Toward a more liberal society

By Park Jung-seo

Boasting a wide range of hosts and updated weekly topics, “Saturday Night Live (SNL)” is a long-running variety show which has emerged as one of the faves of Americans.

On the strength of its global success, Korean filmmaker Jang Jin launched “SNL Korea” in November 2011 in the hope of getting the audience exposed to sharp, bitter political satire, which differentiates SNL Korea from other sketch comedies.

He has since coped with a number of obstacles, including how to control the level of satire. Also, because of difficulties persuading celebrities to appear as hosts, he had to beg them. In Korea, public figures are reluctant to perform in a show which features political or sexual formats, as they think it could spoil their reputation and pose a barrier to their future success.

It sounds absurd, but about one and a half years ago seemed like a century ago for Jang.

Not only political satire but also sex-related content broadcast in the public media are mostly censored and even prohibited here by government-appointed regulators. Interestingly enough, SNL Korea has been successful in placing more focus on sexual jokes rather than other less provocative, or safer, subjects.

Now, the hosts and episode titles of SNL Korea have become one of the most searched keywords, which hit the top-10 list of the nation’s largest search engine, Naver, before and after they are on air. This shows Koreans’ conservative sexual awareness is gradually giving way to SNL Korea’s targeted trend of sexual liberalism.

Sex comedy has come to serve as an emotional outlet for an increasing number of Korean people who have suppressed sexual desires in a conservative society.

The term “toilet humor,” which usually refers to dirty jokes, has also meant obscene jokes in Korea. In contrast to the usage of the term in some English-speaking countries, the words mostly deal with sex-related jokes here. It was only years ago that the walls in public toilets were filled with sexual graffiti. The places were like paradises to both those who hunger for expressing their pent-up feelings and those who sympathize and think that they are not the only dirty thinkers. The situation was a paradoxical reflection of a society that encouraged having conservative attitudes toward sexual content, and discouraged the opposite.

However, secrecy is no longer an absolute or most widespread factor inhibiting communication on sexual issues in Korea today. Today’s trends toward sexual liberation and global communication of sexual topics via the Internet and World Wide Web are reducing the traditional secrecy surrounding sex in Korean culture.

Encouraged by the positive response from viewers, SNL Korea keeps coming up with more fresh and “bawdy” ideas, as shown in the appearance of a homosexual on July 23, 2012, breaking a time-honored taboo in this conservative society. The popularity was also evidenced by a number of clips on SNL Korea on the Internet and Facebook. As people click the “like” button or share the clips, they get the vicarious satisfaction from watching sex-related sketches which the viewers do not dare to practice yet.

To help people get along in a society which forces individuals to hide their deepest desires with few good reasons, the entertainment industry needs to come up with more various and creative programs.

Korea is changing more rapidly than the rest of the world in most ways but the nation’s attitude toward the most natural and frank human instinct, sex, still remains an exception. This explains why we need more programs like SNL Korea, which frees people from self-imposed prison of consciousness and allow them to turn craving into more honest, satisfactory solution.

The writer is a senior at the English Linguistics Department of Hankuk University of Foreign Studies. His email address is punk182@naver.com.