Anabelle Johnston at The Baffler:
Seventy-five years after the outbreak of the Korean War, many Americans have come to recognize the country through its various cultural exports—KBBQ, K-pop, K-dramas, and K-skincare, to name a few. This association, and its contrived division between culture and politics, is no accident. In the 1990s, after decades of Japanese colonial rule followed by the ravages of American military intervention, the South Korean government established a series of initiatives to “enhance the image of Korea in the World.” As the country invested in communication and IT-based businesses to develop an internet-forward and skills-based economy, the Ministry of Culture turned to the West in a movement now known as the hallyu wave. Image supplanted reality. Decades of authoritarian rule, gender inequality, and limited economic mobility were ushered offscreen as the Wonder Girls, SHINee, Girls’ Generation, and BTS (among others) ascended the world stage. The runaway virality of Psy’s 2012 “Gangnam Style” was not a fluke but rather the fruit of years of premeditated cultural development, memorialized by a giant set of horse dance hands outside of the Starfield COEX mall in Seoul.
more here.
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