Five-hour video about the history of North Korean media

Elephant in the room: yes the video is well over five hours, I'm fully aware of how long that is, which is why it's literally the first word in the title. You don't have to watch it all in one sitting of course. I've watched it over the past week or two at 1.3x speed like I do most videos. Just pretend that it's a 5-part documentary where each part is one hour and watch a bit at a time. There are like 10 main chapters in the video, and it follows the last 100 or so years of North Korean history chronologically, so it's easy to stop and pick back up.

That said, I found it incredibly fascinating!

The video basically covers North Korean history from the last century or so through the lens of the media they produced. Mostly movies, but also things like music, tv shows, competitions, and even video games and short-form videos in more recent years. Because of the HEAVY propaganda present in nearly everything they produced, pretty much every piece of media served as a neat window into what was happening in North Korea at the time. That's why I figured this would make more sense in ~humanities rather than in something like ~movies or ~art, because while the minute-to-minute of the video discusses NK media, the overall video really goes deep through their history, culture, and the background information that are then reflected in those forms of media.

Examples:

• More anti-Japanese propaganda in the early days of North Korean movies due to historical conflicts between Japan and Korea

• Extreme anti-American propaganda during and following the Korean War (and pretty much forever thereafter)

• Pro-USSR portrayals during Cold War but then sharp turn towards anti-USSR propaganda following USSR withdrawing subsidies to NK

• Extreme emphasis on "look how great farming is, everyone should become farmers" during periods of economic strife and food insecurities (and eventually famine)

• Emphasis on military band music during periods of increased militarization

• Emphasis on "look how great it is here in NK and how terrible it is elsewhere" when increased globalization leads to uptick in NK defectors

It's such an interesting view into a world that's so unlike anything I (or most people here I assume) have ever experienced. It's like reading/watching a work of fiction set in a far off land with bizarre customs, except that far off place exists in real life. I think the presenter does a good job of remaining human, i.e. calling out the horrible things done by North Korean government and not holding any punches when talking about how disgusting some of the propaganda can get, while also humanizing the North Korean people and appreciating small glimpses of individual talent seen in their media in a way that doesn't often get thought of when reading headlines about nukes this and glorious leader that.

My favorite part is near the end when a zany Japanese rock musician is brought in to teach a class of NK students music, except they all already know how to play their instruments (super well too). So he instead teaches them how to rock and rebel and be creative rather than the rigid by-the-books musicians they were before. Then they have to come up with their own song and lyrics and it's basically the plot of School of Rock, not even exaggerating. Absolutely wild.

So yeah, if you've got a few hours to kill here and there over the next week, I definitely recommend checking this out. It's got everything from knock-off Godzilla, to knock-off Disney movies, to knock-off James Bond films, to knock-off Titanic, to real-life School of Rock. You might even be surprised to find out that a North Korean animation studio was subcontracted out to work on shows as popular as The Simpsons, Futurama, and Avatar: the Last Airbender, I definitely was!

Feel free to ask any questions if you have some curiosity but not enough time to watch the whole video! I totally get that it may not be everyone's cup of tea. I just found it super fascinating and wanted to share.