[Radio Dayz]

             The film Radio Dayz (2008), directed by Ha Gi-ho, depicts the story of the first Korean radio broadcasting station in 1933 (during the colonial era). By introducing the episodes that take place in the JODK Kyungseong Broadcasting Station, the film shows a different form of resistance of nationalist Koreans in the colonial period. With the change that occurred in colonial policy, from the Military Rule (bundan seiji) to Cultural Rule (bunka seiji) nationalists no longer solely rely on violent measures to fight against the Japanese power (Robinson, 54). Although it is mentioned in M.Robinson’s work that Japan’s goal in implementing bunka seiji was to slowly assimilate Korea culturally (Robinson, 54), cultural nationalists (such as K in the film) utilized radio to spread cultural consciousness within the country (Robinson, 55). In fact, prior to reading the text, I personally thought that radio broadcasting will mainly benefit the Japanese colonial power; however, its role as maintaining Korean cultural traditions and the Korean language was interesting to note (Robinson, 63).

             The different female characters in the movie were also intriguing. While there was a clear division between traditional women and new women, some characters seemed quite unclear to me. The wife of Mr. Roh (the writer) could simply be described as a traditional woman who wears traditional clothes and takes care of household chores (despite the gender relation between Mr.Roh and her). Myeongwol, a gisaeng, who performs traditional music and wears hanbok (also plays the role of a typical traditional woman, Yongsim) and Marie, the jazz singer is represented as a modern woman. However what about Soondeok? She seems to be present in solving different kinds of problems that the radio team faces (for example, she plays the minor role, helps the writer come up with a new story line, etc.) Could she be described as a character who is transforming into a new woman (becoming more independent)? What about the lady who runs the coffee shop? She is the financial provider for Taekukdan; economically speaking, she is in a more dominant position than K, but she is always behind the scenes, not directly/physically involved in carrying out the Taekukdan plans. She seemed to be more similar to Min from YMCA Baseball team rather than Park from Blue Swallow.

             Last but not least, there were couple of scenes that showed parodies of K-dramas were fun to look at (e.g., Something happened in Bali) and the story of PPL, fighting over more lines in the drama reminded of a K-drama called On Air (2008). The incorporation of contemporary K-drama seemed anachronistic to me; what could have been the director’s intention in covering the K-drama?

Assimilation in Radio Dayz

The plot of Radio Dayz has multiple parallels with Robinson’s article on broadcasting and cultural hegemony. Korea’s first radio station, JDOK, is established in 1933 under the control of the Japanese for the purpose of spreading Japanese colonial propaganda. As Robinson notes, the Japanese did plan on abusing the abilities of radio’s national transmission to spread Japanese cultural values and the Japanese language. In essence it was just another manner of executing dominance over Korean society in ways other than militarily. Robinson also notes the problems created because of the language barrier between the Japanese and Korean, the reason for the starting the all-Korean channel present in Radio Dayz, and how it ironically created a pocket of Korean culture that rejected Japanese attempts of assimilation. “While still tightly controlled by Ministry of Communications officials, all-Korean radio created a unique cultural space through the diverse informational, educational, economic, and pure entertainment programming it sent over the public airwaves – a space that contradicted the cultural/political logic of assimilation.” (Robinson, p. 53) This particular quote reminded me of the scenes in Radio Dayz involving the Korean public audience. Though the film focuses on the radio station, its staff and the attempts of Korean nationalists to use the radio to start a revolution, I noticed the way in which the film captured the general public in Korea. At the start of a new chapter of “Flames of Love”, or when something particularly significant happened in the story, a scene was shot in which crowd of people huddled around a radio in some public area of Seoul. Shown outside of the radio station building, in the market, in a bar, at a stand on a main street, this group of listeners was always shown together, and always with collective dramatic reactions to “Flames of Love.” This display of the audience presents the Korean mass public as one entity that could be manipulated by the story, an ironic contradiction to Robinson’s claim that Japanese attempts of assimilation failed. Rather than being assimilated into Japanese culture, the film clumps the Korean population into one group with the exact same interests, emotions and desires.

Radio as pacifier of the people

Michael Robinson, in his article "Broadcasting, Cultural Hegemony, and colonial Modernity in Korea, 1924-1945," explains that the story of Korean radio is "more that one of a single Korean culture resisting Japanese assimilation. It was also a space of intra-Korean elite struggle over how their culture should evolve in modern form, a debate decisively shaped by the cultural and political structures of colonialism" (68). The disparate modes through which radio functions as a cultural object are illustrated in "Radio Dayz" in order to emphasize the ambiguity and malleability of "modernity" as it is adopted and harnessed in 1930s Korea. K sees radio as a medium for calling to action the people of Korea to rise up against the colonial government, Lloyd sees radio as a fun form of entertainment that can unite those who participate, and the Japanese authorities in the film see radio as a way to disseminate pro-Japanese sentiments. Importantly, all of these modes require people to buy radios in order for the messages to be received, and on a large enough scale to make a difference.
The dependence on the participation of the people in radio highlights modernity's creation and definition of the mass public sphere. The disparate ways radio is imagined in the film transforms the listeners either into colonial subjects, consumers of entertainment (and/or goods), or Korean patriots. The direction the film seems to emphasize is the public's adoption of Western capitalist processes of product obsession, celebrity reverence, and widespread subscription to a pop series. This is best illustrated near the end of the film when people crowd around the station with signs rooting for their favourite character in "The Flame of Love," the success of product placement in the show, and even mockeries of the program popping up in the streets. The whole fake advertisement of Moranga chocolate parodies commercial radio yet has very real effects on the audience who take it as their cue to go out and consume the product. K even scoffs at one point when he sees a group of people crowded around the radio in a shop, claiming that no one is interested in gaining independence anymore because they just listen to the radio. In this way, radio functions as a homogenizing process, an example of the universalism that modernity brings, and can even be said to be a pacifier of the people in the way it uses entertainment to soothe those it reaches, less of a space of resistance than a vehicle for capital and validation of the entertainment industry.

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.

Performativity and Nationalism

From hooves on cobblestones to croaking frogs to crashing waves, essentially all of what we hear in "The Flame of Love" is a fabrication. The actors voices are heightened to be more shrill, more romantic, or more manly. The sound effects are tricks, and even the performers have to make things up on the spot to cover for mistakes or (more frequently) the impulses of Marie. Obviously the point of a radio drama is to be fictional, to entertain, but if we take the comedy genre into consideration and see the hysteria of the public over this show as a sort of parody of what the Japanese hoped to accomplish, an interesting reading arises.

The chapters from this week set up a framework of understanding for us about the centrality of telecommunications in the colonial modern era, and Radio Dayz captures that sentiment perfectly. Radio becomes a sensation to a degree of absurdity, and the mistakes and infighting of the JDOK team actually makes the popularity surge even more. One reading of this is to see it as a parody of the accidental nationalism that arose out of the telecommunication system. For example, the red shoes that the character Arisu is supposed to be wearing become a marketable item, and it's made clear that all the girls who listen to the show want a pair. The shoes were a notable part of Arisu's appearance because of Marie fighting to be the star, and interjecting self-promoting details at every chance to avoid being overshadowed by Myung-Wol.

Marie and Myung-Wol are actually a very interesting pair, and their relationship seems to be a bit of a symbol for the "accidental" rise of cultural nationalism in Korea. They both represent different categories of woman, Marie the westernized, 'progressive', conceited starlet, and Myung-Wol the hardworking, traditionally-dressed, down-to-earth Korean. They are antagonistic, but they work together for the benefit of the station and thus their community. Because Marie represents the West and Myung-Wol represents Korean nationalism (or proto-nationalism, title it however you like), together they contribute to what Colonial Modernity discusses as a huge surge in the adoption of Western culture at the same time as the Korean language was being standardized and traditional folk music and songs were revived. The dramatic arts, apparently, were a huge part of this cultural experience, and the role of performativity in the Flame of Love is key to this (mostly) unintentional anti-colonial movement. Performativity, in brief, is the capacity to enact or perform a certain topic, action, or character, and the implications of doing so in a larger context. For example, the performativity of the radio show is increased exponentially by K, who allows the audience to more fully immerse themselves in the story. The conflict between Myung-Wol and Marie also contributes to the performativity of the show by creating an antagonism that leads to off-script dialogue and frankly, more excitement. K's role as a subversive figure reinforces the idea of accidental counter-colonial activity. Just as K is deceiving the audience, he is deceiving JDOK and tying them to his political actions. A question I would pose to everyone is, if Marie represents the West and she is constantly trying to upstage the others and threatening to leave, is this a contemporary comment on the actions of the West (US in particular) in the rest of the 20th Century? She is quite flaky and haughty, but she is also the driving force behind the show from a publicity standpoint!

Korean Cultural Resilience

                In Radio Dayz (2008), we can see forms of peaceful Korean resilience, as opposed to the violent acts of activist groups that we have seen in previous movies. Just as how after 1919, the GGK switched from a policy of Military Rule (budan seiji) to one of Cultural Rule (sunka seiji), (Robinson, 54) Koreans too did not just have one way to express their independence. With the help of technology such as radio, Japan attempted to assimilate Korea through popular culture. But in Radio Dayz, we see how the radio station JDOK subverted the medium to work for them. JDOK was Korea’s first radio station, started with the goal of broadcasting Japanese propaganda. However, it did not garner a large audience. So what started off as a simple radio drama, “Flames of Love,” to gain more listeners turned into a phenomenon in their city. All the right tools were there for Japan to disseminate their propaganda. One mention of a product, such a red heels, in “Flames of Love” would immediately be wanted by everyone in the city. Thus, at the finale of “Flames of Love,” the head of the radio station insisted that the protagonist of the tale should decide to enlist in the army. The subtle propaganda would convince people to enlist without them realizing that they were being manipulated by the state. The plan would have been executed perfectly if not for the resilient Korean spirit. At the last moment, Lloyd (Ryoo Seung-Bum) agreed to send a signal for K (Lee Jong-Hyuk), who was part of a Korean independence group. Independently, Mr. Noh (Kim-Roe-Ha) also decided to change the ending of the play so it would no longer support enlisting in the army. After Lloyd sends the signal, fireworks are lit into the sky, further supporting Mr. Noh’s alternate ending. K, Lloyd, and Mr. Noh all independently found ways to show their independence against Japan, and it all worked together to prove Korean cultural resilience on another level than violence.

Myungwol Vs. Marie - Accepting Modernity

There were many issues surrounding the establishment of radio broadcasts in Korea during the Japanese occupation. The agenda of the Koreans strongly opposed that of Japanese. As mentioned in the Robinson reading, the Japanese used the broadcasts in order to secure their dominant position in Korean society by trying to establish Japanese oriented news, shows, and language. Koreans on the other hand used the broadcasts to promote traditional Korean music and language, in order to establish themselves as different from the Japanese. The rising conflict between the two groups, including the issues that Robinson discussed concerning the amount of listeners and how some listeners would be upset when hearing a broadcast in a language which was not their own is evident in the movie Radio Dayz.
Radio Dayz follows a group of people working on a radio drama at JDOK. The drama, called "The Flames of Love" is a love triangle between a man, played by Manchul, and two women, Marie, and Myungwol. I think that this film is trying to demonstrate the difficulties of becoming a modernizing nation. A modernizing nation is that which starts to 'evolve' technologically, socially and politically. A nation that is in traditional times has difficulties competing in the world economy and identifying itself as a strong and independent nation, and there is importance in modernizing. Therefore, Koreans would want to modernize and grow independent. However it is a difficult task to accomplish when the modernizer is occupying their country. Japanese colonization can be considered a catalyst to Korean modernization. By extension, the introduction of the radio (by Japanese government) encouraged the development of vernacular Korean. However, the Korean music played on the radio is more traditional. I think that this ongoing issue of submitting oneself to modernity at the risk of losing traditional is presented in the drama as the love triangle. Manchul has to choose between Marie, a modern woman who has travelled to Japan, is educated and (though not seen on the radio) dresses in modern garments, and Myungwol who is more traditional in virtues, education, and dress. It almost seems as if the modern is force upon Manchul, who ultimately chooses Myungwol.

The struggle between accepting modernity and the traditional is exemplified in the fight scene between Marie and Myungwol.