Thursday, October 16, 2003
SOUTH KOREAN FILM AND ANTI-AMERICANISM. James Brooke's New York Times piece about recent changes in South Korean cinema has generated a variety of opinions in the Korea-watching blogosphere (see here and here for examples). Seeing Eye Blog hosts a "guest fisking" of the Brooke's piece. The anonymous guest appears to be rather knowledgeable about Korean film and makes a strong case for this conclusion:
So, in short, a flawed premise, and pretty specious examples. Especially when you think about the post-war literature in Korea, which was also heavily ambivalent about North Korea and the American presence in the South. I think Mr. Brooke came up with his idea for a story, maybe after an assistant mentioned something about one of those films, then shoved the square facts into the round hole that was his thesis.Read the whole thing.
