Opinion | Spotlight on Korean culture is also exposing its underbelly of racism and ethnic nationalism
- As much as BTS, Squid Game and Parasite are celebrated, any criticism or perceived slights of Korean culture tend to trigger a defensiveness from the people that is at odds with the global reach of Korean media today
Its success as a “cultural juggernaut”, in the words of The New York Times, has unquestionably raised the nation’s soft power, prestige and attractiveness. These achievements have been reported and hyped far and wide by American media outlets.
However, a less-noted phenomenon is the tension between the conservative, Confucian values that occasionally creep into Korean content and the socially progressive ideology of many Western consumers.
Entertainment implicitly promotes certain values, lifestyles and a general world view, whether it intends to or not. In the case of Korea, it’s not merely about what the content contains, but perhaps more what is omitted. LGBT+, diversity in body types and awareness of colourism are often absent in Korean media.
Given that Korea remains one of the few OECD countries without an anti-discrimination law, this is hardly surprising.
More surprising perhaps is how Korean productions have successfully avoided having this implicit conservatism interfere with the virality of their content. Yet, as Korean culture has increasingly gone global, the chasm between Korean and Western norms intermittently comes to the fore.