• Science-Fictional North Korea: A Defective History

    Author(s):
    Seo-Young Chu (see profile)
    Date:
    2014
    Subject(s):
    Korea, Science fiction, Dystopias, Mass media--Study and teaching, Culture--Study and teaching, Aesthetics
    Item Type:
    Online publication
    Tag(s):
    north korea, dmz, speculative, dprk, Dystopia, Media studies, Cultural studies
    Permanent URL:
    https://doi.org/10.17613/8fwq-xp50
    Abstract:
    Kafkaesque, Orwellian, eerie, surreal, bizarre, grotesque, alien, wacky, fascinating, dystopian, illusive, theatrical, antic, haunting, apocalyptic: these are just a few of the vaguely science-fictional adjectives that are now associated with North Korea. At the same time, North Korea has become an oddly convenient trope for a certain aesthetic – an uncanny opacity; an ominous mystique – that many writers and artists have exploited to generate striking science-fictional effects in texts with little or no connection to North Korean reality. (The 2002 Bond film Die another Day, for example, draws from North Korea’s science-fictional aura to animate North Korean super-villains who undergo spectacular DNA transplants that replace their original Asian bodies with deeply uncanny “Caucasian” avatars.) How did this aesthetic phenomenon originate? What are the factors behind its evolution? I explore such questions in the chronology below.
    Metadata:
    xml
    Published as:
    Online publication     Show details
    Pub. URL:
    https://www.deletionscifi.org/episodes/science-fictional-north-korea-defective-history/
    Publisher:
    Deletion, the open access online forum in science fiction studies
    Pub. Date:
    April 7, 2014
    Status:
    Published
    Last Updated:
    1 year ago
    License:
    Attribution

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