Claire Lee

“Madame Ae-ma” was one of the cultural products of Chun Doo-hwan’s military regime in the 80s, and its famous “Sex, Sports and Screen” ― the “3S” ― policy. The three were made into major sources of entertainment for the public, to take their interest away from politics ― after Chun’s military coup took power in 1980 while crushing the democratization movements nationwide.
During Chun’s eight-year dictatorship, pro baseball and soccer leagues were established for the first time in Korea. In 1981, Seoul won the rights to host the 1988 Summer Olympics and the 1986 Asian Games. Color TVs were distributed country-wide, the sex industry boomed, and the nightly curfew was officially abolished. People started hitting movie theaters and bars late at night.

3 thoughts on “Claire Lee

  1. shinichi Post author

    Korean films of the ’80s: Why so erotic?

    by Claire Lee

    Korea Herald

    http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20120708000172&mod=skb

    On Feb. 6, 1982, director Jung In-yeop’s legendary erotic romance “Madame Ae-ma” was released at the Seoul Cinema Theater in Jongno, central Seoul.

    The venue was completely packed with an excited crowd, and fierce competition for tickets ensued, resulting in broken windows. It was the first Korean movie to be screened late at night, after the nightly curfew had been lifted exactly one month before. The sexually explicit film, which is considered one of the iconic works of 1980s Korean cinema, drew 315,000 viewers in just four months after its release. It inspired more than 10 sequels, becoming the longest running series in Korea’s film history.

    “Madame Ae-ma” was one of the cultural products of Chun Doo-hwan’s military regime in the 80s, and its famous “Sex, Sports and Screen” ― the “3S” ― policy. The three were made into major sources of entertainment for the public, to take their interest away from politics ― after Chun’s military coup took power in 1980 while crushing the democratization movements nationwide.

    During Chun’s eight-year dictatorship, pro baseball and soccer leagues were established for the first time in Korea. In 1981, Seoul won the rights to host the 1988 Summer Olympics and the 1986 Asian Games. Color TVs were distributed country-wide, the sex industry boomed, and the nightly curfew was officially abolished. People started hitting movie theaters and bars late at night.

    Some of the most striking cultural legacies of Chun’s military regime are, inarguably, the vast number of racy films produced in the time period. Almost all of the released films had sexually suggestive themes, with explicit posters and titles.

    Movie theaters put up promotional film banners that screamed sex: It usually consisted of pictures of women moaning in pleasure, revealing their cleavage and other parts of their bodies. The titles included “Between the Knees” and “Prostitution.”

    “It was pretty much a carrot-and-stick method,” said film curator Kim Sang-cheol of the Korean Film Archive.

    “While being extremely repressive politically, the regime thought it was necessary to provide an alternative outlet for the public to express their oppressed desire. The outlets took the forms of live-TV sports broadcast and sexually suggestive movies.”

    Even the legendary Im Kwon-taek could not get away with Chun’s cultural agenda in the 80s. The director, who has made more than 100 films since his 1962 debut feature “Farewell to the Duman River,” was once asked by Chun’s administration to create a documentary to simply glorify the 1988 Seoul Olympics. His works released in the 80s include the famous erotic period drama “Surrogate Woman,” where its leading actress Kang Soo-yeon played in a number of sex scenes as a young Joseon surrogate mother of a low caste, who gets abused by a ruthless aristocratic family.

    According to curator Kim, no movie was allowed to be socially conscious or critical of the government in any way under Chun’s regime. The only subject-matter that was approved by the censors was, ironically, sex and nudity.

    “The filmmakers and producers really had no choice,” said Kim. “They wanted to make movies and had to earn a living. The result was the outpouring of racy, erotic films that practically dominated the scene at the time.”

    Director Lee Jang-ho has mixed feelings about the ’80s. It was the era where he experienced some of the biggest box-office triumphs in his life. His 1984 erotic thriller “Between the Knees,” which told the story about a repressed young woman with an abnormal, uncontrollable libido, was the second-most viewed film of that year. “Eoh Wu-dong,” Lee’s 1985 erotic biopic of the ambitious female artist and writer from 15th century Joseon, won its leading actress Lee Bo-hee Best Actress at the Paeksang Arts Awards.

    But Lee also remembers having to submit his initial scripts to the government even before pre-production. He remembers “nothing ever being approved” by the authorities.

    Prior to his 1983 comedy “Declaration of Idiot,” a film of which Lee is not very fond, he had released films that delved deep into issues of human degradation and the underbelly of society.

    Among them was his 1981 drama “The People at Dark Streets,” a cinematic portrait of a severely impoverished young woman who sells herself for survival. Lee initially wanted to make a sequel to the film but his script was repeatedly turned down by the censors of the government.

    “‘The People at Dark Streets’ was a box office hit, but the government banned it from being exported overseas, simply because it dealt with the dark side of society,” Lee told The Korea Herald.

    “I was pretty much blacklisted. After getting my scripts turned down for the movie’s sequel, I wrote this dumb script which purposely went totally opposite from what I thought was ideal. That script got approved by the censors, and turned out to be ‘Declaration of Idiot.’ I made ‘Between the Knees’ and ‘Eoh Wu-dong’ after that.”

    In spite of the limited options he had, Lee made his own efforts to give the racy films some substance. In “Between the Knees,” he indirectly criticizes the Korean public who idolized Western culture without any judgment, by creating a young, troubled female character whose middle-class family members try to be everything that’s considered “American.”

    His period drama “Eoh Wu-dong” was once again censored even after its official release, as one of its scenes, where the Joseon female artist sexually seduces and pokes fun at the king, was considered “too political” and “metaphorically resistant” to Chun’s regime. The scene was ordered to be cut and the movie was re-released after the part was removed.

    Despite his efforts, however, Lee said he is not proud of his works released under Chun’s regime.

    “I did make my efforts in ‘Between the Knees,’ but in the end, it really is very much like porn,” he told The Korea Herald. “I’m not proud because I gave in. I feel like I should’ve tried harder and made the movies that I really wanted to make.”

    However, some think a number of sexually suggestive films from the ’80s, including “Eoh Wu-dong” and “Madame Ae-ma,” explored the autonomy of female sexuality for the first time in Korea’s film history, and therefore are significant.

    “Dealing with female sexuality in the ’80s, the erotic films tried to reach female liberation,” wrote scholar and film critic Kang So-won in her 2006 thesis titled “The Representation of Sexuality and Gender in Korea’s Erotic Films in the ’80s.”

    “Films such as “Madame Ae-ma” and “Eoh Wu-dong” introduced female characters who daringly challenge the Confucian patriarchy and male-dominated society ― as the subject of their own desires.”

    The Korean Film Archive is currently holding special online screenings of sexually suggestive movies from the ’80s. It features a total of 10 films from the period, including director Lee’s “Between the Knees” (1984) and “Eoh Wu-dong” (1985); Jung In-yeop’s “Madame Ae-ma” (1982); Jeong Jin-woo’s “Parrot Cries with its Body” (1981); and Jeong Ji-young’s “Mist Whispers Like Women” (1982).

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  2. shinichi Post author

    MadameAemaMadame Aema

    Wikipedia

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madame_Aema

    Madame Aema (애마부인 – Aema buin; also known as Mrs. Emma) is a 1982 South Korean film. A box-office hit, it was one of only two films to sell more than 100,000 tickets in Seoul during the year of 1982.

    **

    While her husband is in prison, Oh Su-bi engages in extramarital affairs. As she is preparing to leave for France with one of her lovers, her husband is released, and she returns to him.


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  3. shinichi Post author

    全斗煥

    ウィキペディア

    https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/全斗煥

    全 斗煥(チョン・ドゥファン、전두환、1931年1月18日 – )は、大韓民国(韓国)の軍人、政治家。韓国第11・12代大統領(在任:1980年 – 1988年)。本貫は、旌善全氏。号は「日海」(イルヘ/イレ、일해)。

    **

    慶尚南道陜川生まれ。朝鮮戦争中に陸軍士官学校に入学(11期)。同期には盧泰愚らがいた。1960年6月、陸軍大尉として崔世昌、張基梧、車智澈と共にアメリカ合衆国ジョージア州フォート・ベニングの特殊戦教育機関で6ヶ月間、沼地、山岳・サバイバル訓練などの「レインジャー・トレーニングコース」課程を受けた。また落下傘降下訓練(これはオプションと思われる)を受け、空輸団創設要員となった。朴正煕がクーデターを起こすと、陸軍士官学校の生徒を率いて支持を表明。この功績が認められて最高会議議長秘書官になった。ベトナム戦争に第9師団第29連隊長として参加し、帰国した。1969年、特戦団司令部が創設された。第一空輸旅団を母体として次々と旅団が生まれてゆき、自らも第一旅団長を務めた。この特殊戦略司令部を経て1979年に保安司令官になる。

    朴正煕暗殺事件が起きると、暗殺を実行した金載圭を逮捕・処刑するなど暗殺事件の捜査を指揮する。12月12日に戒厳司令官鄭昇和大将を逮捕し、実権を掌握(粛軍クーデター)。1980年5月17日に5・17非常戒厳令拡大措置を実施。9月に大統領就任。翌1981年から第五共和国政府がスタートした。
    全斗煥が第11代大韓民国大統領に就任した直後の1980年10月10日に朝鮮民主主義人民共和国(北朝鮮)の金日成主席は連邦制による朝鮮統一案として「高麗民主連邦共和国」設立を訴えたが、この案は大韓民国側に拒否された。

    1982年には長年続いた夜間外出禁止令を解除した。1984年、戦後の韓国元首として初めて日本を訪れ、昭和天皇との晩餐会に臨むなど、日本と向き合う姿勢を強調した。同年、政治活動被規制者202人の規制を解除する。ほぼ同時期に第一次教科書問題が発生。中国共産党に連携する形でこれを批判した。ただしこれは純粋な歴史認識問題というよりも、日本に60億ドルの経済援助を求めていたが日本は呑めないということで膠着していた全斗煥が、自らの独裁権力の強化のために日本からの援助を引き出させる手段として用いたとする説もある。

    日米との連携を強め経済の活性化に成功するが、1983年にミャンマーのアウン・サン廟へ赴いた際、北朝鮮の工作員による全斗煥を狙ったラングーン爆弾テロ事件が発生する。彼自身は難を逃れたものの、事件で多くの閣僚を失った。さらに1987年には北朝鮮の工作員金賢姫らによる大韓航空機爆破事件が起き、南北関係は緊迫度を増した。

    反政府活動の取り締まりも強化し、大学生の副業の禁止や卒業の制限、学生運動に関連した学生を強制的に入営させて密告やスパイを奨励させる「緑化事業」を行った。1980年には、非常戒厳令拡大措置にともない、社会的に弱者とされる失業者やホームレス、あるいは犯罪者や学生運動家、労働運動家など約4万人を一斉に逮捕させ、軍隊の「三清教育隊」で過酷な訓練と強制労働を課した。特に後者は暴行などで52人の死者を出し(後遺症の死者は397人)、2768人に精神障害を残すなど計り知れない傷跡を残した。あまりの酷さに人々から「一旦入ったら生きて出られぬ」と恐れられたという。逮捕された者の中には光州事件に連座した高校生や主婦、14歳の女子中学生も含まれていた。

    また、全斗煥政権下では国家保衛立法会議によって朴正煕政権時代に制定された反共法が国家保安法 (大韓民国)に統合される形で廃止されると共に、言論基本法が制定され、言論統廃合が行われている。全斗煥の大統領在任中テレビでは、全政権批判は一切許されず、夜九時のニュースが必ず全斗煥賛美のニュースで開始されたため、テンジョンニュース等と揶揄された。 クーデター後に金大中を含む野党側の政治家を逮捕また軟禁し、非常戒厳令を全国に拡大させ、これに反発していた光州での民主化要求デモを鎮圧するため陸軍の特殊部隊を送り、市民が多数虐殺された(光州事件)。金大中は軍法会議で死刑判決を受ける(後に無期懲役に減刑)ものの、1982年にアメリカに出国。1987年以降には改憲・反政府運動も活発化し、7月には政権移譲を表明。

    退任後には自ら財団を設置し院政を狙うが、利権介入などが発覚し親族が逮捕されるに至って、1988年11月23日に私財の国庫への献納と隠遁を表明した。その後も光州事件や不正蓄財への追及が止まず、死刑判決を受けた(金大中の計らいにより、減刑の後、特赦)。2004年にも子息の不正貯蓄について検察から出頭を求められている。

    2013年、いわゆる「全斗煥追徴法」が成立し、一族の不正蓄財に対する強制捜査が行われ、同年9月10日、滞納が続いていた追徴金の未納分1672億ウォンについて、完済すると発表した。

    全斗煥に対しては独裁者、虐殺者、在任中の汚職など否定的なイメージで見られることが多いが、その反面、経済発展やオリンピック誘致・スポーツ振興などの功績を評価すべきだという保守派からの擁護論もある。

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