바로가기메뉴

본문 바로가기 주메뉴 바로가기

The Review of Korean Studies

ISSN : 1229-0076

Article Contents

Prev Next
e-Submission

Vol.12 No.3
Citation Share

Korea’s Vietnam: Popular Culture, Patriarchy, Intertextuality

The Review of Korean Studies / The Review of Korean Studies, (P)1229-0076; (E)2773-9351
2009, v.12 no.3, pp.101-123
https://doi.org/10.25024/review.2009.12.3.004
Youngju Ryu (University of Michigan)
Youngju, R. (2009). Korea’s Vietnam: Popular Culture, Patriarchy, Intertextuality. The Review of Korean Studies, 12(3), 101-123, https://doi.org/10.25024/review.2009.12.3.004
  • Downloaded
  • Viewed
PDF Download

Abstract

As America’s closest foreign ally during the Vietnam War, South Korea sent more than 340,000 troops to active combat in central Vietnam over a period of nearly a decade. Motivations for and the aftereffects of Korea’s military involvement have been analyzed along the dual axes of economics (developmentalism) and politics (anti communism), but South Korea’s involvement remains a matter of both shame and vainglory in popular memory today. At times reviled as no more than a species of government-authorized male prostitution and at other times celebrated as an example of Korean “toughness” and “ingenuity” on and off the battlefield, Korea’s Vietnam offers a fascinating intertext to the trauma of America’s Vietnam. This paper focuses on constructions of masculinity in representations of the Vietnam War in South Korean popular culture and identifies the latter as a site both of patriarchal alliance between the nation and the family, and of the dissolution of that alliance. Special attention will be paid to gendered revisions of Korea’s Vietnam found in two recent films, R-Point (2004) and Sunny (2008).

keywords
Vietnam War, popular culture, music, intertextuality, masculinization, nation, family, developmentalism, anti-communism, patriarchy, R-Point, Sunny

Reference

1.

Armstrong, Charles K. 2001. America’s Korea, Korea’s Vietnam. Critical Asian Studies 33(4):527-39.

2.

Bak, Jinim. 2008. Nim eun meon gose, Beteunamjeon do meon gose. Munhak gwa yeongsang 9(3):615-641.

3.

Bak, Taegyun. 2007. Hanguk gun eui Beteunam jeonjaeng chamjeon. Yeoksa bipyeong 80:288-311.

4.

Cawley, Leo. 1990. The war about the war: Vietnam films and American myth. In From Hanoi to Hollywood: The Vietnam War in American Film, ed. Linda Dittmar and Gene Michaud, 69-80. Rutherford, N.J.: Rutgers University Press.

5.

Han, Honggu. 2003. Wolnam pabyeong gwa byeongyeong gukga eui gil. In Gaebal dokjae wa Park Chung Hee sidae, ed. Yi Byeongcheon, 290-305. Seoul: Changjak gwa bipyeongsa.

6.

Higashi, Sumiko. 1990. A Night of the Living Dead: A horror film about the Horrors of the Vietnam Era. In From Hanoi to Hollywood: The Vietnam War in American Film, ed. Linda Dittmar and Gene Michaud, 175-88. Rutherford, N.J.: Rutgers University Press.

7.

Jo, Sujong. 1988. Jungdong geonseol suchul e daehan jaejomyeong. Hanguk Jungdong hakhoe nonchong 8:224-69.

8.

Kang, Seongryul. 2008. Namhan yeonghwa reul tonghaeseo bon Beteunam jeonjaeng eui gieok. Yeoksa bipyeong 84:404-425.

9.

Kim, Gyujin. 2002. Han-Be gyoryuhoe, Beteunam eui nal haengsa. Christian Today [Seoul] 8 July.

10.

Kwon, Heonik. 2006. After the Massacre: Commemoration and Consolation in Ha My and MyLai. Berkeley: University of California Press.

11.

Moon, Seungsook. 2005. Militarized Modernity and Gendered Citizenship in South Korea. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.

12.

Rasmussen, Ronald R. 1968. ROK Operations in Central Vietnam. Military Review 48(1):51-55.

13.

Woo, Jung-en. 1990. Race to the Swift: State and Finance in Korean Industrialization. New York: Columbia University Press.

14.

Yi, Junik. 2008. Nimeun meon gose Yi Junik gamdok—widaehan yeoseongseong eui changa. Screen, August 112-16.

The Review of Korean Studies

e-Submission OA Policy