Somewhat to do with previous post (#80):
There was a protest by Korean directors against the foreign (American) cinema quota-cut that their government did when it struck a trade deal with the US. Until then it had been the case that, to protect Korean cinema, theatres could only show non-Korean films (which was of course, mostly American) on about 50% of the days in the year. But then in 2006, the US and the Korean government had trade talks and Korea promised cuts in the quota to the US.
Some links I could find:
- http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200...556034.htm
<b>S Korea trades film quota for US free trade</b> - January 26, 2006
- http://www.asiamedia.ucla.edu/article-east...?parentid=40149
<b>KOREA: Directors clash with daily over screening quota cut</b> - March 1, 2006
- http://www.variety.com/article/VR111793913...oryid=1442&cs=1
<b>Korea bizzers move to save screen quota</b> - Mar. 2, 2006
- http://ifcblog.ifctv.com/ifc_blog/2006/05/..._cannes_sn.html
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->From Kim Hyun at Yonhap News: - 05.23.06
The Cannes Film Festival has given unanimous support to South Korean movie industry personnel fighting a trade deal with Washington that would cut a screen quota for domestic movies, according to its statement released here Monday.
[...]
About 70 Korean directors, actors and movie staff are in Cannes to publicize their protest. They have demonstrated publicly in South Korea to reverse the policy to cut a quota in theaters for homegrown movies. The reduction was a years-long demand from Washington under the influence of major U.S. studios.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Back then, two of my Korean friends spoke about this and saw this as the US pushing their movies and culture onto Korea (did Korean films get shown in large numbers in the US; or for that matter, do Dutch or French or German movies; or even English ones from the UK which are at least in the English language?)
It would also end up monopolising the country's cinema and film-revenue; and that wouldn't be fair competition because the local industry did not have the money power that US studios have. Worse still, they even thought that US movies were subtle and not-so-subtle attempts at influencing Korean people and lifestyle (social engineering, basically)
I think this could make self-perceptions in Korea worse. There's no way people in Asia, like India and Korea, or Africa or elsewhere are going to ever look American/European. But if one is constantly bombarded by tv playing western stuff, which will work as adverts for what is supposedly fashionable, glamorous, attractive, then it is going to influence at least some percentage of the viewing population.
And as is evident, this even happens to a limited extent in other western countries, like Australia (post 80), where younger people are definitely influenced by the constant American television.
With non-western countries it's worse, because the people might even start to think that such-and-such are the 'most attractive' population while they don't find themselves equally attractive in their own right anymore.
The solution is to have lots of local programming, and also not let American stuff be the only foreign import that is played. Asian countries could bring in programmes from other Asian countries, South America, western and eastern Europe and wherever. In this way, they at least get a little bit more exposure to the fact that not everyone looks the same and that this is not a bad thing at all. It will reduce chances of idolising one population (US programming has made it a point to glamourise its programmes, which is not the case in Europe for instance - allowing both will give a bit of realism).
Going even further off from the topic:
In the last few years, I noticed that more and more American tv has replaced local programming, just like it did in Europe a decade ago. And only a few have notived and complained how British and American people play everyone from Russians to Greeks (Troy, Alexander in recent times) in movies. So one starts thinking that that is what the Ancient Greeks or Romans or present-day Russians look like, when it is just the comparitively small gene pool of the US and Britain playing them over and over again. This is a misrepresentation of the world and history.
Remember all those technicolour epics about Rome? Except for maybe Sophia Loren, that's not what the Romans looked like, yet that's what everyone conjures up now when they think of Rome.
There was a protest by Korean directors against the foreign (American) cinema quota-cut that their government did when it struck a trade deal with the US. Until then it had been the case that, to protect Korean cinema, theatres could only show non-Korean films (which was of course, mostly American) on about 50% of the days in the year. But then in 2006, the US and the Korean government had trade talks and Korea promised cuts in the quota to the US.
Some links I could find:
- http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200...556034.htm
<b>S Korea trades film quota for US free trade</b> - January 26, 2006
- http://www.asiamedia.ucla.edu/article-east...?parentid=40149
<b>KOREA: Directors clash with daily over screening quota cut</b> - March 1, 2006
- http://www.variety.com/article/VR111793913...oryid=1442&cs=1
<b>Korea bizzers move to save screen quota</b> - Mar. 2, 2006
- http://ifcblog.ifctv.com/ifc_blog/2006/05/..._cannes_sn.html
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->From Kim Hyun at Yonhap News: - 05.23.06
The Cannes Film Festival has given unanimous support to South Korean movie industry personnel fighting a trade deal with Washington that would cut a screen quota for domestic movies, according to its statement released here Monday.
[...]
About 70 Korean directors, actors and movie staff are in Cannes to publicize their protest. They have demonstrated publicly in South Korea to reverse the policy to cut a quota in theaters for homegrown movies. The reduction was a years-long demand from Washington under the influence of major U.S. studios.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Back then, two of my Korean friends spoke about this and saw this as the US pushing their movies and culture onto Korea (did Korean films get shown in large numbers in the US; or for that matter, do Dutch or French or German movies; or even English ones from the UK which are at least in the English language?)
It would also end up monopolising the country's cinema and film-revenue; and that wouldn't be fair competition because the local industry did not have the money power that US studios have. Worse still, they even thought that US movies were subtle and not-so-subtle attempts at influencing Korean people and lifestyle (social engineering, basically)
I think this could make self-perceptions in Korea worse. There's no way people in Asia, like India and Korea, or Africa or elsewhere are going to ever look American/European. But if one is constantly bombarded by tv playing western stuff, which will work as adverts for what is supposedly fashionable, glamorous, attractive, then it is going to influence at least some percentage of the viewing population.
And as is evident, this even happens to a limited extent in other western countries, like Australia (post 80), where younger people are definitely influenced by the constant American television.
With non-western countries it's worse, because the people might even start to think that such-and-such are the 'most attractive' population while they don't find themselves equally attractive in their own right anymore.
The solution is to have lots of local programming, and also not let American stuff be the only foreign import that is played. Asian countries could bring in programmes from other Asian countries, South America, western and eastern Europe and wherever. In this way, they at least get a little bit more exposure to the fact that not everyone looks the same and that this is not a bad thing at all. It will reduce chances of idolising one population (US programming has made it a point to glamourise its programmes, which is not the case in Europe for instance - allowing both will give a bit of realism).
Going even further off from the topic:
In the last few years, I noticed that more and more American tv has replaced local programming, just like it did in Europe a decade ago. And only a few have notived and complained how British and American people play everyone from Russians to Greeks (Troy, Alexander in recent times) in movies. So one starts thinking that that is what the Ancient Greeks or Romans or present-day Russians look like, when it is just the comparitively small gene pool of the US and Britain playing them over and over again. This is a misrepresentation of the world and history.
Remember all those technicolour epics about Rome? Except for maybe Sophia Loren, that's not what the Romans looked like, yet that's what everyone conjures up now when they think of Rome.
--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo-->
