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mishlert
Joined: 13 Mar 2003
Location: On the 3rd rock from the sun
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 Posted: Sat Sep 13, 2003 4:32 am Post subject: Racism? What Do You Think? |
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I saw the following commercial on Korean TV, and at the movies and I see it as racism; the foreigner man is up to no good.
It begins with an Asian man, possibly Korean, getting eyes scanned to open a door. He then takes out contacts and gets his fingers scanned to open another door. He peels some plastic off his fingers and sits down in a chair facing a computer. Takes out a Visa card and takes off a mask which reveals a foreigner. He begins to use the card on a computer but sirens go off and he is "clamped" to the chair.
Now, I understand what the commercial is all about, but why the foreigner behind the mask? Why not a another Asian? To me it's just another way of trying to show how "bad" we foreigners are. |
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rapier
Joined: 16 Feb 2003
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| Posted: Sat Sep 13, 2003 4:39 am Post subject: |
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Exactly. Non Koreans are not legitimate, untrustworthy people trying to find a chink in our armour and must be exposed and rooted out. This is the thinking.
I remember another ad with a dreamy korean guy sitting next to a pretty western girl. They make flirty eye contact but obviously can't communicate or something and the guy drifts on in a smiling dream-like state. "In your dreams sonny" is what i thought! Can't picture them making a similar ad with a korean girl looking longingly at a western guy!! |
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Hoju Nick
Joined: 28 Jun 2003
Location: Standing on the outside, looking in.
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| Posted: Sat Sep 13, 2003 4:45 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| It begins with an Asian man, possibly Korean, getting eyes scanned to open a door. He then takes out contacts and gets his fingers scanned to open another door. He peels some plastic off his fingers and sits down in a chair facing a computer. Takes out a Visa card and takes off a mask which reveals a foreigner. He begins to use the card on a computer but sirens go off and he is "clamped" to the chair. |
relax - The same commercial is on tv in australia. |
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gypsyfish
Joined: 17 Jan 2003
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Sat Sep 13, 2003 6:33 am Post subject: |
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| No, I don't think so. |
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mokpochica
Joined: 21 Jan 2003
Location: Ann Arbor, MI
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| Posted: Sat Sep 13, 2003 7:28 am Post subject: |
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Maybe because there were similar scenes to this in American-style 'Mission Impossible' Movies. Who knows.
But then in the last 007 movie that North Korean bad guy became a white bad guy (with a perfect British accent). That was definitely the worst 007 movie I have ever seen. Especially when the white (supposedly 'really North korean) bad guy started speaking with a perfect Korean accent and it was obviously dubbed. Egads!
I don't know if that was racism, but a lot of Korean people thought it was. I thought it was just stoopid. Anyway, we can blame it on the Brits, right? |
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General
Joined: 09 Sep 2003
Location: in the dog house
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| Posted: Sat Sep 13, 2003 7:48 am Post subject: Re: Racism? What Do You Think? |
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| mishlert wrote: |
I saw the following commercial on Korean TV, and at the movies and I see it as racism; the foreigner man is up to no good.
It begins with an Asian man, possibly Korean, getting eyes scanned to open a door. He then takes out contacts and gets his fingers scanned to open another door. He peels some plastic off his fingers and sits down in a chair facing a computer. Takes out a Visa card and takes off a mask which reveals a foreigner. He begins to use the card on a computer but sirens go off and he is "clamped" to the chair.
Now, I understand what the commercial is all about, but why the foreigner behind the mask? Why not a another Asian? To me it's just another way of trying to show how "bad" we foreigners are. |
o god, hate to do this but what the funk, eh. 
"it takes one to know one!" imho, if, in your world of things you imagine that a television commercial may be projecting a racist attitude reflective of an entire nation, then, perhaps, you are reflecting your own inadequacies while interpreting the silly little commercial. |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Sat Sep 13, 2003 8:07 am Post subject: |
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Assuming I've understood the description of the ad:
Having the guy being a different race than the peson he is pretending to be is proably just an easy way to drive home the point that they are two very different people. Were they the same race, the difference might not be so obvious.
It is true that people in the west would probably be more sensitive to the possible racist connotations. That doesn't prove that the ad itself is racist, though. |
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jajdude
Joined: 18 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Sat Sep 13, 2003 9:12 am Post subject: |
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I've never seen the commercial but I can sort of understand your being touchy about it. A while ago I watched a bit of a Korean movie and couldn't help having a similar-type reaction. In the movie, a foreign guy was making out with his Korean girlfriend in a public place, but it was a park or forested area where no one else could be seen. They seem to be having a good time, and the guy has her blouse off or whatever and pushed up against a tree. And then a Korean guy happens to pass by and see it, and assumes the girl is being raped and runs up to beat up the foreigner, who is a bit shocked. And the girl tries to tell him to relax, it isn't a rape. Anyway I found it kind of bothersome.
Another one that upset some people a few years ago was a music video of a Korean girl in Canada getting mistreated by her Canadian boyfriend, and also a Korean guy in Canada getting beat up by some white people, apparently redneck idiots. And then the Korean guy and girl are friends, as though that's the only way it could be or something. It was a strange video. I think a lot of foreigners disliked that one. |
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Cthulhu
Joined: 02 Feb 2003
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| Posted: Sat Sep 13, 2003 6:01 pm Post subject: |
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| I believe that offensive music video in question was "I Love You" by Position, which became a huge hit at the time even though it was lifted wholesale from an earlier Japanese song (like we haven't seen that before). |
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HardyandTiny
Joined: 03 Jun 2003
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| Posted: Sat Sep 13, 2003 6:06 pm Post subject: |
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that guy dances like Tiny!
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Sat Sep 13, 2003 10:59 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
In the movie, a foreign guy was making out with his Korean girlfriend in a public place, but it was a park or forested area where no one else could be seen. They seem to be having a good time, and the guy has her blouse off or whatever and pushed up against a tree. And then a Korean guy happens to pass by and see it, and assumes the girl is being raped and runs up to beat up the foreigner, who is a bit shocked. And the girl tries to tell him to relax, it isn't a rape. Anyway I found it kind of bothersome.
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But it sounds like this scene is making it clear that the Korean guy was in the wrong, seeing as how the foreigner is shocked and the girl herself tells the Korean guy to relax.
Not that I doubt the possibility of racism in Korean cinema. There is a well-known "eros" film, dealing with the social realities of prostitution and the criminal life. I've seen this film, and the plot basically revolves around a woman searching for her mother in the Korean underworld. At the end of the film, the woman is humiliated to learn that her mother is working at a bar in Seoul, and that a videotape exists of her(the mother) having sex with "black American soldiers"(I'm quoting the subtitles). Clearly, the writer of the film thought it would be particularly humiliating for the girl if the soldier was black. I realize racial stereotypes are rampant in porn, but this is a director who strives for some level of artistic recognition(I've seen some of his other stuff reviewed in the HERALD), and such blatant racism will not likely win him any friends on the international scene. |
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kiwiboy_nz_99
Joined: 05 Jul 2003
Location: ...Enlightenment...
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| Posted: Sat Sep 13, 2003 11:51 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| Maybe because there were similar scenes to this in American-style 'Mission Impossible' Movies. |
And maybe not, um, im fact definitely not.
This scene alone, may be questionable, and could be interpretes several ways. You can be forgiven for taking it badly though, seeing as if you have been here a while you already know this is one of the most profoundly racist countries that westerners come to in numbers to teach English. |
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ratslash
Joined: 08 May 2003
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| Posted: Sun Sep 14, 2003 12:14 am Post subject: |
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i just want to refer back to the point someone made about the korean guy batting his eyes to a western girl in another advertisement. good point. as if you would ever see a korean girl doing that to western guy on tv! how long do you think it will be before we see a mixed race relationship on tv in korea? of course, if we did ever see it, it would be korean man western girl, coz it is 'ok' for korean men to have a relationship with a western girl, but not the other way round.
sorry, i know this has been said a thousand times before but just had to get it off my chest after spending another weekend being stared at wherever we went. talk about backward! |
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Squid
Joined: 25 Jul 2003
Location: Sunny Anyang
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| Posted: Sun Sep 14, 2003 12:34 am Post subject: |
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That dancing crack is a gas Hardy, I almost burst my gut low. Your partner should be called Laurel. Can't wait to see that trip of the light fantastic.
What was this thread about? Not showing good and virtuous young Korean women being visually molested by those hairy barbarian dastardly foreign men types?
Absolutely not, never has a delicate flower petal of a Korean maiden ever so much as looked at a filthy white barbarian....ohhhh noooooo, never mind banged one.
Squid, highly amused |
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General
Joined: 09 Sep 2003
Location: in the dog house
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| Posted: Sun Sep 14, 2003 2:01 am Post subject: |
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| HardyandTiny wrote: |
that guy dances like Tiny!
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thanks hardy! got me 1st prize in the big "dance around the issue" contest last week. 
btw, if you look anything like your avatar, can i rub up against your leg someday?  |
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