Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Julius]

Is it really worth the money to act like clowns or idiots for korean TV?

I just saw on Echannel some tall white guy being poked fun at by 3 Korean dudes. They had him dressed up in womans clothes and made a whole load of jokes at his expense to the audience while he was clearly oblivious as to what they were saying. As a final touch, they gave him a handbag, which he meekly accepted. He looked uncomfortable. Maybe he thought he would become a movie star and make loads of cash.

Do they lie about whats involved then rope them into it at the last minute? Because as far as I can tell there are no honorable, dignified or attractive TV roles for foreign white males in Korea. Unless you're prepared to fulfill the stereotypes of drug dealer, drunk, clown or pervert. Why even bother?

[VanIslander]

[Julius]

Korean media is obviously headed by cretins keen to nix the "threat" of foreign men -by making them look pathetic on TV.

..Apparently some weyguks are only too happy to oblige?

[tomato]

Sometimes they don't even let foreign actors edit the English on English programs.
I saw a program in which a foreigner comes into a stationery store and says, "Notebook, please."
The clerk says, "How many?"
The foreigner says, "Two."

[chemicalblur]

I actually find some of those programs quite amusing. If you think about it, t's no better than what the media back home did with Asians before things became overly PC.

[D.D.]

I always feel bad for that girl with yellow hair and that guy who dresses up sort of like Jack Sparrow. They have a painful life.

[Steelrails]

Only on Dave's would a bunch of people from Western countries talk about acting like clowns or idiots on TV for money.

Not to pull out the 'Degrading Hollywood Asian Stereotypes' but uhm yeah time to pull out the 'Degrading Hollywood Asian Stereotypes' or minorities in general.

Its stupid and shameful yes. But then again we all laughed at the 'Hangover' or 'How High' or 'Sixteen Candles' did we not? How about Mr. City Wok on South Park? Or how about black people constantly being portrayed as gangbangers or loud funny guys.

Funny thing is when minorities, particularly asians complain about sterotyped portrayls, the response is 'It's just comedy- take a joke."
(Which can be true- I laughed at some of that stuff)

Go write a letter to both KBS and MGM/Universal about negative stereotypes and then I might actually think you care.

[halfmanhalfbiscuit]

The actors used on exposes are typically Russian or Eastern European and I don't think they have much of an idea of the scripts used.

Isaac Hurst- I'd imagine he's raking in the money, monkey man or not. I was usually more annoyed with the idiot with a purple wig on acting as his sidekick.

A fair amount of foreigners on TV are just media whores and Korea gives them that opportunity. The women on "Talk Show with Beauties" or whatever it is is a prime example. I mean, if they're on student visas they certainly shouldn't be getting appearance money.So why else be on?

[Smee]

Periodically I go through screenshots of English Cafe, a goldmine for not only bad English but for native speakers acting like buffoons.

Until there's a generation of biracial Koreans---that is, until the children of the new international marriages grow up---there won't be a meaningful analysis of the portrayal of foreigners on TV. Sure, blogs do it, and it comes up on message boards from time to time . . . but by and large the people who look at portrayals of Asians on American TV are Korean-AMERICAN, Japanese-AMERICAN, Chinese-AMERICAN. With the exception of hypersensitive netizens, people overseas aren't enacting change, it's the citizens of those countries doing it. Messageboards and blogs are good forums to look at the issue, but nothing will really happen until you have a generation of American-KOREANS or Australian-KOREANS getting involved.

Just my twenty won.

[beercanman]

How many Koreans have contact with non-Koreans?

That's all it is. Near zero contact. So, a bunch of ideas about "foreigners" which is only around 99% of the people in the world, but never mind, stick to your ideas.

Same thing can be said for China, by the way, for which "foreigners" are nearer 80% of the world, I guess.

[itaewonguy]

reminds me of early hollywood when Roles for Asians were usually the stupid chinaman ...

[crossmr]

They take it because the pay is high and if they don't otherwise have a visa some of these places give out 6 month visas for like 1 day of work.
This was brought up a few months ago when people were talking about that god awful "Surprise" TV show. That is just an abortion. Half the people on it aren't native speakers and none of them can act.

however someone mentioned that even for a single days work they could be getting anywhere from 200,000 to over 1,000,000W.

[DorkothyParker]

Sign me up! I can't imagine it would be any more humiliating than what I do at the local karaoke bar anyway (by choice & not quite intoxicated).

[NightSky]

some people are making good points here, that it's not necessarily more degrading than anything else native speakers here may do, if you work in a hagwon (I don't, but..) you are probably singing the ABC song and clapping and doing all that stuff anyway, just to a smaller audience, but if you have cameras in the classroom who knows who is seeing you?

plus they are generally getting well paid for their trouble; it's been mentioned/rumored here that the misuda girls get upwards of 100,000 per show, hasn't it? which may not be worth it to you as they spend a day taping one episode, but they are students, why shouldn't they be able to supplement their income, even if they are doing it by showing a lot of leg?

[VanIslander]