No one would have expected that a scene featuring a Chinese diet would make “The Joseon Exorcist,” a mega-production drama about an ancient Joseon political elite expelling evil spirits for the people, drop after only two episodes due to strong boycott by Korean viewers. This has never been a precedent in the history of Korean dramas.
In this controversial scene, Chungnyeongdaeun, later the most famous King Sejong in Joseon history, hosted a banquet for Western exorcists who entered Joseon through the Ming Dynasty, and Chinese Food such as mooncakes, eggs and dumplings were served at the banquet. The decorations, costumes and swords worn by soldiers at the banquet were also distinctly Chinese.
These details angered Korean viewers when they were broadcast, and accusations of “distorting history” became widespread. Although SBS, which broadcasted “The Exorcist of Joseon”, explained that these details were taken into account the fact that the banquet took place in the border area of the Ming Dynasty, viewers who did not buy it immediately started a campaign to stop broadcasting the drama on the website of Cheong Wa Dae, the presidential office of South Korea, and the number of participants exceeded 200,000 in just three days, which was the number of people who had to respond from Cheong Wa Dae. As public opinion quickly worsened, the show’s sponsors announced that they would stop their advertising sponsorship, and then the location decided not to assist with filming. As a result, SBS TV and three production companies issued a statement on March 26, deciding to downgrade and stop filming the drama; producers, writers and main actors also issued apologies over the weekend. These statements mentioned that they “recognize the seriousness of this incident” and “deeply feel a great responsibility.
Chinese cultural hegemony stirs anti-Chinese sentiment in South Korea
How could such a scene be so violently boycotted by Korean viewers? The sponsor of the campaign to stop the broadcast of “The Exorcist of Joseon” wrote, “The drama “The Exorcist of Joseon,” which aired on SBS yesterday, is full of content and scenes that distort history and are attached to China’s Northeast Project.
The Northeast Project is a large-scale academic project jointly conducted by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the three northeastern provinces since 2002, known as the Northeast Frontier History and Current Situation Series Research Project. The official website is no longer available, but according to Baidu’s encyclopedia, the project “aims to bring the study of the history and current situation of the Northeast frontier into an academic track” and “further maintain the stability of the Northeast frontier region. An important part of the Northeast Project is the study of the history of Goguryeo and Bohai, the core of which is the characterization of Goguryeo and Bohai as ancient Chinese local authorities. This view created friction between China and Korea at the Time. Korean academics argued that Goguryeo and Bohai clearly belonged to ancient Korean history and that China included them in its own history for political purposes such as asserting its historical sovereignty over the inter-islands and other related areas and preventing minority independence. According to Korean media, China’s then Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei said during his visit to South Korea that if South Korea did not claim that the inter-islands belonged to ancient Korea, China would no longer insist that Koguryo belonged to China.
Recent strife between China and South Korea over cultural affiliation has brought the Northeast Project back to the forefront of South Koreans’ minds. From Chinese netizens claiming that kimchi and Korean costumes belong to China and disparaging Korean Culture, to some media outlets such as the Global Times fanning the flames, there is a consensus in Korean public opinion that the dispute is an attempt by China to incorporate Korean culture into its own “cultural northeast project” and that “The Exorcist of Joseon” is a “cultural northeast project”. The “Cultural Northeast Project TV series”.
Yoon Seok-jin, a drama critic and professor in the Department of Korean Language and Literature at Chungnam National University, pointed out to Voice of America that while it is not clear whether this cultural dispute is being promoted at the Chinese government level or is just a unilateral claim by Chinese netizens, it is impossible to conclude that “it is difficult to dispel the impression that the Chinese government is standing by and watching this claim by Chinese netizens. From a Korean standpoint, there are indeed attempts to distort Korean history and culture in China, so there is ample room to argue that this has had an impact on the production of “The Korean Exorcist,” especially “in light of the large amount of Chinese capital holding shares in Korean drama production companies.” .
Chinese Capital Infiltrates Korean Entertainment Industry
As Yoon Seok-jin points out, YG Entertainment, the parent company of YG Studio Plex, one of the production companies of “The Chosun Exorcist,” received a 100 billion won investment from Tencent and its related companies in 2016, and remains a major shareholder despite the recent sell-off of a significant portion of Tencent’s shares. This case shows the extent of Chinese capital’s penetration into the Korean entertainment industry. As the popularity of the Korean Wave gradually expands from Asia to the global market, Chinese capital has been deepening its investment in the Korean cultural industry, evolving from buying copyrights and joint filming to capital investment. According to information released by the Korea Culture Industry Promotion Institute, Chinese giants such as Tencent, Huayi Brothers, Alibaba and Wanda have made capital investments in major Korean companies in the fields of film, Music and games, and in most cases are major shareholders or even directly own the management rights.
In addition to such deep investments, Chinese companies are also making increasingly frequent advertising placements in Korean films and dramas. Production costs for Korean miniseries have more than tripled in the last 10 years, reaching an average of about 600 million won per episode, and the reliance on ad placements is increasing. However, in the wake of the new Epidemic, Korean companies have cut back on promotional expenses and reduced their advertising investments in dramas. The producers had to look for more overseas advertisers, and naturally, Chinese companies who were trying to use the influence of Korean dramas to market their products clicked with them. Recent Korean dramas such as “It’s Okay to be a Psycho,” “Goddess of Desire” and “Vincenzo” have seen advertisements from Chinese companies from time to time, and the latter two dramas have caused controversy for scenes in which characters eat instant hot pot and Korean bibimbap produced by Chinese companies that do not fit the realities of Korea.
In response, Lim Dae-geun, a professor of international cultural industry at Korea University of Foreign Studies, believes that from an industry perspective, this is a natural result of the mutual needs of China and South Korea: “There has always been a demand for Korean cultural content among Chinese folk, and Korea wants to enter the Chinese market. China is the more capital-rich party and therefore chose to invest in Korea’s cultural industry.” As for whether Chinese capital will interfere with the production of Korean dramas, Lim Dae-geun believes this is an excessive speculation. Even in the case of Korea-China co-production dramas, China will not interfere with the details of the dramas shot in Korea, and the incident of “The North Korean Exorcist” is more about the Korean side’s eagerness. “Korea was too eager to enter the Chinese market, and this idea led to problems with the details of filming”.
The alarm bell sounded by “The North Korean Exorcist”: the rising risk of China
As “The Chosun Exorcist” is already 80% filmed, the downgrading will cause considerable damage to SBS TV and the producers. This has already been reflected in the capital market. As of the 29th of this month, the total market value of YG Entertainment and its subsidiaries evaporated by 101.5 billion won from the 22nd day of the first episode of “The Chosun Exorcist”; SBS TV’s market value also dropped by 18.2 billion won during the same period.
However, “The Chosun Exorcist” is just the beginning. South Korean netizens have already turned their attention to the drama “Snowdrop Flower” starring popular girl group BLACK PINK member Ji Soo, which is scheduled to air in June. Netizens have accused the drama, which depicts the democratization movement in Korea in the 1980s, of trying to glorify the Communist Party and belittle the democratization movement, linking such intentions to the background that producer JTBC STUDIO had received a 100 billion won investment from China’s Tencent. The boycott of the drama currently has over 110,000 co-signatures, and sponsors have already announced the cancellation of their sponsorship. In addition, a list of pending dramas linked to Chinese capital has been widely circulated on the Korean internet, with many netizens saying they will boycott them.
This adds a new risk to the Korean entertainment industry’s relationship with China. The South Korean entertainment industry is already seen by China as a bargaining chip for political pressure on South Korea and faces an environment of great uncertainty. 2016 saw an almost complete halt to domestic Film and Television cooperation projects with South Korea and the disappearance of South Korean artists from the camera after the deployment of the SAD system in South Korea. After Chinese President Xi Jinping expressed his willingness to promote cultural exchanges and cooperation in a phone call with South Korean President Moon Jae-in earlier this year, a film starring members of the South Korean idol group EXO was finally announced for March years after filming was completed, once seen as a signal to lift the ban, yet a week later the film was again announced to be kept in theaters indefinitely.
Lin Dagen told Voice of America that the anti-Chinese sentiment of the South Korean public and the issue of the Korean ban are actually intertwined, “The Korean ban has lasted for more than four years, and the gap between the netizens of Korea and China is getting deeper and deeper, and at first the industry thought it could still be resolved, but during this period a new crown epidemic and various historical and cultural conflicts have occurred, and the two countries are accumulating negative views of each other, and first This emotional problem needs to be resolved.
Yin Xichen agreed that “in the cultural content industry, it is just as important as expanding the market size to clearly recognize the attributes of film and TV dramas as culture, otherwise it will create a rather high risk”.
From a practical point of view, Lim Dae-geun believes that Korea needs to adopt a multilateralization strategy, “the industry should not only focus on the mainland China market, but also on the overseas Chinese markets in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Southeast Asia, and actively enter these regions”.
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