Article: K-Content incites rage… “One Korean soldier killed 100 Viet Congs”
Source: Korea Ilbo via Naver
Recent pieces of Korean content that have come under criticism for cultural abuse:
– ‘Little Women’ for a scene where a character claims one Korean soldier killed 100 Viet Congs each, which led to the drama being de-platformed in Vietnam
– ‘Money Heist’ for a character choosing the name ‘Tokyo’ because “I’m going to do bad things”, which caused the ire of Japanese netizens for stoking anti-Japanese sentiment
– Black Pink’s ‘How You Like That’ MV for their misuse of the Hindu god Ganesha, which led to the scene being deleted from the music video
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1. [+916, -420] We get up in arms and foam at the mouth whenever a piece of international media features the rising sun flag and yet our own dramas talk about slaughtering another country as if it’s something to be proud of ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ Sometimes I think it’s a good thing that we were colonized for most of our history because if we were the colonizers, we would’ve committed a lot worse crimes, probably worse than Japan
2. [+323, -14] Unlike in the past, our country is growing its influence around the world, which means there are also a lot more things we should be careful about… Whatever the case, I can understand why these other countries are upset over our content.
3. [+204, -4] Let’s just stop with the shows about druglords. We have enough content right here in our own country to keep production here.
4. [+257, -64] In history, Korea can be considered a perpetrator to other countries, but we always think of ourselves as the victim. We ignore the very crimes our own country commits and has committed, like the slaughtering of others in war, the abuse of foreign workers in our workplaces, our racism… we should be reflecting on these issues but we keep ignoring them which is why no one is able to catch these insensitivities that naturally spill into our own content.
5. [+51, -2] But why are they acting as if the Viet Cong didn’t kill our own armed forces? ㅋㅋㅋ commies make me sick
6. [+31, -1] Okay, killing 100 to 1 is an exaggeration, but it’s true that our forces were able to put down 10 times the number of Viet Congs to ours. 180 of our marines were able to hold off 2,000 Viet Congs on high ground, which is a tactical story that is even told in American textbooks.
7. [+30, -2] We need to work on understanding other cultures better. It’s not like we ever feel good when other countries call Dokdo Japanese property, right? Just like how we think of our own history as important, so do the other countries of their own history.
8. [+27, -1] Think of ourselves in their shoes… we’d be upset, too. Can you imagine if a Japanese drama was like “our one Japanese soldier killed 100 Koreans each”, we’d immediately be enraged.
9. [+10, -1] Let’s please remember that people of other countries hold the same feelings that we do. We get angry when media from other countries touch on sensitive topics of our history. We should be more careful with the way we depict other histories in our own content.
10. [+9, -0] If we care about our content reaching a more global market, it’s important that we’re more detailed and careful about these issues. At the status and influence our country has achieved, we have an obligation to pay attention to these matters. No need to spark hate against us by being careless.
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