Conference Speakers and Abstracts

Hiba Aleem is an adjunct faculty member at the Department of English, Writing, and Communication at Emmanuel College, Boston, where she teaches Global Literature and Film, Literary Methods, and Academic Writing. She is also a Fulbright Program scholar from Washington College, Chestertown, a Ph. D in English from JNU, New Delhi; her research interests are located at the intersections between digital humanities, popular culture, and gender studies.

Abstract

My paper is concerned with the gendered nationalism of Bollywood films from the past decade. It will explore how the idea of the nation is built, symbolically, upon gendered lines, and how it turns the bodies of women, especially ‘other’ women, into sites of contestation wherein the sole victor is the male nationalist.

Jonah Andersen, graduated from Suffolk University with a BA in Global Cultural Studies in May 2022, and is currently living in Switzerland. As an international student with a love for video games, he chose to take his two passions of world culture and gaming and mesh them together. He loves to travel and has had the great privilege of being able to visit many different locales. In his free time, he likes to read, draw and play a large variety of games, jumping from genre to genre, appreciating every minute of gameplay.

Abstract

As video games grow increasingly more widespread, important and varied, it is important to look into the development process and understand what makes them stand out. Such is the purpose of my paper: to analyze how the cultures of our own world – including elements such as religion, aesthetics, landscape/geography, language and more – influence and inform the creation of video games. To that end, I chose to comparatively analyze two different game franchises: Assassin’s Creed and Pokémon. It is widely known within the gaming community that Pokémon draws from cultures worldwide, especially when creating new regions and creatures. It is a utopic world where Pokémon and humans live peacefully side-by-side. While I draw information from the entirety of the Pokémon brand, I chose to limit my inspiration from Assassin’s Creed to the 2018 entry Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, as it presents a highly-detailed recreation of Ancient Greece that can be used as an ideal comparison. This includes both the idyllic tropes of civilization associated to the time period, as well as the dystopian cruelty of the Peloponnesian War. I employ a mise-en-scène analysis style, wherein I compare both entries’ content in the following categories: Character Design (clothing, ethnicities, facial structure), Dialogue (spoken text/written lore), Setting (in-universe location for the player), Landscape (geography), Landmarks (points of interest), Overall Aesthetics (artistic style, animation, tone) and References/Inspirations (real-world counterparts). My results showed two differing approaches to drawing from the real world: the first approach, taken by Pokémon, is to take inspiration from reality and mix it with the game’s own universe. The second approach, taken by Odyssey, is to take a more historically-accurate and realistic depiction of a real-world culture and transplant it into a game environment. My findings have implications for ways in which game developers – and by proxy, any professions involved in fantasy – can draw from the real world when creating their own content. This includes taking both the utopian and the dystopian as fantasy ideas when considering how we want to recreate and integrate cultures into videogames and more.

Michelle Choi Ausman is a first-year PhD student in Engineering Education at Virginia Tech. She received a BS in Liberal Arts and Engineering Studies from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, and an MS in Science and Technology Studies from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Her research focuses on exploring relationships between Asian American identity, multiracial identity, and belonging in engineering. Her research interests include engineering identity, diversity, equity, and inclusion, Asian American Studies, Critical Mixed Race Studies, engineering ethics, and pop culture.

Abstract

Scholars who study science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education, have been exploring effective and engaging ways to introduce and bring STEM interventions to K-12, prior to higher education. While these scholars explore explicit curriculum and extracurricular interventions through formal school curriculum and after-school programs, implicit interventions through works of fiction - TV, film, and books - have included a greater introduction for audiences to gain indirect interactions with STEM. These indirect interactions through media consumption can include watching TV or film and reading books or graphic novels, or webtoons. As a dominant form of children’s entertainment media, Disney has been an indirect interaction source that researchers should pay attention to. In recent years, Disney films targeted to children have included STEM representations in their films such as Big Hero 6 and The Incredibles. And within these representations, multiple STEM-related characters are of multiracial descent. This study explores the ways that multiracial Asian characters in Disney (such as Tadashi and Hiro Hamada from Big Hero 6 and Edna Mode from The Incredibles) offer a subtle insight into the ways that multiraciality and STEM have become more central. This study argues that these characters act as introductions and representations for audiences to STEM in a subtle, yet intriguing way that gets younger audiences interested in STEM, while also serving as representation for multiracial children. While these explorations are from a US context, these could be useful for exploring both STEM and multiracial representations in media. This study also aims to explore how these characters act as conduits to address stereotypes of STEM cultures and Asian Americans that have yet to be addressed in media. By examining Big Hero 6 and The Incredibles, we can encourage the continued participation of Asian Americans in STEM as something to be desired.

Rebekah Brammer teaches English as a Second Language in Brisbane, Australia and has studied drama, film and television, and applied linguistics and has also lived in the UK and worked for BBC Worldwide. She has been contributing to the Australian film, television and media journals Metro and Screen Education since 2008, with over 20 articles published to date across a range of topics and genres including science fiction, television series and documentary features (https://theeducationshop.com.au/brands/rebekah-brammer). Most recently, she presented a paper at the 2022 conference Blade Runner: Origins & Legacies in the UK. She is a freelance writer with no current academic affiliation. Her Master of Arts was awarded by University of New England, New South Wales with undergraduate studies in Education, Film & Television completed at Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane.

Abstract

In the reality TV series Survivor, and to some extent, its less serious counterpart I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here, alliances between contestants are used to construct dramatic narratives for the audience in order to maintain interest beyond the weekly winning of challenges. Audience and participants alike are aware these alliances are temporary, as there can only be one ultimate winner, so they often inevitably end in betrayal, or are creatively edited to seem so. Similarly, within fictional Battle Royale-style stories, whilst the escalating challenges and elimination of contestants is the key structure upon which the plot hangs, storylines involving alliances are an essential component of the narrative mix. However, the stakes are much higher than in reality television. With the consequence of not only betrayal but death, alliances involving real and faux friendships, sex and power-plays enrich the drama and allow audiences to engage and empathize with characters – aware that they will inevitably mourn the loss of their ‘favorites’, just as fans of reality shows do. Over its episodic narrative and character arcs, Squid Game presents a number of such alliances which will be explored in this presentation, examining the way in which these function within the dystopian style of the series in comparison with the ‘entertainment value’ model of Survivor-type reality TV series. Underpinning research will include that pertaining to reality television (eg: Stuart Richards 2018, Dave Crewe 2020 both ref Survivor; Patrick Keating 2013) and dystopian film narrative and style (eg: Baccolini & Moylan 2003; Vieira 2013).

Elaine Kim-mui E. Chan received her Ph.D in film studies from University of Kent, United Kingdom. She teaches film studies for undergraduate and post-graduate programs at Hong Kong Baptist University. Between 2007 and 2011, she offered general education programs for undergraduate and post-graduate students at The University of Hong Kong. Between 2005 and 2007, she taught film studies and cultural studies at Lingnan University. From 2015, she is appointed by the Hong Kong Arts Development Council as examiners respectively in the areas of Arts Criticism as well as Film and Multi-media Arts. Her academic book entitled Hong Kong Dark Cinema: Film Noir, Reconceptions, and Reflexivity was published by Palgrave Macmillan. This monograph is the first major scholarly investigation of the historical development and contemporary transformation of film noir in today’s Hong Kong. The Chinese-language edition of such a monograph, 遇上黑色電影：香港電影的逆向思維, received in 2019 the 15th Hong Kong Biennial Awards for Chinese Literature, Recommended Prize in the Category of Literary Criticism. Her academic book on traditional Cantonese opera art entitled 古典粤劇《斬二王》的藝術剖析 was published by Commercial Press (Hong Kong ) Limited. Her academic journals, articles and column appear in Journal of Chinese Cinemas, International Journal of Cinema, Hong Kong Economic Journal Monthly, Ming Pao, Hong Kong Economic Times, Tai King Pao, Crossover, and Film Biweekly. Her published script for radio broadcast includes Gone Awry. She was also a producer-director of TV documentary, and producer-copywriter of TV commercial.

Abstract

In his latest pop-song album entitled The Greatest Works of Art (2022), Jay Chou, distinguished Taiwanese singer-songwriter, musician, actor and director, borrows an antiutopian time-travelling theme from his own movie entitled Secret (2007). Chou’s creativity and originality reveals an alternative way of cross-genre practice that successfully reposition and redefines classical and modern works of art in a postmodern sense. In the film, the time-travelling subjects, starring Jay Chou and Guey Lun-Mei, do not coexist historically in life. Their romantic encounter begins when the female protagonist travel in time 20 years ahead of her time. In the course of the film, both of them suffer respectively from the dystopian present and they are also disillusioned in the utopian past. However, they have discovered and enjoyed a different reality which is constituted during their time-travel. I shall describe and analyze such a reality in the Foucauldian term of heterotopia. In a sense of postmodern playfulness, the time-traveler-magician-musician of the MTV is seen as a self-portrayal of Jay Chou. The MTV has a relatively simple plot structure which describes how the protagonist, starring Jay Chou, makes a mark in many great works of the early 20th century through his time travel. The protagonist diegetic enjoys a life of redefining the present through his inspiring intervention in the past. Drawing on Barad’s theory of material feminism of (Barad, 2003, 2007, 2014, 2021), I shall study how the transformed materiality of the gendered time-travelling bodies could offer a new way of understanding human condition and social behavior. Rereading the relationship between the material and the social, this paper will also provide a clue to re-examine and critique how the popular media intra-act and interact. In due course, the cultural text would bring new insights for our understanding of contemporary art and life. Affiliation: Hong Kong Baptist University E-mail: elainekmchan@gmail.com or elainekmchan@hkbu.edu.hk

Lynda Clopp is currently exploring Ph.D. program options after having graduated from Tiffin University with a MH in Film Studies in 2021. Her master’s thesis research focused on the intersection of binge culture, nostalgia, and remediation. Her current research interests continue around these core topics, and she is now exploring how the continued expansions of streaming services are creating transnational impacts within American popular culture.

Abstract

In 2013 Netflix normalized “binge-watching” and became a producer of “Original” content with a commitment to foreign content dominating the streaming market. In 2020, this content combined with America’s love of the horror genre combined for their two “Original” series “Squid Game” from South Korea and “Alice in Borderland” from Japan to be big hits for U.S. audiences.

Netflix’s initial release of “Alice in Borderland” was very popular and the release of “Squid Game” nine months later led to new viewers to Borderland propelling Alice and J-horror back to multiple worldwide Netflix Top 10 lists. The shows’ shared theme of gaming, which is relatable to global viewers continues to lead to fan participation online including discussions and debates of what games viewers want included in the next seasons and curiosity about potential third seasons. The transnational popularity of these series has compelled Netflix to produce additional seasons to satisfy fans. Netflix also will attempt to allow people to further explore their own childhood nostalgia through gaming with a spin off social experiment/reality series “Squid: The Challenge” which will allow contestants to compete in childhood games for a large cash prize.

My presentation will explore how these series attracted viewers by appealing to their childhood nostalgia through gaming. Gaming, from simple school yard games to video games is a universal experience. Additionally, the character’s ability to survive the horror requires them to look to their own inner child and personal nostalgia of gaming. This combination requires the viewer to play their own game as they attempt to un-puzzle the action throughout the series leading them to want to continue to binge and participate in the fandom of the genre.

Donald Collins is a writer, editor, and PhD student at UCLA in the Cinema & Media Studies program. They earned their MA in East Asian Studies from USC in 2020, where they focused on East Asian New Wave cinema, specifically from South Korea. His current research interests center around Americans’ growing consumption of international and non-English language media; this includes engagement with subtitles and audio dubs, and how digital media globalization and streaming are changing our media landscape and media practices. A second major focus is independent theaters as sites of community engagement with indie and international film (and their creators). Collins volunteers weekly with The American Cinematheque, one of LA’s largest cultural nonprofits, working screenings and retrospectives.

Abstract

South Korean director Bong Joon Ho’s latest feature Parasite (2019) achieved unprecedented success in The United States for a Korean film, becoming the first “foreign language” feature to win “Best Picture” at the Academy Awards. Parasite represents a return to Bong’s art cinema-leanings, and an additional return from transnational projects to a distinctly localized type of Korean filmmaking. Korea’s long, fraught history with the US government and Hollywood provides context for the political and socioeconomic commentary and use of Hollywood genres in Bong’s work. The director uses self-described “local” detail to craft realistic, complex characters that in turn possess “universal” appeal.

Both young South Koreans and Americans in urban centers may find the problems facing Parasite’s “poor” characters particularly resonant; debt, housing insecurity, job competition in cities, a struggle for upward mobility and lack of access to education. The internal organic growth of Korean diasporic populations in the US alongside the external strategic promotion of Korean media and culture from the Korean government primed Parasite’s warm welcome in America. Despite Americans’ longstanding notions of Hollywood movies’ superior quality, and aversion to non-English language films, younger generations are demonstrating increased receptivity to subtitled works and non-English-language media. The advent of streaming and Millennial and Gen Z proficiency with social media both contributed to the online buzz propelling Parasite’s rise, and to interest in other Korean media at large. While Parasite’s US success does not suggest that American audiences have triumphed over their traditionally xenophobic tendencies, the film’s splash presents opportunities for meaningful discussion about the importance of crossover medias, forcing a moment of self-reflection on Hollywood, and illuminating promising trends in the attitudes of younger generations towards non-English language media.

B. Marina Ayala-Estrada is an intern for the bachelor’s degree in history at the School of Philosophy and Arts of the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Currently, she works as a Project Manager and lead Researcher in Ihtoa Games, an indie videogame studio. She has also worked as a research assistant to Dr. Ivan ValdezBubnov from the Historical Research Institute of the UNAM, to Dr. Marion Amies, an independent researcher from Camberra, Australia, and Dr. Meha Priyadarshini from the University of Edimburg. Her lines of research focus on Japan during the 20th century, Japanese popular culture, the construction of identity in Japan as a result of cultural exchange, and recently, the development of music in Japan during the 20th and 21st centuries.

Abstract

The Yōkai are supernatural beings from Japanese mythology who can take many shapes and forms, as a result of the complicated human imagination and emotions through history. In historiography Yokai can be traced back to the 8th century in the Kojiki, the Record of Ancient Matters. However, it was not until the Edo period that the Yokai gained popularity in all social strata due to artistic productions such as ukiyo-e and kabuki, this period being know as the Golden Era of Yokai. Soon after, with the opening of the country to the world, and the competition with the Western powers, the Japanese government wanted to obliterate any trace of supernatural believes in favor of modernization, rational thinking and scientific progress, and so with the arrival of the military government the Yokai were forgotten. Nevertheless, after World War II with Gegege no Kitaro in 1959 that Yokai regained their influence in popular culture, and today they are depicted in anime, manga, movies, fashion and even videogames. This is the case of Touhou Project, a series of home computer video games created by the only member of Team Shanghai Alice, Ota Jun'ya a.k.a ZUN; whose popularity has reached sky-high levels, both inside and outside Japan, where annual fan conventions are held. The game was even awarded a Guinness World Record in 2010 being called "the most prolific fan-based shooter series" ever created. But why did this videogame series gain such popularity not just in Japan but in other countries too? Is this popularity thanks to the way Yokai are represented? Or is it due to the mechanics of the game? In this paper the representation of the Yokai and their world in Touhou Project game series will be discussed, as well as the impact on popular culture inside and outside of Japan.

Carrie Lynn Evans is a PhD student in English Literature at Université Laval in Quebec. Her master’s thesis focused on gender, technology, and cyborg theory in Frank Herbert’s Dune. Her dissertation work seeks precedent for contemporary American astroculture, as expressed through science fiction and the public imaginary, in ancient travel stories, including Homer’s Odyssey. In addition to sci-fi, her research interests include technology and culture, horror, and postmodern theory.

Abstract

Science fiction (SF) and dystopian narratives frequently engage in social critique by means of invented settings, scenarios, and peoples that function as allegories of the present, revealing a culture’s collective anxieties and values. Comparing trends in the themes of American SF stories with those of Asian countries, such as South Korea, China, and Japan, for example, brings their respective concerns into greater relief through contrast. Specifically, American SF tends to foreground novel technologies as plot devices and indicators of social attitudes toward the techno-sciences: early “hard SF” reflects the confidence and enthusiasm for the stunning advancements of the World War era, whereas the “soft SF” and dystopian works of the 1960s and later reflect the US’s disillusionment during the Cold War. For many American SF readers like myself, it is an unremarkable convention that the obstacle or threat at the centre of a science fiction story emanates from technology or its unanticipated consequences. This is often not the case in Asian SF, however, highlighting the extent to which this convention reflects a distinctively American relationship to technology. In the many popular Asian SF films and TV series of the last decade, technological novum form important elements of the setting but the threat usually emanates from elsewhere, such as the evil of individuals or society, suggesting a fundamentally different attitude to the role of technology in Asian cultures. This paper’s aim will be to identify trends across several examples of both American and Asian SF. In addition to suggesting some tentative conclusions about the way technological innovation is received within these cultures, this approach should also shed light on how the genre’s very different histories of development within each region have contributed to these thematic differences.

Jimmy B. Dillo, Jr. is an Assistant Professor at De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde, Antipolo City, Philippines, where he teaches language, literature, and popular culture courses. In 2018, he graduated with a Master of Arts in Literary and Cultural Studies from Ateneo de Manila University. His interests focus on the cultural reading of texts using historical-aesthetic approaches, trauma and memory studies, translation studies, baroque studies in literature, spatial studies, and popular culture./p>

Abstract

Netflix’s popular series The Squid Game (2021) is framed by childhood games, which were nostalgic but strange at the same time. The series shows an underlying horror in which these particular childhood concepts become horrifying because of their violent end. This combination between childhood games and the real-life struggles of adulthood in the series became the impulse of this paper. To explore this idea, the paper uses Sigmund Freud’s notion of the uncanny, where a discomfort departs from a time that is nostalgically familiar and a space where one should feel most secure to a violent return on the characters as adults. Through a textual and visual analysis of the series, I argue that the uncanny in the series is the un/homely consequence of the squid game: (1) it is the homely return to childhood; and (2) it is an unhomely turn against the childhood memory that cannot be controlled and predicted. The paper claims that the horror in the squid game is caused by a familiarity whose unfamiliarity is instantiated by the return of forgotten memories. Keywords: Uncanny, The Squid Game, Korean Studies, Thriller, Horror

Abstract

This paper looks into the appeal of watching Korean dramas (KDramas) among college students who were enrolled in a Hallyu (Korean Wave)-specific course in the University of the Philippines Diliman. Based on a focus-group discussion conducted in May 2022, we interrogate kilig, a positive affective emotion associated with love and romance among Filipinos, and its role in attracting and retaining young KDrama viewers. While other factors such as production value, storyline, and actor appeal are at work as South Korea produces television series that attract global audience, the paper emphasizes kilig as a desirable affective response that keeps viewers wanting more. Thus, while kilig is not confined in KDramas, the rise of Hallyu increased the availability and accessibility of kilig in local TV channels, online streaming sites, and apps. Furthermore, kilig manifests itself in fan activities fostered by online fandoms and celebrity social media engagement that drive the consumption of Kdramas as Korean cultural product.

Oluwatoyin Gbadebo is an undergraduate student in International Studies and Political Science at Central Connecticut State University.

Abstract

This paper will examine the Netflix series “Squid Games” and how this phenomenon has brought awareness to hyperviolence, and economic disparities within society today. In the show characters such as Gi-hun who is facing a gambling problem; he lacks stability to provide for his daughter's well-being and have healthcare access for his mother. Ali Abdul is a migrant from Pakistan who is being exploited at the factory by his boss because he has no status and documents and suffers from being overworked and being underpaid. Sae Byeok is a defector from North Korea who struggles to establish herself in her new homeland and does not have enough money to bring the rest of her family to South Korea. These narratives are the reality of many citizens in South Korea because the economic disparities there are on a high due to interest rates, accessible loans, unemployment, and lack of protection rights for the undocumented within this country. This makes the marginalized population in this show to be more vulnerable, and desperate to play the Squid Games to change their standard of living. Hopelessness is the motivation to play these children's games with the expectation to die for the million dollars. The extremism of violence is the actual show of how the Squid Games is the “Survival of the fittest”. Every competitor is fighting for their lives, fighting for a new start, fighting to exist in this capitalist society. The extremism shows the innocence of adults playing children games and the darkness of their death where the bodies are unrecognizable. This represents the lower class ultimately struggling to climb the ladder to have privilege and opportunity. And as they pass away, they no longer have any value to society. The players become disposable individuals with no identities.

Dr. Emily Marie Anderson Hall is a lecturer specializing in Korean History and cultural studies at the University of Washington in the departments of History and Asian Languages and Literature.

Abstract

In South Korea, the post-apocalyptic genre has continued to grow in popularity over the years, especially in webtoons, where it often takes the form of the zombie apocalypses though not always in the traditional form of “zombies.” While most of these webtoons follow the zombie apocalyptic narrative structure of outbreak and survival, the zombies or zombie-like monsters in webtoons take on additional meanings and characteristics beyond the mindless drones usually depicted in zombie narratives. This is especially seen in the webtoons Sweet Home and Dead Days, where the monster embodies the Buddhist concept of desire in the heart of the monstrous form and the root of suffering in this world. This paper will explore the representation of desire in post-apocalyptic narrative webtoons and how the corruption of desire is reflective of trauma and tensions within South Korean society and historical experiences.

Loraine Haywood is an Honorary Associate Lecturer in the School of Humanities and Social Science, College of Human and Social Futures, and a Higher Degree Research Candidate in the School of Environmental and Life Sciences at the University of Newcastle, Australia. She takes an interdisciplinary approach to her research.

Loraine’s research draws on the theories of Paul Kingsbury and Steve Pile in psychoanalytic geography, Jean Baudrillard, the psychoanalytic theory of Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan, and their development in social, cultural, and film theory by Todd McGowan and Slavoj Žižek. She has recently published book chapters and articles on Game of Thrones, Tom Cruise, and Joker (Phillips 2019). Her recent publication focused on translating trauma in the interplanetary geographies of film, Baudrillard and the Prophetic: Reimagining the Twin Towers in Avengers Infinity War” (2021). .

Abstract

Western capitalism is a labyrinth, a structure that requires the sacrifice of human bodies to satiate the appetite; to “enjoy”. Squid Game (SG) (Dong-hyuk, 2021-), can be analyzed as an immersion in primordial threads and archetypes, the ancient myths that concern structures of the labyrinth and the maze as the characters attempt to navigate “the labyrinthine chaos of capitalism” (Haywood 2020, 1). The labyrinth of the city and the maze on the island are mirror worlds that are like the Labyrinth of Crete, and Ariadne’s dancing floor performed in the light of day that imitated the twists and turns of the maze (Ghiselin, 1972, 46; Kern 2000, 110-112).

In SG, the games of childhood are imitated and are played in a maze-like structure built and designed for entertainment. Gi-hun faces death in this maze where games are distorted, perverted, and twisted, for the obscene illicit desires of capitalist monsters. One of these incarnate billionaires fills a role similar to that of the father in Freud’s myth of the primal horde. Lacan developed this theory further as the obscene “father of enjoyment” (Evans 1996, 119). When Gi-hun survives the maze on the island and returns home, instead of escaping death, he finds like Theseus that “one labyrinth opens into another” (Savitz 1991, 476); the city is a labyrinth with death at its centre.

This paper argues that because the narrative of SG critiques capitalism, the series is bound to western foundations such as the horrors of the Labyrinth of Crete. It is an engagement with the intertwining dynamics of primitive structures in the rise of human societies, the power of myth that structures the story, the labyrinth as human journey, and the inherent structure that holds capitalism in place. In SG the ancient myth of the Labyrinth of Crete is an archetype, a Master narrative, an overarching text, a stage upon which human lives are performed, written, and told. Drawing on interdisciplinary works I explore SG in the traps of capitalism that is an augmenting matrix, a labyrinth, that uses bodies for illicit desires.

Young A Jung is an assistant professor of the Korean Studies Program, Department of Modern and Classical Languages at George Mason University. One of her recent essays, “Mobile Media and Kirogi Mothers: Place-Making and the reimagination of Transnational Korean Family Intimacies,” was published in Mobile Media and Asian Social Intimacies (eds. by Jason Vincent A. Cabanes and Cecilia S. Uy-Tioco, Springer, 2020). Her current research project, “Division and Connections: Korean Popular Culture Fans’ Racial Dynamics,” examines the racial dynamics of Korean popular culture fan communities and explores the (im)possibilities of constructing panracial fan communities.

Abstract

One of the mega-hit Netflix series, Squid Game’s English subtitles, raised controversies among international and domestic K-drama fans. Allegedly featured as an allegorical satire for the late capitalist society, Squid Game illustrates uncomfortable contexts of South Korean culture behind and between the subtitles. When a female main character, “Minyeo,” tries to convince the peer game participants to play with her, the closed-caption translation says, “I'm not a genius, but I still got it to work out. Huh?” However, the correct interpretation of this line is, “I am very smart. I just never got a chance to study.” International fans do not realize the meaning of this line due to an insensitive English translation. When one of the male main characters, “Ilnam,” suggests forming “kkanbu” in episode six, the subtitle translates this as “a good friend who can share with.” Still, the actual meaning is “an alliance” whose aim is to maximize teamwork and benefits. Many kinship terms are also translated without delivering cultural nuances and contexts. However, international fans respond to the YouTube videos telling translation mistakes with diverse positions, from resisting corrective meaning to negotiating with original meaning to adopting explanations. Based on an online ethnography analyzing discourses and observing fans’ responses on various online platforms, this study explores the possibility of fans’ social engagement and transformation of received meaning. While participating in conversations with other fans, international fans negotiate meanings and enhance cultural understanding.

Nahida Kibria Choudhury is a Ph.D. candidate, supervised by Professor Karin Littau, at the University of Essex. Her research examines politicized intertextuality within dystopian fiction with a focus on memory, narrative, and identity.

Abstract

This paper proposes to examine the textured intertextual relationship dystopian fiction creates between history and the present through an analysis of Squid Game (2021) and the anime series Psycho Pass (2012). Jameson’s well-known critique that it is easier to imagine the end of the world rather than imagine an alternative to capitalism can be bought into dialogue to appreciate both these dystopian depictions of our world (Fisher, 2009). One captures the essence of the reality we live in by relaying the complexities of post-capitalism through fiction. The second text speculatively imagines a hyper-policed totalitarian state which has supposedly created a ‘perfect’ [isolated] economy through technological advancement.

Squid Game cultivates a poignant critique of post-capitalism capturing the reality of the poverty cycle and the illusion of hope that is sold to society. Unlike the Japanese Netflix show Alice in Borderland (2020), this game is not necessarily based on skill, hence the reality of the unfairness and the hopelessness of systematic capitalism rings sharper. Psycho-Pass, on the other hand, is a classic isolated dystopia (where history has been erased) where citizens’ minds are constantly scanned, shriveled, and policed in an Orwellian fashion. It also collates a literary intertextual mosaic with literary references presenting different ideologies and fragments of the past. This paper will primarily focus on this dystopia’s exploration of panoptical surveillance alongside the state policing of thought and identity.

The theoretical apparatus of this paper will draw from Kristeva’s intertextual ‘mosaic’ (Kristeva, 1980), Foucault’s ‘panopticism’ (Foucault,1977), and Zuboff’s work on surveillance capitalism ( Zuboff, 2019). Furthermore, Stam and Hutcheon’s work on adaptation will be bought into dialogue to discuss Psycho-Pass’s relationship to Blade Runner (Hutcheon, 2006). Fisher and Zizeck’s discussion of Jameson’s aforementioned argument of capitalism will also be engaged to examine Squid Game’s extended metaphor of capitalism (Fisher, 2009).

The theoretical apparatus of this paper will draw from Kristeva’s intertextual ‘mosaic’ (Kristeva, 1980), Foucault’s ‘panopticism’ (Foucault,1977), and Zuboff’s work on surveillance capitalism ( Zuboff, 2019). Furthermore, Stam and Hutcheon’s work on adaptation will be bought into dialogue to discuss Psycho-Pass’s relationship to Blade Runner (Hutcheon, 2006). Fisher and Zizeck’s discussion of Jameson’s aforementioned argument of capitalism will also be engaged to examine Squid Game’s extended metaphor of capitalism (Fisher, 2009).

Eunyoung Kim (Ph.D., University of Alabama) is an Associate Professor of Communication at Auburn University at Montgomery. Her research interests include relationship management, social media, and sport communication.

Abstract

Korean pop music and television drama began to be known globally in the late 1990s, and the Korean Wave or Hallyu began to attract attention in academia and the media industry (Jin, 2017; Jin & Yoon, 2016). Recently, a more developed and new form of consumption of Korean culture centered on social media is called Korean Wave 4.0 (Jin, 2018; Lee, H. E., Gao, Q., Yu, S. K., & Chung, Y. K., 2018). Social media communication helps the younger generation expand their perception of global media from physical geographic boundaries to virtual ones. Therefore, it gives them different perceptions of cross-national and cross-cultural media consumption from previous generations (Zhang & Yoon, 2018). Especially K-pop on YouTube led to the popularity of Korean pop music recently (Baek, 2015), and K-pop fans actively communicate with their musicians and other fans through other social media platforms. Based on the literature review, this study plans to conduct an online survey on the impact of social media usage by US youth on the future intention to use Korean media content and cultural distance. First, considering the importance of social media in the consumption of Korean media content, this study focused on the positive relationships between social media usage by US youth and intention to use Korean media content. Also, scholars found that audiences' perception of cultural distance affects their media content in different cultures (Baek, 2015). Therefore, this study will use regressions to see if social media usage and the perception of cultural distance affect future intention to use Korean media content and cultural products. This study's results can provide theoretical and practical implications on how the concept of cultural distance can be explained in the context of social media platforms and Korean media consumption.

Eunhye Grace Kim is Assistant Professor in Tourism & Hospitality Studies at Central Connecticut State University

Abstract

COVID-19 has significantly influenced all parts of daily life for people around the globe. During the pandemic as people became exhausted due to a much longer lockdown than expected, they needed to find cultural programs that resonated with their new normal life. OTT (over-the-top) service platforms, like Netflix, Apple TV, Hulu, and Disney+, have played a vital role as people have more opportunities to watch cultural content on these platforms (Jin, 2022).

While the pandemic has certainly shifted the media environment surrounding cultural production, Korean popular culture (K-pop culture) has continued to expand its global reach. Numerous Korean cultural programs including BTS’s music, the movie Parasite (2019), and dramas such as Kingdom (2019–2020), Squid Game (2021), and Pachinko (2022) have greatly penetrated the globe via various OTT platforms (Jin, 2022).

The spread and popularity of K-pop abroad started with the Korean dramas in the 1990s with TV dramas, films, and popular music becoming a large part of the cultural export industry by the early 2000s (Huat & Iwabuchi 2008; Kim & Tahira, 2022). Since the 2000s, Korean pop culture industries have expanded into new fields including fashion, online (or video) games, high-tech lifestyles, beauty products, food (K-cuisine), and traditional language (Walsh, 2014; Seon & Kim, 2020). Various fields are integrated into a single production through place branding together with marketing components to promote Korea through tourism promotion and the use of various cultural products (Kim & Tahira, 2022).

There have been studies that analyze the positive effect of K-pop culture in tourism literature. Some studies prove that the increasing popularity of K-pop culture has resulted in an increase in inbound tourist demand (Bae, Chang, Park & Kim, 2017; Seo & Kim, 2022). Increase in popularity of K-pop culture products makes Korea a desirable tourist destination to K-pop consumers as it increases familiarity, brings a positive effect on the destination image, and eventually contributes to the positive brand equity of Korea (O’Connell, 2005; Kim, Chen & Chiou-Wei, 2009; Leslie & Russell, 2006, Su, Huang, Brodowsky & Kim, 2011; Seo & Kim, 2020).

Several studies show the relationships between K-pop culture and tourism especially with quantitative methods, but there are not many in-depth evaluations on what makes those inbound travelers desire to visit Korea and if they are willing to revisit or recommend/invite their friends and family to visit Korea, i.e., loyalty perspectives. This study would like to explore the relationship by conducting in-depth interviews with those who are visiting Korea. The results are expected to show the comprehensive relationship between the influences of K-pop culture and building a positive destination image for the destination marketing/branding purpose.

Yeojin Julie Kim is an Associate Professor of Department of Communication at Central Connecticut State University. Her research and teaching interest focuses on new media and strategic communication from political, health, education, and intercultural contexts.

Abstract

“Squid Game”, a South Korean television series, has been recognized as the most successful original series for Netflix and recently it is nominated for the Emmy Award as the first-non-English language series. The success of Squid Game is not the first time Korean pop culture made history around the world. Psy’s “Gangnam Style” paved the way to introduce K-Pop in the United States and South Korean boy group and girl group like BTS and Blackpink made a breakthrough into the mainstream music industry globally. Bong Joon-ho’s “Parasite” as the first non-English film won the best picture film at the 2020 Oscars.

The influx of Korean pop culture has been explained as a term of Korean Wave, which refers to “the recent increase in the popularity of Korean cultural projects such as television dramas, movies, popular music (K-pop) and dance (B-boys), video games as well to a lesser extent toward Korean fashion, food, tourism and language” (Jang & Paik, 2012, p. 196). The Korean Wave was emerged in the late 1990s as Korean TV drama “Dae Jang Geum” gained popularity in China. Since then, Korean TV dramas, K-pop song, and Korean films has been popular in Asian countries.

With widespread use of digital technologies and social media, K-content has been created and distributed in various forms that enables users to interact through social media. Through this New Korean Wave, the influence of Korean pop culture has been expanded beyond Asian countries to throughout the world, including North American and Europe. While there has been growing scholarly attentions to examine the New Korean Wave, it still remains unknown to examine why K-content is so popular out of the flood of content created in different cultures, noting different social media platforms. To fill this scholarly gap, this study examines how specifically different social media platforms combined with socio-cultural factors play a role in the recent booming of K-content around the world.

Yeogeun Sue Kim holds a PhD from the University of Oxford and explores transmedia translations in Korean culture; her research interests include reception theory, media studies, and visual culture. As a visual artist, she also founded a program on art and environment. Taught at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom and Dartmouth College in the United States, she is currently teaching at Kyungpook National University. Her recent publications include “Performed Intermediate and Beyond in the BTS Music Video Idol: K-Pop idol identities in contemporary Hallyu.” East Asian Journal of Popular Culture 6.2 (2020).

Abstract

Scholarly attention has been given to fan-based social engagements; notably, Ashley Hinck (2019) has recently examined what she calls “fan-based citizenship.” This paper looks at fanbased vehement citizenship performances that have been recognized in the everyday affective political engagement, following the Korean 2022 presidential election. To this end, virtual ethnography is employed to investigate social interactions in virtual environments, such as web-based discussion forums and group chats in social media. Fans not only act as textual poachers (Henry Jenkins 2012), but they also take part in mobilizing to promote social and political good. In particular, the focus is given to popular culture fandom languages featured in their efforts to curate the information flow in social media, which is conducted by clarifying, verifying or even correcting information pertinent to their shared interest and community values.

Nicole Kristina Kirschner is a German/Polish scholar with a rich international background, having been raised in countries such as Japan, South Korea and the United Arab Emirates. She obtained her bachelor’s degree in Public Relations at the Canadian University Dubai where she graduated summa cum laude. After making a name for herself in the fashion journalism industry in the UAE she moved to the USA to pursue her master’s degree in communication at the California State University East Bay. Here she produced this research in connected with her studies dedicated to unraveling the deep-rooted cultural hegemonic practices in media while researching its eminence for the identity formation of third culture kids.

Abstract

The sudden and explosive rise to fame of the Squid Game is an unparalleled occurrence of active and global scale cultural phenomenon that challenges the previously hegemonic transnational culture flow from the West, in this case Hollywood, to the East. The Squid Game series has managed to bring Korean customs, food and language closer to the viewer and even making them engage with it. Of specific interest is that this show, opposed to other previous international Asian export media such as K-pop or Japanese Manga for example, did not just appeal to a niche audience but is welcomed and participated by a vast transverse section of society, encompassing various age groups. This rise in Korean media productions and popular culture popularity seems to be a part of a larger pattern forming that sees a steadily growing significant shift of hegemonic, cultural, transnational flow and Squid Game has the potential to be a momentous catalyst in this process. I have conducted a cultural communication study comprised of two main communication frameworks: The framework of the popular and the critical cultural methodology of political economy. I deploy a political economy methodology to break up the contributing factors to investigate the conditions that allowed the Squid Game phenomenon to flourish. I argue for a strong tendency towards the growing Korean New Wave movement that may not tumble the USA cultural hegemony anytime soon but is on a promising path to maybe match up to it someday. The social phenomenon caused by the Squid Game television series, in context with the rich history of the Hallyu growth strategy, has given many presumptive evidence that there is justified basis for the need to start challenging the beliefs about hegemonic culture dissemination and expanding the horizon past the Western culture machine.

Dharshani Lakmali Jayasinghe is Assistant Professor of Anglophone and World Literatures at the Department of English at Central Connecticut State University. She works on topics in migration, borders, and human rights in world literature and film.

Abstract

Despite Squid Game’s global popularity, there has been criticism of the show’s explicit depictions of violence, which bled out of the screen to affect reality when, for instance, children started to re-enact screen violence on their playgrounds. While gratuitous violence is a key ingredient of Hollywood fare (and many other media industries), Squid Game, transcends such sensationalized violence. This paper argues that the violence present in Squid Game is a narrative necessity and its primary allegory, without which the show’s Yeatsian “center cannot hold”. It is the diegetic violence that holds the different strands of Hwang Dong-hyuk’s masterpiece together. While the violence is necessary to the scathing critique of capitalism, it is also a crucial element in the visual and material articulation of the embedded violence of the human psyche. Squid Game is a masterful exploration of the horrors of the human mind, well-executed through the portrayal of player 001 or Oh Il-nam, the architect of the Squid Game and hence of its violence. The VIPs and the Game’s employees normalize violence as an essential element of entertainment or lucrative financial opportunity (to the degree that organ trafficking of eliminated players has become a side gig for a group of employees). At this level, the human penchant for gratuitous, deliberate, and lucrative violence, reflective in umpteen examples from the non-ludological “real” world, appears more problematic than the mere performance of onscreen violence replete with blood and blades. The stylized and hyper-articulated violence embedded in the culture and the alternate reality of Squid Game functions as the show’s key allegory, which depicts the insouciant violence inherent in capitalist structures and human nature. The diegetic violence of Squid Game, therefore, needs to be understood as inseparable from the thematic and aesthetic concerns of Squid Game.

Seung-hoon Jeong is an assistant professor of film and electronic arts at California State University Long Beach. He wrote Cinematic Interfaces: Film Theory after New Media (Routledge, 2013), co-translated Jacques Derrida’s Acts of Literature into Korean (Moonji, 2013), co-edited The Global Auteur: The Politics of Authorship in 21st Century Cinema (Bloomsbury, 2016), guest-edited the special issue of Studies in the Humanities titled “Global East Asian Cinema: Abjection and Agency” (2019), co-edited Thomas Elsaesser’s The Mind-Game Film: Distributed Agency, Time Travel, and Productive Pathology (Routledge, 2021), and wrote Global Cinema: A Biopolitical and Ethical Reframing (Oxford University Press, 2023).

Abstract

The remote game island in Squid Game is an allegorical space detached from reality and yet reflects the entire world system in which the state of exception, embodied by the island, is intrinsic. Game players pursue their supra-legal desires while following the rules of the games that are fundamentally permissive, contingent, and self-modulating. While this contradiction is naturalized, they internalize the biopolitical ideology of neoliberal capitalism, the law of fair competition and free choice turning into the free-for-all survivalism justified in a war of all against all. Updating Michel Foucault’s notion of heterotopia, I will address the game island as a ‘reflexive heterotopia’ in this aspect; an ‘other’ space that complementarily counters the rest of the world while mirroring the whole world, including the very exceptional place, self-reflexively. Here, the gamers, though degraded into bare lives to be slaughtered, also experience a sort of existential gift-giving to each other, unexpected sacrifice and guilt entailing ethical indebtedness beyond capitalist calculation.

Such ambivalence not only emerges through different phases in the drama but also expands through its unprecedentedly viral global phenomenon. The losers’ brutal story hit the jackpot in the cultural market. Netflix’s stock price rocketed thanks to the cheaply-produced local drama’s globally appealing harsh critique of capitalism. Following Parasite, Squid Game became another global Korean product that manifested the ‘performative self-contradiction’ of the capitalist market capitalizing on anti-capitalist culture and vice versa. This paradoxical feedback loop of mutual benefits underlies today’s cultural survivalism. Media content can depict capitalistic catastrophes more cinematically by depending more financially on the capitalist system. Conversely, this system can reinforce itself more powerfully by embracing and investing in such critical content more benevolently. The tug-of-war between cultural products critical of the system and the system reappropriating them proliferates infinitely across a broad spectrum of positions and ideologies. This contextual contradiction is what the reflexive heterotopia ultimately reflects. Then I will ask: what is Squid Game good for?

Kristine Larsen is an astronomy professor and Director of the University Honors Program at Central Connecticut State University. Her teaching and research focus on the intersections between science and society, including the history of science, issues of science and gender, and depictions of science and scientists in popular media. Her recent books include The Women Who Popularized Geology in the 19th Century (2017), Particle Panic! How Popular Media and Popularized Science Feed Public Fears of Particle Accelerator Experiments (2019), and Science, Technology and Magic in The Witcher: A Medievalist Spin on Modern Monsters (Fall 2022).

Abstract

Among the most popular recent horror series streamed on Netflix are the Korean offerings Sweet Home, Hellbound, and Kingdom. Not only are these series particularly gruesome in their violence and body horror, but they tread an interesting line between (pseudo)scientific and spiritual explanations for the apocalyptic events depicted. In portraying an apparently permeable membrane between what is normally considered to be an “either/or” in Western works (for example, the scientific explanation of zombies in World War Z versus the supernatural explanation for the Cenobites in the Hellraiser series) such works facilitate a discussion on the nature of science. For example, Kingdom interrogates the modern prejudice in Western culture that frequently denigrates pre-modern and folk knowledge (especially as it applies to medicine) as superstition, while Sweet Home plays with the modern (post-Mary Shelley) definition of a scientifically created “monster” in creative ways. Finally, Hellbound speculates on how society might respond when neither science nor mainstream spiritualism/religion can provide an explanation to super-natural/supernatural events.

Micky Lee is a professor of media studies at Suffolk University, Boston. Her research interests intersect global communication; information, technology, and finance; and feminist political economy. She is the author and editor of ten books.

Abstract

Wong Kar-wai, one of the most acclaimed arthouse directors from Hong Kong, portrayed in 2046 (2004) a dystopian future imagined by a writer in the 1960s. In this writer's sci-fi story, passengers board a train to an unknown destination where nothing changes. However, one passenger travels in the opposite direction and falls in love with a gynoid train attendant who has a delayed response to his love. In Wong's cinematic imagination, time is beyond control and love is unrequited.

2046 reflects Hong Kong people's anxiety about the future since 1970s. This angst reached a tipping point in 2019 when millions took to the street and demanded the Central Chinese government to give Hong Kong people a political agency as stipulated by the Sino-British Joint Declaration which guarantees that the Hong Kong way of life be unchanged till 2046. To counter the hegemonic Chinese state, protestors occupied urban space where they openly declared love for the city. The protestors have successfully attracted international attention partly because of their references to local and international popular media, such as a 1960s television show Under the Lion Rock, Bruce Lee's “Be like water” speech from Enter the Dragon (1973), and the line “If we burn, you burn with us” from The Hunger Games: Mockingjay (2014). These references, like Wong's 2046, reminisced a better past while projecting a hopeless future.

This paper argues that while references to popular culture have effectively garnered international attention and resonated with young people elsewhere, they—like Wong's cinematic images in 2046—reinforce the notion that Hong Kong is a node for global cultural exchange and an imagined site formed through and by digital signals. Seeing Hong Kong as an immaterial space would hide the many unequal distribution of resources, from work hours to housing shortage. The struggle to change the Hong Kong narrative would require connecting immaterial discourses with material resource allocation, such as exposing the labour required in cultural production.

Sunah Lee is a Ph. D. student in the School of Communication, Florida State University. She worked as a news reporter at a South Korean 24-hour news network, YTN, from 2005 to 2018. Her research concerns journalism, labor in the media industry, and gender in media.

Jennifer M. Proffitt, Ph.D., is a Professor in the School of Communication at Florida State University. Her research focuses on political economy of communication, including media regulation and ownership, broadcast history, sports coverage, and labor issues.

Abstract

This paper explores the ways in which recent South Korean [herein Korean] dystopian television shows on Netflix successfully penetrated the transcultural market. The fact that the most-watched show on the world's largest streaming service is a non-English drama series offers a need for a new approach to the existing discussion on the transcultural quality of the Korean Wave or Hallyu. The unprecedented popularity of Korean dystopian shows suggests that prior theories emphasizing the dilution of locality for transcultural success do not entirely fit when it comes to Korean dystopian storytelling. Through a narrative analysis of recent Korean hits on Netflix, including Squid Game, Hellbound, Kingdom, and All of Us Are Dead, we illustrate how the Korean-ness intensifies the dystopian context and makes the narratives more believable. The shows also share a trenchant criticism of the grim realities of neoliberal capitalism, including class inequalities and abuses of power by elites. We thus argue that these shows’ transcultural appeal is due to its successful amalgamation of the distinctive locality of South Korea and the growing feeling of insecurity among the global audience. We also call for more attention to Korean television series produced and distributed by transnational streaming services, as discussions of what scholars call Korean Wave 2.0 and 3.0 tend to highlight K-Pop music and reality shows.

Rod Metts teaches in the Department of Communication Studies at California State University San Bernardino. He teaches courses in Media, Culture, and Society, Visual Communication, Film History, and Television and Video Production. His papers have been published in Visual Anthropology, FEEDBACK, and the Journal of Media Education. His B.A. and M.A. are in Radio and Television from San Francisco State University, and his Ph.D. is from The Ohio State University.

Abstract

In his essay on The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Siegfried Kracauer writes about the settings—“the settings amounted to a perfect transformation of material objects into emotional ornaments . . . the ornamental system . . . expanded through space, annulling its conventional aspect by means of painted shadows in disharmony with the lighting effects, and zigzag delineations designed to efface all rules of perspective” (69). While we may not think, German Expressionist styles, when watching Squid Game there are numerous parallels here. How else to talk about the stylized surfaces (the Escher-like staircase and uniforms), the geometric shapes (on the faces masks, and elsewhere), the symmetry and juxtaposition of similar shapes, and the jagged lines? In Squid Game, the settings also evoke emotional responses that draw attention to the surface of things—there is a uniformity and precision—an authoritarian spell to keep the chaos in check—the colors, the lines, the symmetry all suggest “a perfect transformation of material objects into emotional ornaments” just as Kracauer wrote about in Caligari (p. 69). Beneath this surface, however, is another “reality.” Just like the fair in Caligari, the Island in Squid Game is a place where adults regress

into childhood days, in which games and serious affairs are identical, real and imagined things mingle, and anarchical desires aimlessly test infinite possibilities. By means of this regression the adult escapes a civilization which tends to overgrow and starve out the chaos of instincts—escapes it to restore that chaos upon which civilization nevertheless results. The fair if not freedom, but anarchy entailing chaos (Kracauer p. 73).

To which I offer, the island is not freedom, but the promise of “freedom” under the veneer of emotional ornaments, and yet another expression of “anarchy entailing chaos.” The playground’s overly emotional ornaments, colorful and larger than life, the Robot Doll, for example smiling, deadly, and dangerous. The living space filled with bodies—‘the cult of physical culture,’ but lost in empty space. In this paper, I look at Squid Game through Kracauer’s reading of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Both the film and the series appear at crucial moments in history where societies are wavering between tyranny and chaos.

Elizabeth Neyssen is a graduate student at Central Connecticut State University. She is majoring in international studies, focusing on the discipline of political science in the East Asia region. Much of my research has focused on China and China’s foreign relations. Neyssen received her bachelor's degree in International Studies with a focus in East Asian studies from Central Connecticut State University in May 2022. She is a substitute teacher at Somers High School. Neyssen was previously an intern for the World Affairs Council of Connecticut and helped to organize the Model United Nations for Fall 2022. In the future, she plans to pursue a career in higher education.

Abstract

This paper will explore the use of VPNs to watch “Squid Game” in China. VPNs, or virtual private networks, have increasingly been used in China to access foreign media. Despite China banning the popular show, “Squid Game” has been increasingly popular, as people are accessing the show via VPNs. This paper will look at the broader repercussions of VPN use to access foreign media, particularly TV shows and movies that have been banned in China. It will examine the Chinese government’s response, and research potential reasonings behind the bans placed on these shows in China. Finally it will look at the future of VPN use to access foreign media in China and the potential conflicts that may result. I hope to provide insight into the age long question of whether authoritarian regimes can survive amidst growing technology. I aim to prove that VPN use is exceedingly dangerous to China, a country whose government system depends on its control over most aspects of its citizens’ lives. Social commentary media, like the Squid Game, can brew discontentment amongst Chinese citizens and may cause them to question policies and inequality in their country. To answer these questions, this paper will look at statistics of VPN use in China and the resulting government policies. It will also look at news reports of brewing discontentment and aim to connect this to the growing exposure to foreign media. Finally, to eliminate any economic reasoning behind this discontentment, I will be comparing recent data to data from the 2008 global recession to prove that discontentment has been growing not as a result of inflation nor monetary policies, but because of the growing influx of foreign media and ideas, aided by the increasingly widespread use of electronic devices which can be used to access such content.

Sung Eun Park, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communications and Journalism at Webster University. Dr. Park teaches advertising and marketing communications at Webster University, St. Louis, MO. Her research area includes visual communication, health communication, and PSA advertising.

Abstract

Ajumma, a term referring to married Korean women 40 years or older with children, may have received new and positive recognition in recent years outside Korea thanks to their colorful depictions in Korean dramas and other media outlets. Historically within Korean society, Ajumma have often been portrayed as women in middle age who became aggressive and nonchalant about saving their faces because they are self-centered and burdened with many responsibilities (Park, 2014). Thanks to Netflix and YouTube, millions of people have learned about Ajummas and their significance in Korean society.

In many K-Dramas, Ajummas play a pivotal role, often stealing the scene for the main characters. As a side character, Ajummas are funny and make the plot stronger. Most K-drama has at least one Ajumma character or a group that most audiences find entertaining and resonate with. For example, the Ajumma squad from a popular Netflix show, Crash landing on you (CLOY), has received much love from the audience.

The spirit of Ajumma is not limited to K-Dramas only. A recent YouTube video showing a CBS coverage of Ajumma EXP, a dance group of Ajumma doing a series of flash mobs in California, has received more than 3 million views in one month. In their popular video, the group members describe themselves as a group of Ajumma hoping to spread positive energy by reclaiming the word, Ajumma in a more positive way.

This study aims to examine how the term, Ajumma, has been transformed over the years, mainly by people outside of Korea. More specifically, the study will focus on what aspects of Ajumma featured in K-cultures have induced such changes. The study will explore responses from news coverage and comments left as part of reactions to the K-Dramas and K-cultures.

Amanda Potter is Visiting Fellow in the Department of Classical Studies at the Open University, UK, where she was awarded her Ph.D. on viewer reception of classical myth in Xena: Warrior Princess and Charmed in 2014. She has published widely on the ancient world in film, television, and fanfiction, and coedited Ancient Epic in Film and Television (2021).

Abstract

The ancient world has inspired the utopias and dystopias of Japanese animation, perhaps most famously the films of Hayao Miyizaki including Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (1984), where the princess from Homer's Odyssey is reinvented in a post apocalyptic future, Laputa: Castle in the Sky (1986), where the crumbling classical architecture of an ancient civilization hides a secret, and Spirited Away (2001), where humans are turned into pigs and the hero(ine) must outwit a witch in a magical land to return them to their former state. While these, and other Studio Ghibli films have been made available to international audiences for streaming on Netflix, new animated series have been commissioned by the company to appeal to the growing anime fanbase. Two of these series, Blood of Zeus (2020) and Thermae Romae Novae (2022) engage directly with ancient Greece and Rome respectively. In this paper I will argue that the ancient world in these series is portrayed as both dystopia, where gods are vengeful and their are few opportunities for boys, and potential utopias, where a girl can command an army with 'soldiers' drawn from all echelons of society, and where ideas from modern day Japan can spark a successful career for a bath house architect in ancient Rome.

Aimee Pozorski is a Professor in the Department of English at Central Connecticut State University. She has authored Roth and Trauma: The Problem of History in the Later Works (Continuum, 2011), Falling After 9/11: Crisis in American Art and Literature (Bloomsbury, 2014), and AIDS-Trauma and Politics (Lexington, 2019). She has edited or co-edited volumes on the topics of Philip Roth, American Modernism, and HIV/AIDS representation. With Maren Scheurer, she co-edits the peer-reviewed journal, Philip Roth Studies and is co-editing the forthcoming Bloomsbury Handbook to Philip Roth. Aimee Pozorski also directs the certificate in Racial Justice and the American Studies program.

Abstract

Celeste Ng’s 2017 novel, Little Fires Everywhere begins with an epigraph from the beauty and lifestyle magazine Cosmopolitan: “‘We’re friendly people and have a wonderful time!’ said a woman at the Shaker Heights Country Club recently, and she was right, for the inhabitants of Utopia do, in fact, appear to lead a rather happy life.” The Cosmopolitan article from 1963 is entitled, “The Good Life in Shaker Heights,” but it doesn’t take long to discover that Ng turns that fantasy upside down in this best-seller recently turned into a mini-series for Hulu. The novel depicts the intersection of the lives of two mothers: Elena, who was born and raised in Shaker Heights, and Mia, the artist and outsider who moves to town with a secret. While Mia’s racial identity is withheld in the novel, a narrative technique Toni Morrison explores in her 1983 short story “Recitatif,” the Hulu series casts Kerry Washington as Mia who plays off Reese Witherspoon’s rule-following and perfectly manicured Elena. Reading the 2020 television adaptation with a focus on Mia as a Black artist exiled from the “race blind” Shaker Heights, particularly in light of the Black Lives Matter movement and juxtaposed with the 2017 novel, this presentation argues that Ng’s greatest insight appears in hindsight: When we create a colorblind “utopia” by leaving people out, there can only be dystopian consequences—the “little fires everywhere” we see in the novel, and in contemporary American life itself.

Melisa Indriana Putri has been focusing on media studies since 2012. Her research entitled “The Indian Program in Indonesian Television Industry: A Case of Commodification of Trend in 2014-2015” has evoked her greatest interest in film studies. She is currently a doctoral student in Social Communication and Media Studies discipline, at Doctoral School of Social Sciences, University of Warsaw.

Abstract

Sri Asih occurred to be the first Indonesian superheroine movie adapted from R.A. Kosasih's comic with a similar title. It pertains to the structure of cultural mythologies in the dystopian subgenre. The imaginary space where Alana lives is guarded by the crime elites who want to eradicate the poor and underprivileged by creating a catastrophe. The film shows the area of "dystopic myths" where monsters, monstrous humans, and other's predators exist. The chaos elicits her transformation into a superheroine Sri Asih by embracing the power of her ancestor, Dewi Asih (Goddess Asih). It inflicts the desire to preserve society and transmutes into real hope in dystopian turbulence. Then, the narration leads Alana to face a high-powered supernatural enemy. Therefore, Alana's metamorphosis inspired this article to show the intersection of the superheroine's character and gender roles in the mythological and contemporary society portrayed within the story. The researcher will adopt them to explain how the female character uses the intersection to fight the crime elites and villains. The analysis will be carried out from Sri Asih viewers' notions as the result of the focus group discussion. Sri Asih viewers who are also fans of the dystopian subgenre grouped into the female, male, and both malefemale audience groups will also be requested to discuss the nuance of Sri Asih's character transformation and her main actions based on Vladimir Propp's thoughts. Sri Asih is re-casted in classical dystopian form, departing from the idea of human greed that causes an order to damage and the conviction of massive death. Keywords: Sri Asih, Indonesian superheroine, dystopia, female character, gender roles, Vladimir Propp.

Raymond Kyooyung Ra is a PhD student at the Division of Cinema and Media Studies, USC School of Cinematic Arts. His research interests are centered on queer theory, performance, transmedia, transnational media, and East Asian (South Korean) popular culture. Ray’s doctoral research focuses on the dance genre ‘waacking,’ tracing its development from the 1970s Los Angeles gay disco scene to its currently un-queered, de-racialized form in South Korean popular culture to theorize the queer subculture as shadow archive and haunted space.

Prior to joining the Division of Cinema and Media Studies at USC as an MA student, Ray received his BA from Yonsei University in South Korea, double-majoring in Political Science and International Relations as well as Comparative Literature and Culture. He has 6+ years of professional experience as writer, director, and on-camera personality in the South Korean television and digital media industry, including his time with SBS (Seoul Broadcasting System) and The Korea Herald.

Outside of academia, Ray is a freelance media professional and Buffy the Vampire Slayer enthusiast.

Abstract

Audience: “…obviously it [the film Parasite] takes place in South Korea so it’s about your country, but I’m wondering to what extent you had the U.S. in mind… With the flood scene, it actually did remind me of certain natural disasters that we’ve had in this country. For example, like Hurricane Katrina…” Bong Joon-ho: “Floods are common in Korea as well.” (Golden Globes, 2020) The proposed paper investigates novel Orientalist fantasy and affect found in U.S. audience's reception of the Korean Netflix series Squid Game. Through what I term the “melodramatic gaze,” a constructed way of looking characterized by excessive identification and ego-centric sense-making of the looking subject as the melodramatic “victim-hero,” (Christine Gledhill, 1987; Linda Williams, 2001) the U.S. empire appropriates victimhood of the neoliberal capitalist dystopia of its making and denies historical accountability. I argue that this affective over-identification is key to understanding new Orientalist strategies to consume the Other, which are different from conventionally-seen subject/object differentiation in the colonial or imperial gaze.

The two-fold methodology examines both internal and external qualities of the media text. One, close-reading of scenes establishes the series’ foregrounding of the events of the 2009 Ssangyong Motors workers’ strike, an incident that resonated with the aftermaths of U.S.’ interventions into the Korean economy since the 1997 IMF Crisis and 2007 global financial crisis. (Hyun Ok Park, 2015) Two, analysis of U.S.-based journalistic commentaries demonstrates how "proper ways to watch" (Charlotte Brunsdon, 1997) Squid Game take on similar affects as the de-politicizing suturing of Norindr’s colonialist cinema, as well as bell hooks’ theorization of white desire to “eat the Other.”

Karen A. Ritzenhoff is a Professor of Communication at Central Connecticut State University where she is co-Chair of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. She is co-organizer of a hybrid conference on “Squid and Beyond: Utopia and Dystopia in Contemporary Asian Popular Culture” at Central in April 2023. Ritzenhoff co-edited Gender, Power and Identity in the Films of Stanley Kubrick (Routledge, 2022).

Abstract

The international Netflix television series Squid Game from South Korea became a breakout hit during the global pandemic in the fall 2021. Audiences around the world binge watched the episodes, depicting contestants fighting to their death to win price money, donated by voyeuristic foreign spectators. Each time, a contestant dies, the amount increases. Like gladiators in an arena, the Squid Game contestants are on display in a constructed game scenario with VIPs watching the carnage from above. This paper will focus on the last two remaining contestants, battling each other in Episode 9. The protagonist Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) is facing his childhood friend Cho Sang-woo (Park Hae-soo), a lawyer, who has played dirty tricks to make it to the end of the games. Both of them have failed in their personal and professional lives and are unable to sustain themselves in an unforgiving global economy. However, Seong Gi-hun decides to disrupt the rules of the games and takes an ethical stand to object the power of greed.

Alfredo R. M. Rosete is Assistant Professor in the Department of Economics at Central Connecticut State University.

Abstract

One Piece follows the story of a rubber boy named Luffy who dreams of becoming the King of the Pirates. To fulfill this dream, he gathers a ragtag crew (the Straw hat pirates), befriends misfits and marginalized people, and punches out despots on an island-hopping journey to find the One Piece- a treasure which makes whoever finds it the King of the Pirates. Over the past 25 years, fans have followed this saga, making it the all time best-selling comic book written by a single author. Recently, the Straw hats concluded their adventures in the land of Wano- an island ruled by war-profiteering despots. In this article, I will use the narrative of One Piece’s Wano arc to illustrate the relationship between issues of labor and environmental justice. I shall then present parallels of the narrative in the real world.

Dr. Seung-hwan Shin lectures on Korean film and culture at the University of Pittsburgh. His works include “Singing Through Impossible Modernization: Sopyonje and National Cinema in the Era of Globalization” in The Two Koreas and Their Global Engagements, ed. Andrew D. Jackson (Palgrave MacMillan, 2022) and “Korea, the Land of the Living Dead: The Biopolitics of the Korean Zombie Apocalypse” Metamorphosis 1 (2021). His media appearances include an interview with NPR on Squid Game (https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2021/10/15/squid-game-capitalism). He is currently working on a monograph, Disenchanted Times, Enchanted Cinema: New Korean Cinema Reframed.

Abstract

My paper explores Squid Game (Hwang Dong-hyuk, 2021), which took the world by storm this year, as a compelling case for reflection on new developments of the mediascape and changes in cultural production and consumption. The stunning global success of the Korean Netflix show invites us to the unpredictable ways in which global platform media converges with grassroots media consumption. This paper particularly concerns how the traditional (top-down corporate driven) practice intertwines with the development of the post-industrial (bottom-up consumerdriven) media consumption, more specifically how decentralized and transnational viewership emerges within/through global media platforms still largely informed by the old corporate logic such as concentration and monopoly and what changes multi-centered platform media brings to local media’s growing effort to engage with global consumers. Then again, contextual analysis falls short of elucidating Squid Game’s special validities for media convergence in global OTT platforms. This paper thus also scrutinizes Squid Game to bring to light the elements central to the show’s global resonance. My argument especially calls attention to its distinctive narrative and aesthetic attributes in comparison with other death or survival game dramas such as Battle Royale (2000), The Hunger Games (2012) and Alice in Borderland (2020). The questions at the heart of my discussion include: why most players decide to return to the death game, even after learning what the stakes are; how this narrative choice challenges viewers with questions central to our society such as whether free will is just an illusion in neoliberal capitalism; what effect the use of children’s games has on both the narrative and viewing experience (the show’s nostalgic and participatory aspects); why certain audio and visual elements such as pipe tunes, colors and geometrical shapes are repeatedly used in the show; and how the show negotiates between local history and global perception.

Ivan V. Small is associate professor of anthropology in the Department of Comparative Cultural Studies at the University of Houston. His work examines mobility, circulation and capital transformations in a transpacific context with a focus on migratory and financial linkages between the United States and East and Southeast Asia. He is author of the book Currencies of Imagination: Channeling Money and Chasing Mobility in Vietnam (Cornell University Press 2019) and co-editor of Money at the Margins: Global Perspectives on Technology, Financial Inclusion and Design (Berghahn Press 2018), as well as numerous peer reviewed articles and book chapters in cultural and economic anthropology, Asian and Asian American studies, and transnational studies.

Abstract

This paper examines the popular K-Drama Squid Games and interrogates some of the critiques of violence that have circulated in American audiences reviewing the show. Reflecting on the centrality of debt to ideologies of capitalist accumulation, this paper examines the specificity as well as extensibility of credit that undergirds participation in a neoliberal economy, and how it has manifested in and between Asian industrial and emerging economies. I then reflect on racial capital formations that have accompanied various eras of globalization, including how they have manifested in histories of Asian exclusion and discrimination and the United States. Prevailing Orientalist stereotypes informing cultural attitudes towards Asians and Asian Americans in the United States, which have more recently been masked behind model minority discourses, have re-emerged with more explicitly racist overtones during the Covid-19 pandemic. I argue that these developments may implicitly contribute to some of the recent cultural critiques circulating about the Squid Games series in the United States.

Lindsay Steenberg is Reader / Associate Professor in Film Studies at Oxford Brookes University where she is chair of the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Research Network. She has published numerous articles on violence in the media and the crime and action genres. She is the author of Forensic Science in Contemporary American Popular Culture: Gender, Crime, and Science and Are You Not Entertained? Mapping the Gladiator in Visual Culture. She is currently working on a new monograph on the fight scene with Lisa Coulthard at the University of British Columbia.

Abstract

From the freelancer, to the mercenary, or the gladiator (or volunteer auctorati), the embodied language we use to describe labour and labourers in a gig economy is often revealingly linked to state-legitimised violence. This paper takes such language and archetypal allegories seriously, interrogating the ties between the Roman gladiator, the prize fighter, the Viking raider and precarious labour under contemporary capitalism. Examples include the berserker frenzy of the Viking’s consumption in visual fictions such as Vikings and the gladiators and celebrity fighters paid per fight in Spartacus or paid per view in the Ultimate Fighting Championships.

I argue that the gladiators of hyper-capitalism can be functionally, if superficially, positioned on spectrum between two different modes: the agonistic (a deadly and deadpan mode of competition) and the ludic (a more playful and less rule-bound approach). Whilst the gladiators of Squid Game are forced to compete to the death to clear their crippling debts, the Roman gladiators of Spartacus are empowered by their violent skills to resist their enslavers. What is the nature and drive that propels such competitive forces? What are the boundaries of the games are being played and who are the players and sponsors when violence is the main language of play? These are the research questions underpinning this investigation of the spectrum of violent play and competition in the screen landscape of the neoliberal labour market.

Francesco Sticchi is Lecturer in Film Studies at Oxford Brookes University, UK. Most recently, he has published the monograph Mapping Precarity in Contemporary Cinema and Television: Chronotopes of Anxiety, Depression, Expulsion/Extinction (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021) and works in the field of film-philosophy and ecology of media.

Abstract

More and more films and TV series address the prevarication of society, the transformation of labor into a performance, the dynamics of human capital, and new modes of marginalization and exploitation. Concurrently, there is a growing interest in the analysis of the artistic productions that address these changes and social concerns. Many times, the cinema and television of precarity resorts to the aesthetic features of social realism, whereas, sci-fi dystopias and horror productions may also offer interesting and productive insights on changing power relations through effective and imaginative allegories.

This paper aims to discuss how the extremely popular Netflix series Squid Game may contribute in the understanding of contemporary capitalism. By displaying a series of gladiatorial competitions in a social landscape of indebtedness and lack of future perspectives, the series allows us, on one side, to appreciate and discuss the subject at the center of precarious labor; it also displays the dynamics of exploitation and extraction of human collective intelligence (the Marxian General Intellect), the very source of capitalist voracious and destructive growth.

Dr. David A Tizzard is an assistant professor at Seoul Women’s University and a visiting professor at Hanyang University where he lectures on Korean Studies. His research focuses on the cultural, social, and political issues of Korea. He is the co-editor of a recently published book (The Future of the Korean Peninsula: Korea 2032 and Beyond) as well as a contributing writer to the 2023 work South Korean Popular Culture in the Global Context. He writes a popular weekly column in the Korea Times, is the host of the Korea Deconstructed podcast and appears regularly in television and print media.

Abstract

Mark Fisher’s Capitalist Realism starts with the observation that it is easier to imagine the end of the world than it is the end of capitalism. As inflammatory as it might sound, it is an idea that not only resonates with much of Generation Z but is also evident in the cultural texts being produced in the 21st century. Whereas South Korea was once famed for its Cinderella-like fantasy dramas, it has won recent acclaim for its brutal critical realism. This is evident in texts such as Squid Game, Parasite, and Itaewon Class. Such works highlight how the Korean economic system is slowly erasing the middle-class that gave birth to the nation’s democracy and replacing it with a polarizing and bifurcated hyper-individualist society composed of the rich and poor: the bourgeoisie and the proletariat.

While some suggest that these emergent texts are rising evidence of dissatisfaction with neoliberal policies and rampant consumerism, as well as proof that class consciousness is growing among the alienated, this research suggests the opposite. Rather than challenging the economic and cultural status quo, texts such as Squid Game indicate that any practical revolution or change is further away than ever, if not now completely impossible. Such texts are performing our anti-capitalism for us. Satisfying our emotions through catharsis and releasing the existing economic tension through corporate-funded entertainment. This prevents any practical application and instead allows us to continue consuming with impunity. The economic success of these texts as well as the continued economic disparities demonstrate this truth. Squid Game is the present, but it is also the future.

Julia Wintner is the Coordinator of Art Gallery and Museum Services at Eastern Connecticut State University (ECSU), in Willimantic, Connecticut, where she curates five exhibitions a year in close collaboration with faculty across all branches of study. She also manages the visiting artist program and teaches courses in curatorial practice, art history, and visual arts. Eastern Connecticut State University, Coordinator of Art Gallery and Museum Services wintnerj@easternct.edu

Abstract

My presentation, Curating the Architecture of Chinatown, explores methods of teaching curating that are based on the principles of architecture. I will explore the ways in which the complex, deliberate ways of exhibition making can be explained through the popular language of architecture.

I will draw from the example of Charles Yu, who skillfully deploys a quasi-mythical Chinatown architecture as a stage set for the predicaments of multigenerational conflicts, schizophrenia of ethnic biases, and immigrant self-deprecation.

An art exhibition can be likened to an apartment block where multiple artists’ narratives live side by side. Each of their stories support (and sometimes challenge) the curatorial concept.

The Chinese SRO where Willis lives houses immigrants from China, Taiwan, Vietnam, Korea, and others. Everyone seems to know each other and look out for each other. There is an ongoing drama: ceilings that are dripping water from the apartment above, noise coming from the floors below and above. Everyone seems to know everyone else’s business.

Artists invited to participate in a group exhibition will often recommend their friends to the curator. Artists are intense, self-centered, focused, and driven. They guard their work excessively, take themselves very seriously, know how to make fun of their audience, curators and the entire world.

Chinatown has a “Golden Gate” that extends a welcome to everyone: the tourist, an anthropologist, a cultural theorist, an artist – all will find the Chinatown they are seeking.

An art exhibition must also serve a diversity of audiences, from old to young, from amateur to specialist: It seeks to educate, inspire, and transform all who visit.

My experience teaching Museums and Exhibitions – a writing intensive class – provides numerous parallels between the labor of curating and that of writing, which are best explained through the metaphor of construction.

Curating the Architecture of Chinatown will explore the labor and craft that sustain both professions. Eastern’s 2023 Big Read, Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu, has provided the scaffolding for this proposal.

Agata Ewa Wrochna is a Lecturer in Communication Studies at Wenzhou-Kean University. She earned her doctoral degree in the department of International Communications at the University of Nottingham. She has over five years’ experience of teaching Culture, Media and Communications. Her academic interests include topics of celebrity, authenticity and identity (trans)formation in visual media, in particular those present in East and Southeast Asia.

Abstract

In the last several years, Boys’ Love (BL) dramas have noticeably become a soft power of Thai media. However, as their commercial value tends to lie in depicting tropes of romance and friendship, there are still relatively few which move beyond such glamourized representations of Thai reality and explore its current socio-political landscapes as part of their storylines. Using as example the TV series titled Not Me (2022), this paper discusses its employment of recurring BL elements to reflect on the turbulent state of the current Thai legal system, and in particular issues of corruption leading to class disparity and wealth privilege.

Bibliography:
Anonymous, 2022. Thailand's corruption standing slides. Bangkok Post [online]. Available from https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/2253227/thailands-corrupti… [Accessed 3 July 2022] Olarn, K. and Gan, N., 2020. The Red Bull heir, a crashed car and the scandal that angered Thailand. CNN Business [online]. Available from https://edition.cnn.com/2020/08/11/business/red-bull-heir-intl-hnk-dst/… [Accessed 24 June 2022]

Anqi Yan is an M.A. candidate and Yale University in the Council of East Asian Studies. She graduated from Haverford College in 2021 with a B.A. degree in Urban Studies. Her primary research interest lies in transnational migration and its intersections with gender and gendered agency. From 2019 to 2020, Anqi worked as a part-time research assistant at Sun Yat Sen University and received the Hanna Holborn Gray research fellowship to study a water governance project that heavily co-opted civil society organizations in Guangdong, China. At Yale University, Anqi worked as a research assistant in the Department of Political Science and received the CEAS Summer Research Fellowship, the Lindsay Fellowship, and the RITM research grant to study African migrants’ religious life and the ways in which religion facilitates social network and imagination of upward mobility in China.

Abstract

Myanmar is the primary source of top-grade jadeite, and since the thirteenth century, jadeite has trickled into China from the mines in Kachin State, Myanmar. The jadeite transport gradually established Ruili, a border city in Yunnan Province, as the critical entry point of jadeite from Myanmar to China. At present, the Myanmar military monopolizes the jadeite industry and jadeite export, but there is a black market where individual jadeite traders, many of whom are women, take raw stones directly from the mines in the Kachin State and smuggle them across the border to China. Traders and entrepreneurs of diverse scales and origins have created cross-border mobilities and networks alongside the political economy of the borderlands. Women had long been important economic actors in the jadeite trade, yet their presence and voices in the region’s economy remain understudied.

Luyang Zhao I studied in the MPhil programme in Politics and International Studies at the University of Cambridge from 2017 to 2018. I am now working as a data analyst with research firm Ampere Analysis in London focusing on the media and telecommunication industry. Therefore, I believe my academic background and career experience are a perfect fit for the conference where I can present our granular data while applying in-depth analysis.

Abstract

With global hits such as Parasite and Squid Game, Korean content has risen to a prominent status where its international popularity and consumer demand reached historically high. Specifically, Korean content became one of the major commissioning targets of Hollywood studios and streaming platforms especially Netflix. Korean faces also became representations of Asian imagine in the West as captured in the titles that increasingly caught international attention in films awards and nominations. The increased influence of Korean content is closely related to the commitment of South Korea’s government in sponsoring its film industry and encouraging international participation. It is also a direct result of Korean studios and production houses to adopt more international mode of storytelling and encourage innovative and competitive content incentives with distinguish Korean features. Along with the rapidly expanding influence of Korean content, Japanese content, Indian content and content carrying southeast Asian characters have also been steadily growing its transmission coverage and consumer popularity, shown from their visibility on the global film and streaming video on demand market. However, in the general background of increased Asian representation, Chinese content has largely been missing and Hong Kong content, which once was the Crown Jewels of Asian content, also became increasingly uncompetitive and went downhill from its popularity culmination in the 1990s. This paper would like to discuss the grown popularity of Korean content by presenting the increased presence of Korean content on international film festivals (including awards and nominations) and streaming platforms, and the impact of it on the imagine perception of Asia and growing soft power of South Korean through its culture industry. Main research methods used in this paper will mainly involve quantitative data analysis, comparative study and qualitative study with in-depth literature research.

Conycel Ramirez is an aspiring researcher who has always been a Korean culture enthusiast. Her research interests are in Media and Communications, Environmental Sustainability, Community Development, Policy Analysis, and Korean Studies. She is an undergraduate student of Bachelor of Arts in Communication Research at Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP).

Abstract

The impact of Korean popular culture is relevant nowadays. Hallyu or also known as the Korean wave is among the highly consumed popular culture in contemporary Southeast Asia countries. There has been a fascinating penetration that exoticizes the appeal of Korean cultural values packaged in modern media. The resurgence in popularity of Korea’s cultural offerings in the country this year to a confluence of factors, primarily the intensified use of social media and the rise of streaming services that made Hallyu more accessible to fans. Through this, there has been a growing increase in interest. Presently, Hallyu consumption in Southeast Asia remained to be active and stable and is expected to continually grow. Because of Hallyu's popularity, there are apparent significant impacts on Southeast Asia. From advertisements & media industries (Korean celebrity endorsements), emerging K-beauty and K-fashion trends, and many more ripple influences it brought. Recently, the New Southern Policy was initiated aiming for mutual cooperation between Korea and Southeast Asia countries. This means that there will be more cooperative projects with each other and more exposure to one's culture in exchange. But in 2021 data shows that there is a gap in mutual interest and favorability. Also, there has been an enormous influx of Korean content and the presence of Korean celebrities across Southeast Asia that may result in tension in creating a sense of social identity or may cause indignation caused by disapproval against Korean culture imperialism. With the vast influence of Korean popular culture, Koreans and Southeast Asian countries must attain a state of mutual understanding. But there is an apparent lack of Southeast Asia waves. Because of Hallyu dominance, it would be inevitable for Southeast Asia nations to feel threatened in the long run in terms of the rapid penetration of Korean culture in each country. There must be a guaranteed two-way cultural exchange between Korea and Southeast Asia.