제 3 호 Political Correctness in Movies
Kicker: ENTERTAINMENT (MOVIE)
Political Correctness in Movies
Starting Point of Political Correctness
and Some Movies Including It
by Eun-ji Lee, Editor-in-chief
Currently, there are lots of active movements correcting the expressions which are caused by the prejudices and asymmetrical power relationships. The movements also appear in some movies and these are called as “Political Correctness (PC).” This article is going to deal with PC to know its purpose, examples, and problems.
☞It contains the crucial and important contents about some movies. Thus, if you do not want to see the spoilers of Zootopia and Miss Baek, please click the go back button or come back after watching them.
What Does Political Correctness really mean?
The term of Political Correctness has come to refer to avoiding language and behavior that can be seen as excluding, marginalizing, or insulting the groups considered disadvantaged or discriminated against. The groups are usually defined by gender or race. This means that it is right to erase discriminations and prejudices from political perspective, particularly in multiracial nation like America. It should be the purpose of Political Correctness to remove the terms that make people suffer from a common language.
Political Correctness has started to segue into the matter of the social minority’s rights from the matter of language. With the stream of the trend, many movies have begun to deal with the story of social minorities like racial minorities and women.
The Movies including Political Correctness
Zootopia, Byron P. Howard and Rich Moore, 2016
Judy, the small bunny, is discriminated against after being a police officer in an area of huge animals. And also, Nick, the fox, suffers hardships under prejudice that “the fox is the sly animal.” I think that the species and features of the animals indicate the genders and races of the humans. The movie shows the process how they overcome the discriminations and prejudices. In addition, it satirizes the modern society by presenting a character trying to gain political advantages with the support of the minority.
Miss Baek, Lee Ji-won, 2018
This film shows the companionship between a child and a woman who have been damaged by family violence. The woman understands the situation of the child and becomes a helper for her. The child, who was not protected by society, gets over a desperate circumstance and grows brightly after meeting the helper.
Especially, Miss Baek was a box office hit in Korea thanks to hearty support of female audiences. Movies with a female director are really rare in Korea, so many female audiences banded together to let all people know about this movie.
Emotional Debates from Political Correctness Discussions
A problem appears when people address Political Correctness. The term of Political “Correctness” implies right in itself. Some people have bad manners to the people who have opposite views on Political Correctness. This situation leads to raw criticisms against one another. I think that Political Correctness was made to bring people together, not to make other conflicts. Therefore, the process is necessary to check and understand each other’s opinions.
We should understand each other.
Lots of movies are trying to reflect the rights of minorities according to the passage of time. The audiences’ attitudes about the movies could vary. However, to separate each other without understanding will make social conflicts.
I think that the society must grow positively with sound discussions. In this situation, the movie’s role is to enlighten people about the bias and discrimination in daily life. And also it should suggest the methods to overcome them with everyone coexisting.
Sources:
‘A paso de cangrejo(Crab step)’, Umberto Eco, 2006
https://ko.wikipedia.org/wiki/%EC%A0%95%EC%B9%98%EC%A0%81_%EC%98%AC%EB%B0%94%EB%A6%84
http://news.khan.co.kr/kh_news/khan_art_view.html?art_id=201602211452371
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/art/2019/05/689_269363.html
http://star.ohmynews.com/NWS_Web/OhmyStar/at_pg.aspx?CNTN_CD=A0002494712
Rainer’s Culture Shock Youtube channel
