Dictatorship stifles creativity and joy
rulers have always had strong views on art. Kim Il Sung, the regime’s founding despot, said artists should “arouse burning hatred for the enemy through their works”. His son and successor, Kim Jong Il, was such a cinema enthusiast that he kidnapped a South Korean director and his actress ex-wife and forced them to make propaganda films, including a revolutionary Godzilla-style monster flick.
North Koreans are only free to criticise the South. One northern newspaper called “Parasite” a “masterpiece” for its examination of working-class woes in Seoul. But any art about North Korea must glorify the regime and vilify its enemies. This makes for dreary, predictable fare. Ideological conformity extends to music, too. “Leader, Just Give Us Your Order!” is a typically bombastic anthem, with a video of soldiers goose-stepping and charging into battle through sheets of fire. Few foreigners enjoy such tracks, and many North Koreans only pretend to.
The third difference is capitalism. Pop culture in South Korea is produced by a variety of private companies. These firms are scandal-prone and notorious for micromanaging stars’ lives. But they never forget that fans have choices. North Korean pop culture, by contrast, is state-directed and aims to please one man. Since Kim Jong Un’s life experiences are a trifle unusual—he was raised to be a god-king and can have anyone who annoys him put to death—this does not always yield content to which normal people can relate.
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