden achievements, while also illustrating the point at which becoming a soldier in an anti-communist society ends. In addition, the counterintelligence narrative of encountering and apprehending spies in everyday life transforms anti-communism as a ‘counter intelligence’ into an opportunity for capital acquisition, while also showing off the systemic logic of capitalism in contrast to the communist camp. In the case of espionage comedies, in which vulnerable men easily achieve ‘defeating communism’, the sense of crisis and seriousness of the ‘anti-communist’ movement is tarnished. In this way, the ‘anti-communist’ message of comedy films during this period, which gradually diluted its political power, shows signs of casting public desensitization and naturalizing anti-communism.

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