Dystopia and subversion in international Korean series
Type de matériel :
96
Korean dystopian series broadcast on American VOD platforms have become an unmissable cultural phenomenon. These are not your average K-dramas. The latter are mostly utopian and promote neo-traditionalism. Nor are they fatalistic dystopias in the manner of recent American series. We show that these international Korean series, which we call dystopias of veridiction,” refocus the dystopian paradigm on widespread social falsification and the quest for truth as an antidote. This involves the subversive and imaginative transfiguration of stereotyped spaces authorized by the dominant authorities in heterotopic spaces of veridiction. In so doing, through a gory aesthetic opposed to that of “clean bodies,” they put death back at the heart of the issues at stake in a globalized capitalism that has become deadly. Rejecting the ethereal refuge of spiritualism that dominates culture and K-dramas, they remind viewers of the suffering body, victim of a capitalism that has reached its deadly stage, necro-capitalism. These bodies, those of the characters, are not divided; on the contrary, they seek, far from the false pretenses of the world, to renew a link, a new innocence, and a solidarity independent of established powers.
Réseaux sociaux