bideshi

This is what I've learned through this "controversy":
1) There are a lot of extremely thin-skinned Arab/Muslim apologists who are offended by anything but the most positive portrayal or stereotypes.
2) There are also non-Arab/Muslims who are also just as thin-skinned and are ready to be offended on behalf of any group that feels aggrieved for any reason.
3) There are many people who can't seem to appreciate the difference between the purpose/rules of comedy vs. a serious drama or documentary.
4) There are many people who can't seem to understand that portraying one character in a certain way is not the same as saying that he represents a whole race/religion.
5) There are many people who are blinded by a 7-second shot of a character and unable to see the other aspects of the character in the rest of the episodes.
6) There are many Social Justice (keyboard)-Warriors who think that they are being sufficiently righteous by demanding an apology from a TV station; these are the types who when their angry demands are met by an apology written by a PR firm simply move on to the next cause, the next thing that offends them. They have no real interest or stake in seeing any real change. They simply want to feel good about themselves that they were able to express their outrage and think that forcing someone to apology is their good deed of the day.
7) There are many hypocrites who think that somehow Korean media is unique in using stereotypes in their shows, who are willfully blind to the stereotypes held by their own people and seem to be able to excuse the true injustices and social evils in their own countries. This type of hypocrisy exposes the emptiness of their complaint.
8) There are many people who ignore inconvenient facts because they prefer to express their feelings. Their only argument seems to be "I found it offensive; therefore it's wrong"; and they refuse to, or are unable to, consider any reasonable nuances or questions, such as "Is the portrayal false?" or "Was it meant to be a general characterization of a whole race/religion?" or "Was it appropriate considering the genre?" or "Was the drinking the main portrayal of the character? Did the show repeatedly show him doing it as if to emphasize that aspect, or was it a minor detail?"
9) There are many people who have no sense of proportion. They think that a 10-second clip in a comedy can somehow turn Koreans into anti-Arab/Muslim racists. They think that a character's background detail shown for about 10-seconds is the only thing notable about the character. And they think that showing a minor unflattering detail about a character in a comedy full of exaggerated, unrealistic behavior is somehow akin to the President of Korea being caught on tape saying "All Arab/Muslim men are immoral drunk womanizers." If he'd said that, I'd join you in condemning such ignorant racism. But in the case of Samir, I'm just going to enjoy the portrayal of an immature, spoiled rich young man fighting sweetly and in vain for the affections of a beautiful Korean hotel worker.

I don't know how much longer people will continue to write in to say that King the Land was racist and an apology is in order. But if they do, I hope that they will do so in a nuanced way in which they can acknowledge the relative size/importance of the issue, in which they show that there is some truth behind the portrayal, in which they can admit that their own media also need to work on how best to portray foreign characters. If not, I will not be able to take such complaints or charges of racism seriously.

I have no idea what country you're from, but I find it very, very hard to believe that your TV/movie industry can make shows that are completely free of stereotypes about another country/race/culture. Just as a test, think of the stereotypes that come to mind about Americans or Israelis. And then ask yourself if any of those stereotypes have been present in any of your shows. I honestly can't think of any country/race that is so respectful of America and Israel that their shows contain no stereotypes. But if your country is that lone exception, please write down what country/race is so righteous and let's see if others agree or can find examples of negative stereotypes in your films.

Thanks for the info. I just learned on the internet that a Muslim man can only marry a woman from the people of the Book (Muslims, Jews, Christians), and so can't marry Hindus or Buddhists (or presumably atheists). Interesting. I suppose just self-identifying as a Muslim/Jew/Christian is enough since there are plenty of nominal believers who don't really know the God of the Scriptures or are interested in following the commands in the Scriptures--which makes them really no different from Hindus/Buddhists/atheists. Samir didn't seem to be very interested in Sa Rang's religion when he asked her to marry him, when she could easily be a Buddhist.

Those outfits for the home exercise scene!!! Almost made me burst out laughing. Props to the costume designers.

Interesting. Would I be correct to assume that a Muslim man who marries a non-Muslim is probably not very religious, and so wouldn't necessarily mind if his children chose a different religion? That is, Islam allows children of a Muslim man (or at least boys?) to choose a different religion?

I laughed at So Jeo's reaction to eating beef (hanwoo, I presume). In her understated way, she reminded me of all the mukbangs of foreigners trying hanwoo for the first time. That's what they can do to earn some money: start a mukbank Youtube channel and react to eating all kinds of things for the first time.

Anyway, I can't wait for the storyline of So Jeo acting opposite Deun Myung on a K-drama. Besides the obvious romance possibilities, I hope we'll see some interesting insights into the K-drama industry from a Joseon lady's perspective.

Thank you! Finally someone shedding light instead of just starting fires. I stand corrected; please forgive my ignorance.

Question: Does Islam allow for the non-Muslim woman to stay a non-Muslim in the marriage, or is she expected to convert after marriage?

I think royalty should be respected when they act with the honor and grace that we expect of royalty. And if I can't criticize royalty when they fall short of such honor and grace, if I fear punishment for such criticism, then I'd have to seriously ask myself whether I want to live in such a society.

Thank you for outing yourself as a naive, believe-every-stereotype-about-another-race, make-generalization-about-a-whole-race-from-some-bad-examples racist. Thank you for outing yourself as someone who is so xenophobic that he can explain away anything bad about his own people, yet can negatively stereotype a whole other nationality. Thank you for outing yourself as someone who is so thin-skinned and ignorant that he's blind to what fiction/comedy is and does. I think your post should go viral as a Public Service Announcement for how not to be racist toward others and how not to be naive about self.

Your post has no merit because King the Land was not saying "All (or only) Arab men/princes are like Samir" or "No Korean men are like Samir." And as far as I can tell, no one has written in this forum, "Wow, I didn't know that all Arab men/princes were like this! Why can't they be like Korean men who are all morally pure?" Samir's behavior would be a complete non-story if it weren't for all the protests. It's clearly a case of "the lady doth protest too much."

What I understand is that you will not tolerate any negative portrayal of your culture and religion. That's fine; you do you. Meanwhile, I'm going to continue to point out the inconsistency, irrationality and hypocrisy inherent to virtue signalling cancel culture, and advocate for freedom of expression and creative freedom over state-sponsored, religion-sanctioned propaganda. Because there's always a slippery downward slope in banning ideas in creative works to banning news stories and factual history.

Why? Because the show called for a rich, powerful rival to Gu Won, a character who's worldly enough to want to marry Sa Rang, a non-Muslim, at first sight, a character who's wild/immature enough to do some of those comedic scenes. You can argue the merits of how successful the comedy was and how believable the storyline was--to me, they were only moderately successful at best--but I don't think it makes sense to argue "They shouldn't have shown such a character because drinking is against Islam and showing a Muslim man drinking is racist." There's a word for only showing the positive side of another culture: propaganda. You might be happy watching propaganda. I am not--whether it's about Arabs/Muslims or Koreans.

Look, it's fine to protest if an insult has been thrown against your culture/nation/religion; an example might be if a character in King the Land had said "Man, I hate traveling to Saudi Arabia for business; all the men there smell like camels." It's also fine to protest if some inaccuracy has been stated; an example would be if a character said "Islam teaches that Muslims can eat pork and drink alcohol." But honestly ask yourself: is the Arab prince's portrayal an insult or an inaccuracy of that sort? Does it warrant the charges of racism and outraged demands for an apology? Again, it's your right to complain and get angry and demand an apology. But know this: that having a hair trigger for getting offended, demanding an apology, making charges of racism and being defensive about your race/culture/religion means that others will not take you seriously (like the boy who cried wolf), that others will come away with a negative impression of your race/religion as being full of irrational people who lack a sense of proportion, who aren't smart enough to know what is and isn't an insult, who are unaware because of blind loyalty to the State/Religion. I'd save the outrage for truly outrageous things--not a 10-second clip from a comedy. In fact, I'd save the outrage for the injustices/mistakes of your own country's leaders that lead to people suffering.

It's ridiculous to say "they have a lot of stereotypes"--not because Koreans don't have stereotypes, but because you seem to be denying the reality that every nationality/race--including yours--has stereotypes about others.

Really enjoying this. The fish out of water parts are done well, not overly dramatically or comedically. But mainly, I think I like it because of the focus on realistic dialogue. I can see why the lack of progress or action might make the show seem slow, but I wouldn't trade it for the many scenes of people actually expressing their thoughts well. They all talk (out loud or to themselves) like real people instead of caricatures just being used as plot devices. For me, realistic characters and good dialogue are absolutely necessary for the best dramas.

I understand why some Muslims would object to Samir's behavior, why it's wrong in Islamic law/culture. What I'm saying is that it's OK to portray such behavior because every religion has people who--even though they know the consequences of their actions--still go ahead and do what's forbidden. Every religion forbids certain actions and calls them sin, and every religion has followers who still sin. It doesn't insult me as a Christian to see Christian characters commit sins on TV; in fact, it'd be hypocritical of any Christian to claim that he doesn't sin. So instead of complaining to the TV station "Your show had a pastor who was committing adultery. You're insulting Christianity. Don't you know that it's against Christianity to commit adultery?" what'd be more constructive is to examine my own heart and to guard myself against any actions that would displease God and dishonor His name. Honestly, I think God is more offended by my sin than by a TV character's sin, and the world would probably be a better place if all of us examined our actions as closely as we're examining two episodes of a K-drama.

BTW, I live in a predominantly Muslim country. In my time here, I've known very, very devout Muslims who would never drink or dishonor women and have been very kind to me, as well as Muslims who only pay lip service to their religion by lying and engaging in corruption, which to me are far worse than drinking.

What do you mean "we don't allow it"? Are you saying that in Muslim countries there's never a Muslim character doing anything immoral? Are you saying that freedom of expression/speech doesn't apply when it comes to Islam--even by those living in non-Islamic countries? I can understand how it'd be insulting to Muslims if a character in King the Land said "Islam allows the eating of pork and drinking of alcohol." However, that's very different than portraying the character of a clearly non-religious Arab prince. It's fine and your right to care about the reputation of your religion/country/race, but that doesn't give you the right to shut down free expression or to control the narrative. What does internet research have anything to do with this? An internet search could have shown many stories of the excesses and non-Islamic behavior of wealthy Arabs. What you want is for people to only google things you want--"OK Google, tell me what a proper Muslim man does and doesn't do"--and write a comedy based on that. Even though perhaps that's what's shown on state-sponsored Muslim TV programs--are there any immoral behavior done by Muslims on Muslim TV programs?--you can't expect everyone else to limit themselves in that way.

That's a reasonable criticism of Samir's character--far better than just screaming "That's racist!" So I appreciate that--though I'd argue that it creates a background story of an immature prodigal son that fits his impulsive pursuit of Sa Rang (interesting that no one has talked about how asking to marry a non-Muslim might have also broken Islamic law).

But if he'd been shown to go on a wild shopping spree, then the same people would have complained that showing an Arab prince spending money lavishly would have been a negative stereotype. My observation is that if you're looking to be offended, there's no limit to what you'll find offensive.

Now I'm confused. All this time I thought the complaint was exactly that they portrayed the prince to be drinking and touching women in a bar because either 1) it's a bad stereotype or 2) it's false. But now you're saying that it's just always wrong to show any foreign culture in a negative light. So that means that any TV show that portrays another culture must show only the positive sides of that culture? I suppose that's one way to make TV shows, but I wouldn't watch such shows becaues it'd be more like state-sponsored ropaganda than an interesting/realistic/dramatic work of creativity and freedom.

I'm going to have to plead ignorance on the Joseon Exorcist controversy, because I didn't see it, nor did I read anything about it. But I probably would have been against those calling for cancelling the show because I am in principle against cancel culture. So I don't know if King the Land was far more harmful to Muslim/Arab culture than Joseon Exorcist was harmful to Korean culture, but I can't at all understand how the portrayal of the prince was harmful to Muslim culture. In general, I think culture is far more resistant to harm than many people think, that Muslim culture will certainly survive King the Land quite unscathed. If not, then Muslim/Arab culture must be far weaker than I'd thought. I don't think that making Muslim/Arab culture into a weak victim that can be destroyed by two episodes of a Korean comedy is the look you're going for.

One more thing: I would bet that most casual viewers would not have thought that the Arab prince was a stereotype. They might have simply thought of him as a one-off goofy character to play a bumbling rival to Gu Won's affections for Sa Rang. After all, Gu Won's rival would have to be at least as rich and accomplished as he is. But it's interesting to me that all those complaining about the show are calling him a stereotype, including you. Why is that? Why does such a stereotype exist in your mind? Is it simply because non-Muslims have created the stereotype of a drinking womanizer out of thin air? Are you only aware of such a stereotype only from western/Korean portrayals of Muslim/Arab men? Or do you know it from experience in Arab/Muslim culture?

Overreact much? "Now the only idea koreans will have of a muslim man is someone who goes to bar and drinks with women." That's a ridiculous statement and destroys your credibility as a reasonable thoughtful person. 1) Koreans had ideas about Muslims before watching King the Land; apparently you think that Koreans are ignorant and that they get all their knowledge about the world through Kdramas. 2) The portrayal of the prince started in a bar, but he became a more interesting character than just a party animal: he had learned Korean for love, he had a certain (childish impulsive) charm and he was gracious enough to take Sa Rang's rejection well. So don't worry: I'd say that Koreans got to see a Muslim man who is more than just a party animal. In fact, I bet that they'd forgotten that side of him and instead remember him as an immature man who falls in love too easily--and maybe has a fetish for Korean women. :-)

And if you're at all familiar with K-dramas, you'd know that regularly there are much much worse portrayals of spoiled, rich sons (and daughters) of powerful Korean families--not just spoiled, but often manipulative, immoral and even psychopathic in their desire to keep or exercise their power. So in contrast, I think the prince came off quite well.