House of the Rising Sun? You’ve got to be kidding me…
Daniel Dae Kim’s character gets handcuffed to the plane wreckage after he attacks the black guy for “stealing” his father in law’s watch from a bag he found on the beach
Well you didn’t ask for it, but you’re going to get it anyway. That’s right a rundown on the new ABC series “Lost” that has sparked so much “controversy” in Korea. The controversy stems from the fact that one of characters, a Korean male, is portrayed as being racist and overly controlling of his woman.
First of all let me give you a brief rundown of some of the characters:
Jack is the “hero” of this story the lone doctor who feels inadequate with himself and is always running around in a panic trying to save everyone. Jack’s dad was a verbally abusive alcoholic that killed someone while operating under the influence. Goody boy Jack turns in his dad, who loses his medical license flies to Sydney where he drinks himself to death. Jack goes to pick up his dad’s body and is returning with it when the plane goes down. He has a lot of tattoos, which the other characters indicate don’t fit with his hero image, but as of yet we don’t know where they come from. Kate, the “heroine,” is a criminal. A U.S. Marshall was escorting her back from Australia under protective custody for some heinous crime she had committed. We don’t know what it is, but she’s hot and so no one really seems to care. Charlie, a hobbit (in another life) and a rockstar (in this one,) is a drug addict dealing with his withdrawals and his feelings of worthlessness. I think he is trying to get with the pregnant chick. If she weren’t pregnant she’d probably be fourth on my list of chicks to hit with so I will cut him some slack. Just laying his claim early I say. Pregnant Chick, or Carie as they seem to like calling her, got knocked up believes in psychics and the zodiac, ran away to America on the urgings of a psychic after the father dumps her because he’s “not ready.” Sawyer, which is not his real name, is a con artist. His mom cheated on his dad with a con artist when he was younger who stole his father’s money and ran off with it. Sawyer’s dad went on a bloody rampage and killed his mom and himself. Sawyer becomes the man he hates and begins to steal from bodies and luggage after the crash and then he sells or barters for sexual favors the necessary items back to the other survivors. Sahid is a member of the Republican Guard. That’s right folk he’s an Iraqi soldier who saw the error of his ways after torturing hundreds of people after he saw a pretty woman. Now he is reforming and becoming another big hero on the island because of his military training. Locke is an old bald guy who was in a wheelchair and pretended he was a colonel or a green beret or some nonsense. The plain crashes and he can mysteriously walk again. He becomes the party’s warrior and hunter after he comes face to face with the “eye” of the island. He seems to think the island is magical. I would tend to think the jolt from falling 30,000 feet might shift some stuff in your spinal cord, but hey that’s just me. It’s very X-mennish because if you remember that Professor X could walk on that island that he and Magnito couldn’t use their powers on. Am I a huge nerd? Man if no one else thought that I’ll feel dumb. There’s a fat dumb guy named Hurley who is my favorite character, a deadbeat dad who went to pick up his son in Sydney after his mom died and is trying to make amends. (Man did I call that brief?)
The list goes on and on, but the point is that every one of these characters is flawed in some very EXTREME way and they are working to overcome it and taking advantage of the “fresh start” they’ve been given in a world where no one knows them. That’s the whole premise of this show. The characters are changing and growing. Locke explains it to Charlie when he is kicking the habit, “You give the island something and it will give you something greater in return.”
So Koreans should not be surprised that Daniel Dae Kim plays the part of a complete monster. He yells at his wife for talking with anyone, dressing “scantily,” and looking at people wrong. He kills seafood with great fervor and eats it raw, which I understand is not really that big a deal, especially in Korea. But I believe it is being used to show his violent nature to people in the states. Kim’s wife’s, one of the only genuinely good people in the group, only flaw is being unable to be assertive enough to leave her husband, but she too is becoming more assertive as the episodes go on. Showing that she too must change for the better. I think her change will be instrumental in his, but that’s just me.
The point is Koreans have been portrayed in both good and bad lights. Events in both their pasts were cited as reasons for them becoming the people they are today. Before long they will both become better people and then maybe people will stop worrying. But if people examined the rest of the list they should know that Koreans weren’t specifically targeted for negative representation. Everyone was targeted.
On the left we have no make up, short haired, longer skirted Sun after marriage and on the right we have short skirted, long haired, make-upped Sun before marriage in front of what looks like a Japanese structure to me.
The Koreans’ story begins in what looks like Japan to me. If Koreans want to complain about something it should be the Japanese spin the directors have decided to add to Korean culture. The interior of their apartment in Korea looks strangely Japanese, except for one white and blue vase so common to Korea. Not to mention the place where their flashback begins (in the picture) looks more like a Japanese golf course than it does a temple or mansion in Korea, but I haven’t seen them all so I could be wrong.
The directors have used the fat guy, Hurley (my favorite,) to act the part of the ignorant American. He continually calls them Chinese until someone finally sets him straight. Ironic how the directors would choose that piece of American culture to point out when they called the sixth episode, the one containing the Koreans’ story, “House of the Rising Sun.” The other stuff might be mere coincidence, but I do know that is definitely a Japanese reference. Perhaps someone should have told them that so they could have saved face and named the episode something about a calm morning rather than mock the same type of cultural misunderstanding they perpetrate themselves.
They did capture several aspects of Korean culture quite clearly though. They talked about the common waiter needing to get permission from the rich girl’s father. Of course they went off course when the Rich father actually gave permission. They also showed her with long hair and short skirts in the beginning and after they had been married a while the hair got shorter, the skirts got longer, and she stopped wearing make up. They also show him bringing his new wife a puppy. Korean girls in skirts carrying puppies! Now that is an accurate representation of Korean culture. It gets even more accurate when she abandons the dog to someone else when it gets bigger. She claims it’s because she’s running away from her husband, but we all know it’s because a dog that size won’t fit in your purse. She was also wearing shoes with her skirts. I am willing to let that pass because I think the boots and skirts thing is only a recent trend and not something that can be defined as “Korean culture” yet, but I hope they stick around long enough to earn the distinction.
Here Sun shows us her skirt and puppy action. That could have been taken at any street corner in Korean. Somebody did their homework.
I have really got into the show for several reasons. First of all I like the plot. A little mystery, a little magic, hot chicks, a little adventure, a little reality. It’s a great mix. Secondly, I enjoy having the chance to hear Korean in any setting in America. As poor as the Korean in the Bond movie or Alias was it was great to hear people trying to speak it on TV. The game, Ghost Recon II, set in North Korea has actual Korean dialogue. The “Gilmore Girls” has a Korean family and in the earlier seasons you would hear Korean from time to time. Now you have “Lost” where lots of Korean is spoken. Even if Daniel Dae Kim’s Korean is not the best it’s still spoken. (In an interview he tried to play it off saying his poor Korean was as a result of his Pusan accent, but I’ll tell you now it’s as a result of his American accent. His cadence and emphasis are off in specifically American times. Nothing about his speech sounds like it came from Pusan or Taegu. For not having really spoke it much since he moved to the states at the age of two and only having a Kyopo’s knowledge of kitchen talk in the house he’s done a great job trying to get on top of the language for the show. He even makes improvement from episode to episode. He’s done an impressive job in so little time in my opinion because you know what? Korean is hard. He doesn’t sound fluent, but who would? He sounds a lot better than Jennifer Garner or that white guy who was playing the part of a surgically altered Korean in the Bond movie did.) His wife in the show, an actual Korean, speaks really slow and clear, almost too slow at times, but maybe that’s intentional. What’s greatest is that unless it is the two of them talking they do not translate the dialogue! Lots of untranslated Korean flies back and forth during the show.
Anyway what it boils down to is I think the show will have a more positive effect for the image of Korea than it will a negative one. Because in a day in age when many people I run in to still ask me, “Where is Korea?” I have to say that any publicity is better than none.
