[Choi Won-shik, Kim Hong-jun and Kim Jong-yup] What the World Cup Has Left Us (2)
Tripartite Talk
CHOI, Won-shik Literary critic; professor of Korean literature at Inha University (cws919@inha.ac.kr)
KIM, Hong-jun Film director; professor in the School of Film and Multimedia at the Korean National University of Arts hjkim@knua.ac.kr)
KIM, Jong-yup Cultural critic; professor of sociology at Hanshin University (jykim@hanshin.ac.kr)
* Time: July 5, 2002 / Venue: Conference Room of Changbi Publishers, Inc.
The World Cup and the Audiovisual Technology
CHOI, Won-shik
A newspaper article showed Japanese women fans closely watching and shooting soccer players with digital cameras, binoculars, and camcorders. Looking at the photograph, I thought of the end of the "soccer widow" with the World Cup this year. There's an old joke that what Korean women hate the most is stories about men playing soccer in the army [7] Thanks to the World Cup, however, Korean women's passion for soccer has been firmly established. Mr. Kim [Jong-yup] earlier explained women's enthusiasm for soccer in terms of their concern for their fathers, husbands, or brothers on the battlefield. In addition to such a political aspect, I think that women have come to discover and enjoy, quite openly, men's bodies through aggressive sports such as soccer. This eroticism may have brought about the feminization of soccer fans, who previously consisted mostly of men. Also interesting is the analysis that, because of this introduction of a large number of women into soccer spectators, hooligans have been increasingly weakened. This is related to the fact that soccer has changed from what it was up to the early 1990's: from an aggressive, victorious, and heroic soccer to a pleasurable soccer where images and style are important. This in turn is a strategy through which sports capital lures women. Some even say that the FIFA intends to increase the number of women soccer fans that way. The emergence of a large number of women fans probably is related to the arrival of an age of the general public that is easily seduced by images. Of course, such a phenomenon isn't only negative because, in the process, the hierarchy based on gender is destroyed, at least in part. Anyhow, people say that the development of the camera, with its image-making functions, has played a crucial role in the increase of women soccer fans. Speaking of cameras, why don't you tell us your opinion, Mr. Kim [Hong-jun]?
KIM, Hong-jun
That's true. Because they take place every 4 years, sports events such as the World Cup and the Olympics function as a testing ground for developments in broadcasting equipments. Those who have watched the World Cup for the last 20 years will know that audiovisual data from the early days reveal fixed camerawork and monotonous angles whereas, nowadays, they consider cameras even when designing soccer fields. Some cameras have motors so that you can capture images of players running with remote control. In other words, you can shoot a running player once the camera is placed at an appropriate height. Consequently, the distinction between documentary-style scenes and feature film-style scenes is disappearing in sports broadcasting. For example, when you have soccer games or track and field events, the athletes all line up in the beginning. In the past, cameras shook considerably as do news cameras when shooting the athletes. That was because the camera actually had to be held. But, now, there's an equipment called steadicam, which prevents any movement during shooting. So when the camera pans the faces of the players, the resulting image is like that of a feature film in terms of visual effect. In other words, technological development has erased the distinction between fiction and nonfiction. For instance, the image of Hwang bleeding was shot with a hi-tech telephoto lens. If the game had been played 20 years ago, people would have simply thought that someone had fallen and was bleeding. Nowadays, however, that image is like a scene from a movie. In the case of movies, a scene like that has to be included in the script and shot separately. In a soccer field, though, you can edit and show it in real time, like a feature film. images are being produced in a more consumer-friendly and easily consumable way. To stretch the logic a bit more, the number of women fans is increasing because we have an increasing variety of equipments that allow the spectators to enjoy and be absorbed in the game in a more emotional manner. That's why we're so easily engrossed. Though I'm not a soccer fan, I do watch international games because of the tension that the Korean team has to win. Up to our first victory in the World Cup, watching our team play itself was reality for me. But all subsequent games were like a fantasy. I didn't care if we won or lost. I believe most of the people who cheered in the streets felt the same way. In other words, you lose a sense of reality. When the Korean team made it to the preliminaries, people were elated that we had won and achieved a goal. As our team continued to win, however, I think the street cheering turned into a carnival. Even during the Democratization Struggle of June 1987, people may have felt during the demonstrations that they were taking part in a carnival. But the World Cup topped all that and that's why I see it as a mass fantasy experienced by the entire South Korean society. After all, a carnival is a space of fantasy and a liberated zone. The problem is that an attempt to control and ideologically subsume this experience has begun in earnest. The single difference is that, unlike the samba festivals of Brazil, there were no casualties or incidences of violence. In that it was quite controlled, I think rooting in the streets was a unique phenomenon.
KIM, Jong-yup
From the viewpoint of multinational media capital, sports must be the cultural contents par excellence. Even with movies, you have to read the subtitles. As for sports, though, you only need to know the rules in order to enjoy the game so that they're the only cultural contents unaffected by a language barrier. That's why capital has continued to develop technology that can amplify pleasure. In that respect, the Berlin Olympics held under Hitler's rule probably was an epochal beginning. We should look into the historical relationship between sports and audiovisual technology.
KIM, Hong-jun
As a monumental audiovisual work on sports, the 1936 documentary of the Berlin Olympics is famous―or infamous. It was shot by Leni Riefenstahl, a close friend of Hitler's and an actress-turned-film director who's still alive and who recently shot a documentary. I heard she's near hundred. At any rate, she was a dyed-in-the-wool Nazi and she filmed Olympia, a documentary about the Berlin Olympics. What's special about this movie is that it was shot so as to enable the viewer to approach the core of reality more than could the participants. Sports broadcasting, which has developed the same philosophy, can be divided into two types. The first concentrates on re-presenting reality as vividly as possible and the other strives to strengthen what are otherwise "boring" or semantically vague objects through a selective manipulation of images. Broadcasting is moving in the second direction so that soccer games that would be boring in actuality are far more enjoyable on the screen. And I think that, in terms of broadcasting, soccer is closer to track and field events or swimming rather than other ball games such as baseball, volleyball, and basketball because the camera visually captures movements that are simple or would otherwise be overlooked by spectators in an actual soccer field, thus allowing the viewer to see the game more in depth through images. Especially in a game like soccer, where the visual image is more accurate than the judgment of the chief referee or the subreferee.
CHOI, Won-shik
Jorge Luis Borges is said to have criticized the British for having contaminated the world with an absurdity like soccer. Of course, we understand that his statement stems from an awareness of the ideological function of soccer as opium for the political and economic reality of Argentina. Nevertheless, I think that the statement also betrays an elitist fear or contempt of the masses or the general public. Yet the customary viewpoint of Korean intellectuals, who equate our victory in the World Cup with the people's latent power and urge the nation to march toward material wealth and military might, seems to lack self-reflection. In that respect, the naive optimism of Korean intellectuals' syncretic viewpoint regarding the World Cup is problematic. No less worrisome is the criticism that focuses solely on and disapproves of the conformist aspect of the general public's enthusiasm for the games. I believe we should be aware of the difference between the apolitical crowds that surfaced during the World Cup and the politicized crowds of the past and, at the same time, carefully interpret the subconscious political nature of the former―in other words, their judgment on South Korean society today and vision for the future. Why don't we now talk about this issue?
KIM, Hong-jun
We should first consider just what kinds of people these crowds are. In particular, those in their 20's are quite used to fandom or the consumption of popular culture. That is, this post-Seo Tai Ji [8] generation is used to adoring certain soccer players as "stars." For them, it's the most natural and largely accepted behavior. But, on the other hand, these young people continue to be trapped within establishment education. Of course, the cheering crowds included a number of jobless people but seem to have consisted mostly of students―from middle school to college. If this had been a society that respected the autonomy of adolescents and if its educational system had been less oppressive, I don't think that a few million youngsters would have gathered in the streets to root for our team. After all, there was no need for all of them to rave about soccer. But their daily lives are oppressive, so cheering during the World Cup allowed them to experience a complete departure from their everyday routine. Though I was unable to go out into the streets and watched the games only on television, there seems to be extremely contradictory images of the crowds in the streets. If I were a foreigner, just seeing millions of people wearing red T-shirts would have been suffocating. After all, there is hardly any difference between that image and the documentary of the Nazi convention shot by Riefenstahl. Anyone would call it fascism if he were to see a group of people in uniforms looking in the same direction and making the same motions together. But our crowds were diverse―some decorated themselves with the Taegeuk flag [9] while others painted their faces. I think it's very important that these two images coexist. In other words, the youngsters were anonymous crowds in that individuals had put on the "Red Devils" T-shirts en masse. On the other hand, their self-expression and self-adornment, especially among the women fans, seems to have been unprecedented.
CHOI, Won-shik
While the Internet was decisive in the emergence of the "Red Devils," most of the spectators watched the games on television. Even large electric signboards are slightly different forms of televisions. In that respect, we mustn't overlook the fact that the general public relied on the television, which is a representative tool used by cultural power to "enlighten" the masses.
KIM, Jong-yup
I wonder if a Freudian concept would help to explain these young people. Freud says that a dream is a compromise between desire and what is repressed. When successful, the compromise yields a concrete image. I think that the festive crowds that we saw during the World Cup accomplished two kinds of compromise. The first is a political compromise. I've seen many intellectuals connect the recent festival with the Democratization Struggle of June 1987 or that of Gwangju in May 1980. [10] Despite some exaggeration, I think the argument is tenable. For instance, if nearly a million people were to gather in Sejong-no or Gwanghwamun, a politically illegitimate government could hardly withstand such a gathering. When 500,000 people gathered in the streets in the early stages of the World Cup to see our match with Poland, there was considerable tension. But because it is politically legitimate, the current government was able to withstand the phenomenon. At the same time, the general public likewise was able to control itself and not overstep certain lines. In other words, both the citizens and the police―or the government―had self-control. In that respect, these crowds were able to have a good time precisely because of the fruits of the Democratization Struggle of June 1987 and subsequent political democratization. The other type of compromise concerns the manner of self-expression. Overall, the cheering crowds were united in having adorned themselves with the national flag and red T-shirts. Nonetheless, they each tried to be as unique as possible also. So, in spite of the common symbolism of the Taegeuk flag and the color red, some painted their faces while others wrapped the national flag around like skirts, thus expressing their personalities and the festive spirit. That's how these two types of compromise were able to empower the crowds.
The Internet Culture, the "Red Devils," and "Nosamo"
CHOI, Won-shik
There are countless irrational interpretations of the phenomenon of the "Red Devils" shouting "Go Korea!" While progressives praise our liberation from "red complex," [11] conservatives are excited that the national flag has come down from the flagpole and finally been internalized in the daily lives of the people. What strikes me the most, however, is that people who, with the general weakening of loyalty to the collective symbols of the past―ethnicity, the populace, and class―due in part to the development of IT including computers and as a reaction of the 1990's to the political fervor of the 1980's, had dispersed into cyberspace, especially youngsters, have returned as huge crowds. In other words, IT, which was the medium of the great exodus of the 1990's, has now reversed that very exodus. In the midst of that dynamism, a fusion of the general public and collective symbols has taken place in the twinkling of an eye. So, instead of rashly interpreting this melee of mutually conflicting and swarming ideological directions, it's important to consider the reinstatement of collective symbols on a new dimension.
KIM, Jong-yup
Because the "Red Devils" themselves were formed through an online club, people often connect them with the IT or Internet culture of Korea. In my opinion, the mutual circulation between offline and online modes is extremely strong in our Internet culture. In that respect―if I may put it this way―the gathering of cheering crowds was a national "offline party" [laughs]. That's why I don't see this as a new phenomenon in relation to the Internet culture.
CHOI, Won-shik
In that respect, the Internet culture is very interesting. Of course, the political changeability of Korean culture is always an object of wonder for me. That characteristic is evident, too, in the process through which the Internet culture has spread in our society. As we all know, when the Internet was first introduced into Korea, some, focusing on its interactivity, praised it as a gospel of the realization of electronic democracy. Calling attention to the omnipresence of capital as the "hidden God" even in the cyberworld, others prophesied an apocalyptic vision of a cyber catastrophe where even reality itself would be erased. The Internet culture of Korea, however, went beyond such discussions and secured nearly organic dynamism, revealing an amazing capacity for self-organization as was demonstrated in the World Cup. Such dynamism probably stems from the actual conditions of South Korea or the Korean Peninsula itself, where aspects of the First, Second, and Third Worlds are combined in a complex manner. What I also noticed was that the symbol of the "Red Devils" was none but Chiyou [12] the Heavenly King. Of course, not all of the "Red Devils" seem to have shared this emblem. Nevertheless, their leaders―if they do exist―clearly aimed at consciously popularizing the image of Chiyou the Heavenly King. Though some are positive about it, I think this symbol is problematic. Chiyou the Heavenly King is a mythical figure from an ancient chronicle of China, not of Korea. He is a non-Chinese warrior king who supposedly fought against Xuanyuan [13] the Yellow Emperor (Huangdi) [14] at Zhuolu [15] and lost. Just as we Koreans consider ourselves the descendants of Tan'gun, [16] the Chinese speak of the Yellow Emperor as their originator. This figure is a hidden symbol of Chinese nationalism. In other words, Chiyou is a mirror that reflects Chinese nationalism. Although the nationalists of Korea wish to view him as a leader of the ancient Korean race, [17] the Chinese see him as a hero of the Miao (Hmong) people of southern China. In fact, there supposedly exists a Miao village where the residents claim to be the descendants of Chiyou. In this respect, regardless of his ethnicity, Chiyou is located in a Chinese context. Because he is not a naturally shared symbol among us Koreans like Tan'gun, he is especially conflictive with the Chinese. I even wonder, perhaps somewhat oddly, whether the strong emphasis placed on South Koreanness and the subconscious display of animosity toward China during the World Cup didn't lead to the deterioration of our relations with China and to the skirmish with North Korea in the West Sea. We've already discussed the duality of the crowd. While we should accept the people's new fervor for a collective symbol, we must guard against any development into simplistic nationalism.
KIM, Jong-yup
I, too, have heard that, in the process of forming its cultural identity and conquering surrounding "barbarians," China created the figure of Chiyou. But our mention of Chiyou is considerably different from alluding to Tan'gun as the national founder because the former embodies an extremely aggressive form of nationalism. And such efforts to find one's ethnic or national identity in ancient history are interesting in themselves. In my view, behind the World Cup this year lay injured national pride or nationalism. Regarding the imaginative leap to Chiyou the Heavenly King, I think two interpretations are possible. First, the figure may have been selected by pure chance. When our junior soccer team made it to the semifinals in 1983, the Mexican press and the media called us the "Red Furies," which was translated by our press as the "Red Devils," and that name seems to have stuck. The concept of the "devil," however, is very foreign to our culture and Christians are said to have opposed the idea. Consequently, they looked for something approaching the figure of the devil in our folk symbols and found the dokkaebi, which, according to historians outside the establishment is Chiyou the Heavenly King. On the other hand, the choice of this particular figure betrays a worrisome brand of nationalism that seeks its identity in aggressive symbols such as the Goguryeo Dynasty [18] and Chiyou due to injured national pride. In other words, Chiyou was selected not accidentally but as an expression of the ultranationalism that lies behind the "Red Devils." Personally, I'd like to think that the choice was made accidentally. Otherwise, the symbol is quite problematic. The general public, however, doesn't seem to welcome the image of Chiyou so passionately.
KIM, Hong-jun
We can discover a very interesting brand of ultranationalism in the netizens' reaction. Though the press and the media do not emphasize it much, netizens pay attention to and discuss overseas reactions to a considerable degree. In other words, any country that is friendly to Korea, cheers for our team and rejoices over our victory in the games is a "good" country. On the other hand, countries whose commentators criticize or slander our team and are hostile to Korea just because our team has beaten theirs are "bad" ones. Arguments in this vein are being dispersed through the Internet. Now that we've mentioned it, significant, noteworthy, and unprecedented cultural and social phenomena of South Korean society in 2002―and especially in terms of the Internet―are "Nosamo" [19] and the "Red Devils." Some of the commonalities between those two groups is that they both began on the Internet, are active online and offline, and apolitical and political at the same time. In addition, both groups seem to have played an important role in expanding the netizen culture to those above the age of 30 and to men. Personally, I stayed up all night on several occasions reading the "Nosamo" BBS in April [laughs] and reading BBS related to the World Cup in June. I'm sure the same holds for many others. Both "Nosamo" and the "Red Devils" did not come about accidentally. In fact, I think that there are many links between the two groups and we need to consider them further. For example, members of the two groups are nearly identical in the ambience they create: many people voluntarily supported Roh in the primary election of the MDP as did others during the World Cup with respect to the Korean team.
KIM, Jong-yup
I too think that both groups are similar in terms of the Internet culture, operation method, and the creation of popular enthusiasm within a short period of time. Among the commonalities between the two phenomena, the fervor for a new leader seems to be the strongest one. While "Nosamo" has been organized around Roh's political image and leadership, the crowds who cheered in the streets during the World Cup revealed enthusiasm for a new leader called Guus Hiddink. [20] In my opinion, the World Cup has served to spread among Koreans the idea that, with a good leader, we too can accomplish much. In other words, the fact that the general public wants a new leader and feel confident that, with such a leader, we too can do much seems to be the source of the public's fervor underlying "Nosamo" and the "Red Devils."
* Editor's note: This is an abridged version of the tripartite talk published in the fall 2002 issue (vol. no. 117) of Changjak-kwa Bipyong (Creation and Criticism).
[7] South Korean men, for whom military service is compulsory, do indeed play soccer frequently in their barrack life.
[8] A young singer whose three-man group created a sensation in the Korean music scene in the early 1990's and whose popularity continues.
[9] The South Korean national flag.
[10] The military dictator regime headed by former President Chun crushed a mass uprising in this city with special units and airborne troops.
[11] A McCarthyist, if oversensitive, fear of communism that has dominated South Korean society since the Korean War (1950-1953).
[12] The Korean pronunciation is "Chiu."
[13] The Korean pronunciation is "Heonwon."
[14] The Korean pronunciation is "Hwangje."
[15] The Korean pronunciation is "Tangnok."
[16] The mythical founder of Ancient Joseon, the first Korean kingdom.
[17] Literally “Eastern Barbarians,” this Chinese coinage is pronounced "Dong'i" in Korean and “Dongyi” in Chinese.
[18] A belligerent ancient Korean state that existed from 37 BC to 668 AD.
[19] An online organization that supports Presidential candidate Roh Moo-hyun, who is also a member of the Millennium Democratic Party (MDP).
[20] The Dutch-born coach of the Korean national soccer team during the World Cup.