The Review of Korean Studies
- P-ISSN1229-0076
- E-ISSN2773-9351
- SCOPUS, ESCI
ISSN : 1229-0076
Liberator or Intimate Enemy: On South Korean Cultural Circles’ Ambivalence toward Hollywood
Abstract
Hollywood film was banned in colonial Korea during the Pacific War. The victory of the Allied Forces in the War meant “Hollywood’s return in glory.” Hollywood tried to regain its “lost screens” in the East Asian market, through the establishment of the Central Motion Picture Exchange (Headquarter in Tokyo and branch in Seoul) and the alliance with the U.S. government and the military (SCAP). The market share proved successful in South Korea. However, Hollywood’s offensive also caused widespread discontent about the United States Army Military Government in Korea (USAMGIK) and its cultural policy among Korean filmmakers and opinion leaders who had initially welcomed American liberators. This essay attempts to examine the ambivalence itself in relation to Hollywood within the spatio-temporal context of the “liberation”: filmmakers’ experience of state-operated production in the late colonial period, their thwarted ambition to take advantage of Japan’s imperial expansion in Asia, North Korea’s successful nationalization of film production and its encouraging effect of filmmakers’ defection from South Korea, persistence of a colonial censorship system, frustrated expectation of “authentic national cinema,” and so on.
- keywords
- Hollywood, USAMGK, CMPE, liberation, occupation, South Korean cultural circle, Americanism, discourse of cinema nationalization, ambivalence
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