Morinaga Chocolate

There are two consecutive scenes that really made an impression on me from the movie Radio Dayz, and both scenes have to do with the concept of propaganda: the first scene was the “accidental” advertisement for “Morinaga Chocolate” due to an impromptu performance by the supposed female lead because she felt like she was being edged out of the radio drama, which was immediately followed by an arranged advertisement of a certain kind of flavor packet. The Korean society ate the two advertisements right up, despite of how this advertisement got out into the public, on purpose or by accident, suggesting the degree to which the public media (in this case radio) influences society. The basic concept and effectiveness of a radio drama proves the point that “Korean radio became an important productive force in the creation of a modern, popular culture in colonial Korea.” (Robinson 53) No one knew the reason why the radio drama and everything about it became so popular: perhaps to guide society out of the everyday mundane life under Japanese colonial rule and expose them to a new concept? Nevertheless, immediately after the broadcast of the chocolate, flavor packet and later the red shoes the main female role wore, all its audience rushed to buy these things. I found it really funny how right after the Japanese manager for JODK received a bribe to advertise the flavor packets, the writer had to change the original script from drinking coffee to eating noodles that used the flavor packet, the reason being “eating noodles is more realistic than drinking coffee all day”. To some extent that made sense, but it was a good laugh, and what made it funnier was how excited and willing the audience of the radio drama was to follow these new trends. Indeed, as radio programming in Colonial Korea became popular, “the overall size of the radio audience was also increasing rapidly” (Robinson 59), which meant that there would also be an increasing size of trend followers, further making the radio drama a great success.