Although neo-liberalism has emerged as a political and economical ideology and prevails more and more in the world, it is now located in the cultural dimension and its final goal will be to change the soul. If the eventual goal of neo-liberalism is to change the soul, then its influence on cultural expressions of everyday Korean life will be a good yardstick for its prevalence in Korea. Soap operas and films are therefore a good starting point for examining to what extent neo-liberalism has affected Korean society.
I am interested in the way in which the state intervenes in the everyday life of Korean people, in the reproduction of subjectivity and the extent to which the state’s intervention is successful. I specifically intend to reveal what type of subject the state favors as the ideal member of neo-liberal Korean society. There is one interesting phenomenon that I noticed in recent TV series and films. It is the absence of the parental role. Considering the fact the state used to be often figured as parents in Korea, this absence of parent figures has something to do with the new role of the state in Korea. In addition, the increase in orphan characters, symbolic or literal, in TV dramas and films can be analyzed in terms of “human capital.”
For the analysis of TV dramas and films, I take up the orphan characters to show the way in which Korean neo-liberalism reveals itself. There are two main reasons why orphan characters show what neo-liberal subjects are like in Korea. One is that orphans have no access to any support, including financial, from their parents, so they have to be self-reliant, as neo-liberal subjects on Thatcher’s definition. The other is, considering the fact that neo-liberalism comes along with lack of social security in Korea and the fact that Koreans apply a parental image to the state, orphan character also exemplify what neo-liberal subjects are facing - the loss of the state as a parental figure in neo-liberal Korea. To be sure, neo-liberal subject can be best shown as orphans since they epitomize the loss of parents both literarily as of children and figuratively as of citizens, in neo-liberal Korea.
However, what I am trying to say is not that the state disappeared in neoliberal South Korea. What Foucault says about neo-liberalism is not at all laisser-faire governments. I want to show the way in which the state control over the TV to produce enterprising bodies. Airing soap operas with neo-liberal characters featured in them would be one example for the state’s subsumptive effort. The reason why I take up orphans as an extreme case of neo-liberal subjects is also to show the transitional situation of the state in Korea. The state lost its old parental image---but I do not mean the state disappeared. The parental imagery of the state is an old way of control and protecting its people. Now neo-liberal Korea performs its role differently by intervening in people’s everyday life. However, for Koreans who are so used to its parental image, they feel they lost parents. This ambivalent status of the state in Korea necessitates more extensive and deeper reading of its image imbedded in TV dramas and films.
My analysis starts with Foucault’s conception of human capital and Harvey’s arguments on neo-liberalism, then moves on to demonstrate how a government funded soap opera intended to perform the role of creating normative rules for neo-liberal subjects by cultivating what Foucault calls a “discursive formation.” My analysis will also address how the audience receives these cultural products and will finish it by comparing this soap opera with other soap operas and with films.
Korea is a society where national development remains strong as a political legacy while individuals ideally maintain tight family ties. Lila Abu-Lughod’s assertion about Egypt will be useful here since Korea has a very short history as a modern-state like so-called Third World countries. Television, as a state-funded medium, “in Egypt, as in other postcolonial contexts, cultural forms like television melodrama, projected by national television industries, are seen . . . as particularly effective instruments of social development, national consolidation, and “modernization.”” (Abu-Lughod 112) Among other broadcasting systems in Korea, KBS is analogous.
Although modernization may not be its main focus---I am sure for the last several decades KBS has been used for an “effective instruments of social development, national consolidation and modernization”---Weird Men and Weird Women aired by KBS 1 should convey some message intended by the broadcasting station. This intention comes from the state. My explanation is that, as Yurchak mentions, in Korea as in any newly developing neo-liberal country, mass media attempt to spread neo-liberalism. Despite its popularity, however, it is hard to diagnose to what extent the audience accepted the image of neo-liberal subjects depicted in the drama. Also, Jong-nam’s strong entrepreneurship often conflicts with other characters from TV dramas and low budget independent films from less conservative private broadcasters. Nevertheless, while the film conveys the depression of the failures, it is also telling the audience that there is no other option; you only have to make every effort to be an exemplary neo-liberal for a happy life. It is also a sign of the deep penetration of the neo-liberal ideology into Korea and ironically reflects another way of the reinforcement of neo-liberal subjects through the media.
In this neo-liberally naturalized Korea, with the legacy of Confucian family values, the state’s neo-liberal ideology ironically conveys through orphan images. It causes confusion that the state disappeared. In order to detect and deal with this hidden image of the state, when we think of the way to oppose and overcome neo-liberalism, we need to start by taking a close look at our everyday practices and our taken-for-granted dispositions rather than attack the ideology itself directly, in order to be aware of what kinds of strategies are at work around us and upon us.