Beware of the man of one book

eatyourkimchi:

Korean Television: you have to stop doing this.  You might have found it funny on your own show, but the rest of the world is watching, and will think of you as exceptionally racist and insensitive.

Yes, this is an imitation of a Korean cartoon character, but that doesn’t make either this show or the cartoon okay.  That cartoon itself is unacceptable and full of stereotypes, and Korean media needs to understand that.

It’s moments like these that we’re reminded that Korea is still very much a monoculture that is only recently getting to know other cultures.  The Korean media still don’t fully grasp why something like this might be seen as hurtful to others and not funny, like the whole Star King fiasco when they did a special on Saudi Arabia and depicted its people as gun-toting terrorists.  

We believe that this type of racism is not necessarily based out of anger or hate for another culture, but out of sheer ignorance, and so we hope that MBC and the Korean Media can understand that caricatures of other cultures are hurtful.

The point of this post is not to scream at Korea or to rile up your anger and to make you hate the country.  Not everyone in Korea is like this, and not every TV show has done this, so let’s not generalize about the country as a whole.  Let’s just say, MBC, and other Korean Media, stop doing this.

(via wickedbadsugar)