S. Korea soap operas tap North defectors for drama

South Korea’s massively popular soap operas are not known for embracing diversity. But now a new minority type is emerging — the sympathetic North Korean.
Since the end of the 1950-53 war that sealed the division of the Korean peninsula, the perception of N. Koreans in the South has been molded by Cold War politics.
Images of life north of the border have largely been limited to S. Korean TV news broadcasts showing members of the ruling Kim dynasty, goose-stepping soldiers, or grim-faced Pyongyang news anchors reading out threats to turn the South into a “sea of flames.”
But cultural representations of N. Koreans have undergone significant change in recent years.
One example is the N. Korean secret agent — a stock character in S. Korean films down the decades and traditionally played as a soulless, brainwashed villain.
Recent movies have sought to paint a more human, even sympathetic profile, portraying spies as conflicted action heroes whose personal struggles embody a divided Korean peninsula. Actors are vying for such roles, as opposed to fearing the potential impact on their image.
The culturally conservative TV industry has been slower to shift its ground, but the search for fresh twists to popular soap opera plot lines has uncovered a rich seam of untapped potential in the N. Korean defector community.
“N. Koreans, especially defectors who have come to the South, have very dramatic stories to tell — a life in the country like the North, a harrowing journey to escape it and a struggle to survive in a new world,” Nam Gunn, a director at SBS, one of the South’s three major TV stations, told AFP.
“Naturally, these characters have much to offer TV dramas ... and they are largely uncharted territory,” he said.
Since the end of the Korean War, about 25,000 N. Koreans have escaped and settled in the South.
For many freedom has come at a price, as they struggle to survive in a highly-competitive market economy where they are often treated with a mixture of sympathy, suspicion and condescension.
In the past year or so, at least five soap operas have decided the defector experience offers storyline possibilities and have written in roles for N. Korean characters.
Nam recently directed a critically-acclaimed two-episode black comedy, featuring a N. Korean character — a former member of Pyongyang’s political elite — who suffers a series of mishaps in the South.
The main character of “A Stranger” — aired in early November — eventually tries to sneak back to the North, only to be rejected. Then, on his return to Seoul, he is accused of spying.
Nam cited as one of his inspirations a popular weekly talk show, “On My Way to Meet You,” which features 15 female N. Korean defectors as regular guests.
The show — launched in 2011 — shows the women recounting, often tearfully, their family, cultural and political lives in N. Korea and the challenges of life in the South.
A critical and commercial success, it proved that there was considerable viewer interest in defector stories.
State-run KBS, probably the most conservative broadcaster, featured a N. Korean defector character in its hugely popular prime-time soap opera “Cheer Up, Mr.Kim” last year.
Played by a S. Korean actor, the role was of a teenage boy, Ri Chol-Young, who lost most of his family members in a prison camp in the North and fled to Seoul.
Overcoming his initial difficulties, Ri meets neighbors who embrace him as their own and falls in love with a S. Korean girl — an unlikely match in reality given the financial insecurity of most defectors in the South.
“I wanted to shed a light on this minority group that is so isolated and discriminated against in our society,” Hong Seok-Gu, the producer of the show, told AFP.
“I wanted the audience to realize that N. Koreans can be our own neighbors who are actually just like us, our brothers or sisters,” Hong said.