[HanCinema's Digest] Culture Corner

The New Yorker examines a Korean television show about the power of pop culture, see how one artist is using her webtoon to empower victims of sexism, behold "K-Culture Valley", and see how one model is defying the country's strict beauty standards one step at a time.

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"A KOREAN TELEVISION SHOW ABOUT THE POWER OF POP CULTURE"

Mattew Trammell, writing for the The New Yorker, looks at Sin Won-ho's acclaimed television drama, "Anwer Me 1988" (aka "Reply 1988"), "a Korean drama about a group of friends in Seoul in the nineteen-eighties, follows its teen-aged protagonists as they celebrate, bicker, and plunge into a newly borderless world of pop culture". The show originally aired from November 2015 to mid-January.

...READ ON THE NEW YORKER

"South Korean Webtoon artist tackles sexism at home"

A 32-year-old South Korean artist draws on her traumatic childhood to produce a webtoon series that tackles sexism in the home. The comic is hard-hitting, but despite the sensitive content, there has been a positive response: "To Dangi's surprise, the work has been well received by readers, many of whom reached out to her saying they had also been discriminated and abused by family members at home. Within the first 44 days of the series being published online, "Dangi" received more than 3 million hits, becoming the most-read webtoon in the shortest time frame on Lezhin Comics, one of the most popular online platforms for webtoons here".

...READ ON THE KOREA HERALD

"South Korea Begins Constructing Massive K-pop Cultural Park In Seoul"

OMG: Korea is planning to build a huge theme park called "K-Culture Valley" at a cost of around $1.2 billion! Apparently the park will be ready as soon as next year. The project is expected to create 56,000 jobs and bring in $7.3 billion in revenue. Here's president Park on the project: "The culture content industry is key industry in this creative economy age where imagination and idea become a product, and is an alchemy of the 21st century that creates new value-added".

...READ ON KPOP STARZ

"All-Natural Model Defies South Korean Plastic Surgery Obsession"

Korea's obsession with body image is well-known and the country is also somewhat of a mecca when it comes to plastic surgery. Twenty-first-century feminism, however, has seen a growing number of models and agencies around the world deviating from that narrow band of 'perfection' to promote more inclusive notions of beauty and health. In this piece from World Crunch, you'll see how one South Korean model is down just that: "I'm kind of an alien in Korea. People who are plus size in Korea, they are not interested in a social life, they don't go shopping...They don't want people staring at them".

...READ ON WORLD CRUNCH.