On the 18th day after Lee Sun-kyun, a well-known Korean actor who starred in the Oscar-winning film "Parasite", was found to have committed suicide by burning charcoal in his car, the Korean Independent Film Association, Korean Film Producers Association, Korean Broadcast Actors Guild, etc. The "Korean Federation of Artists and Culture", composed of 29 artist groups, held a press conference in Seoul and issued a statement titled "Requests from People in the Culture and Art Circles Regarding the Death of the Late Actor Lee Sun-kyun". "Parasite" director Bong Joon Hao and other four federation representatives took turns reading the statement. The statement collected the opinions of more than 2,000 film industry practitioners, including the well-known Korean actor Song Kanghao, and called on the Korean National Congress, Korea Broadcasting Corporation (KBS), the Korean National Police Agency and other institutions to investigate South Korea's current prohibition on disclosure of criminal cases and protective investigations. Problems existing in laws related to human rights, and starting to formulate or amend relevant laws to protect artists' issues from being overly disclosed.
On December 27, 2023, the day when Lee Sun-kyun’s body was discovered, former South Korean President Moon Jae-in posted a condolence message on social media, blaming Lee Sun-kyun’s death on the way law enforcement agencies investigated and the way media reported it. The federation’s statement is consistent with Moon Jae-in’s stance. Combined with the Moon Jae-in government's support for the movie "Parasite" to win awards in Europe and the United States, the political nature of the statement itself is further strengthened. The American media even directly linked the federation’s statement to the Korean art world’s dissatisfaction with current President Yin Xiyue.
At this moment, the late actor's funeral hall is not only a base for Korean artists to seek collective welfare, but also a place for Korean political wrestling.
Moon Jae-in posted on social media
Pinocchio
This joint statement issued on January 12, 2024 is not the first time that the Korean literary and art circles have publicly called for legislation to protect the rights of artists. On January 28, 2011, 32-year-old female screenwriter Choi Go-eun died of starvation in a rented house in Anyang City, South Korea. Also found with the body was a note from Choi Go-eun begging the landlord for leftover rice and kimchi. The Korea National Daily's report triggered an uproar in South Korean public opinion. The Korean literary and art circles asked the government to face up to the poverty problem of artists in South Korea, a developed country. The then Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism, Chung Byung-kook, promised to improve the government's treatment and welfare for artists. On November 17, 2011, the Park Geun-hye government promulgated the Artists Welfare Act (예술인 복지법), which was officially implemented on November 18, 2012.
This joint statement is not the first time that the conflict between Chungmuro, where the film industry is concentrated, and the South Korean government has been exposed. When the Sewol sinking tragedy occurred in South Korea in April 2014, a large number of practitioners in the Korean literary and art circles signed signatures criticizing the Park Geun-hye government, or supported opposition party candidates during the presidential and other local chief elections. The Park Geun-hye government provided retaliation to the Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism. list, requiring the department not to provide financial support to the 9,473 artists on the list, and to impose restrictions on artists’ filming. “Parasite” director Bong Joon-ho and starring Song Kang-ho are both on this “cultural blacklist”. The number of artists who have been suppressed under Yin is as high as 6,517.
Lee Sunkyun is not the first Korean artist to be involved in political turmoil. The Korean artist group has come forward to speak out at this time. The support of the opposition parties cannot be ruled out, but the primary purpose is to seek group interests. After the implementation of the "Artists Welfare Law", South Korea conducts a survey on the current situation of artists every three years. After the surveys in 2015 and 2018, supplementary amendments were made to the bill. After the survey in 2021, a separate "Artists Status and Rights Protection Act" was enacted and was Effective September 2022. The above two bills focus on protecting the civil rights of art practitioners in the economic field. 2024 is also the year of the survey on the current situation of artists. Korean art practitioners have begun to seek further political benefits for themselves based on the above two bills.
In November 2014, the SBS TV drama "Pinocchio" starring popular stars Lee Jong Suk and Park Shin Hye was broadcast. In the drama, a Korean businessman used the actor's scandal to significantly increase the exposure of news about artists suspected of illicit drugs in order to cover up the scandal of bribing politicians. The methods used to cover up political scandals are made known to overseas audiences through TV series.Every time a scandal involving a Korean artist occurs in the future, no matter whether the final evidence is conclusive or not, fans will habitually use "Pinocchio" as evidence when denying the scandal, saying that their brother's guilt is doubtful and it is just a fig leaf for political scandals.
Screenshots from the TV series "Pinocchio"
There have long been rumors that celebrity scandals cover up political scandals. In 1972, Park Geun-hye's father Park Chung-hee was elected as the eighth president of South Korea as the only candidate. In December of the same year, the "Restoration Constitution" was promulgated. Article 53 stipulates that the president has the power to implement "emergency measures" and can temporarily deprive civil liberties and freedoms guaranteed by the constitution. basic rights. The opposition parties were dissatisfied with Park's dictatorship and demanded a constitutional amendment. In May 1975, Park Chung-hee launched Emergency Measures No. 9 to ban citizens from engaging in all opposition movements. For a time, the people were panicked, prices soared, and social unrest occurred. Starting in December of the same year, a large number of well-known Korean musicians were arrested on suspicion of violating the Customary Drugs Control Act. It was called the "marijuana crisis" at the time, and the use of marijuana and other drugs was defined by Park Chung-hee as "a matter of national destruction." , drug addicts were required to apply the maximum penalty at the time.
Park Chung-hee's administration was the low point of U.S.-South Korea relations in the last century. Artists involved in the "marijuana controversy" at that time generally reported in interviews with American media that they were unwilling to serve the Park dictatorship. Most of the American media interviews about the "marijuana scandal" appeared at the beginning of the millennium during the administration of South Korea's 16th President Roh Moo-hyun, and the argument that "artist scandals cover up political scandals" began to take shape. After the broadcast of "Pinocchio", celebrity scandals began to be closely combined with political scandals. In June 2016, Korean artist Park Yoo-chun was accused of sexual assault. The Park Yoo-chun sexual assault scandal emerged in the public opinion and was used to cover up the Lee Myung-bak government's bribery scandal from Lotte Group; in 2017, Choi Seung-hyun (stage name t.o.p), a member of the well-known Korean boy band Big Bang, was arrested for drug abuse. South Korean prosecutors prosecuted, and the public opinion that T.O.P's drug abuse scandal covered up Moon Jae-in's concealment of the "THAAD" deployment scandal...
is different from previous popular inferences. The voice questioning the South Korean government's use of Lee Sun-kyun's drug involvement to cover up political scandals originally came from Moon Jae-in's office. Li Jing, the current deputy party spokesperson of the Democratic Party of China. On October 19, 2023, the Narcotics Crime Investigation Section of the Incheon Police Department revealed to the media that it is currently investigating eight people, including the forty-year-old actor L, on suspicion of violating laws related to drug management; on the 20th , Lee Sun Kyun’s agency confirmed that he was “l” in previous media reports; on the 21st, the South Korean police officially investigated and filed a case. On the same day, Li Jing raised doubts on social media, believing that the Yin Xiyue government in power was using this to cover up the campus violence scandal involving the daughter of a college classmate of the president’s wife, Kim Jian Hee. On the 26th, Min-hee Ahn, a member of the Democratic Party of Korea, questioned on the Korean news channel YTN radio program that the celebrity drug abuse scandal was so coincidental that people thought it was deliberately planned amid the regime crisis. On November 27, the streaming media platform "Voice of Seoul" channel revealed that Kim Gun-hee accepted a Lady Dior pouch bag worth 3 million won, which once again aroused public controversy. The Democratic Party of Korea accused the president's wife of taking bribes and called for Yoon Seok-yue to step down. Lee Sun-kyun's body was discovered on December 27. At this time, Lee Sun-kyun had one more political scandal to cover up involving drugs.
"Voice of Seoul" revealed that Kim Gun-hee accepted a luxury bag
Lee Sun-kyun was involved in drug-related news. Prior to this, South Korea also had news about the arrest of well-known actor Yoo Ah-in and the drug-related news of boy group Big Bang member G-Dragon. There was no "artist scandal covering up politics". Scandal" argument. It was just bad luck that Lee Sun Kyun was involved in the political turmoil. In July 2023, the daughter of Kim Seung-hee, who was in the third grade of elementary school at the time and was the protocol secretary of the Presidential Office of South Korea, bullied a second-grade girl on campus. It took two months for the school violence committee to release the results of the case. She entered the Gyeonggi Province Department of Education because she was questioned about the unfair treatment. As for the scope of state supervision, the results of the investigation were announced on October 20, and Kim Seung-hee was dismissed from office. However, the Democratic Party of Korea lawmaker who presided over the investigation did not intend to stop there. After discovering that Kim Seung-hee's wife was suspected of using her husband's authority to put pressure on the school and that she and the president's wife Kim Gun-hee were classmates in the same grade at university, they worked hard to expand their influence. And October 20 happened to be the day when Lee Sun Kyun’s agency admitted that Lee was involved in drug-related “l” in media reports.
On the 18th day after Lee Sun-kyun, a well-known Korean actor who starred in the Oscar-winning film "Parasite", was found to have committed suicide by burning charcoal in his car, the Korean Independent Film Association, Korean Film Producers Association, Korean Broadcast Actors Guild, etc. The "Korean Federation of Artists and Culture", composed of 29 artist groups, held a press conference in Seoul and issued a statement titled "Requests from People in the Culture and Art Circles Regarding the Death of the Late Actor Lee Sun-kyun". "Parasite" director Bong Joon Hao and other four federation representatives took turns reading the statement. The statement collected the opinions of more than 2,000 film industry practitioners, including the well-known Korean actor Song Kanghao, and called on the Korean National Congress, Korea Broadcasting Corporation (KBS), the Korean National Police Agency and other institutions to investigate South Korea's current prohibition on disclosure of criminal cases and protective investigations. Problems existing in laws related to human rights, and starting to formulate or amend relevant laws to protect artists' issues from being overly disclosed.
On December 27, 2023, the day when Lee Sun-kyun’s body was discovered, former South Korean President Moon Jae-in posted a condolence message on social media, blaming Lee Sun-kyun’s death on the way law enforcement agencies investigated and the way media reported it. The federation’s statement is consistent with Moon Jae-in’s stance. Combined with the Moon Jae-in government's support for the movie "Parasite" to win awards in Europe and the United States, the political nature of the statement itself is further strengthened. The American media even directly linked the federation’s statement to the Korean art world’s dissatisfaction with current President Yin Xiyue.
At this moment, the late actor's funeral hall is not only a base for Korean artists to seek collective welfare, but also a place for Korean political wrestling.
Moon Jae-in posted on social media
Pinocchio
This joint statement issued on January 12, 2024 is not the first time that the Korean literary and art circles have publicly called for legislation to protect the rights of artists. On January 28, 2011, 32-year-old female screenwriter Choi Go-eun died of starvation in a rented house in Anyang City, South Korea. Also found with the body was a note from Choi Go-eun begging the landlord for leftover rice and kimchi. The Korea National Daily's report triggered an uproar in South Korean public opinion. The Korean literary and art circles asked the government to face up to the poverty problem of artists in South Korea, a developed country. The then Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism, Chung Byung-kook, promised to improve the government's treatment and welfare for artists. On November 17, 2011, the Park Geun-hye government promulgated the Artists Welfare Act (예술인 복지법), which was officially implemented on November 18, 2012.
This joint statement is not the first time that the conflict between Chungmuro, where the film industry is concentrated, and the South Korean government has been exposed. When the Sewol sinking tragedy occurred in South Korea in April 2014, a large number of practitioners in the Korean literary and art circles signed signatures criticizing the Park Geun-hye government, or supported opposition party candidates during the presidential and other local chief elections. The Park Geun-hye government provided retaliation to the Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism. list, requiring the department not to provide financial support to the 9,473 artists on the list, and to impose restrictions on artists’ filming. “Parasite” director Bong Joon-ho and starring Song Kang-ho are both on this “cultural blacklist”. The number of artists who have been suppressed under Yin is as high as 6,517.
Lee Sunkyun is not the first Korean artist to be involved in political turmoil. The Korean artist group has come forward to speak out at this time. The support of the opposition parties cannot be ruled out, but the primary purpose is to seek group interests. After the implementation of the "Artists Welfare Law", South Korea conducts a survey on the current situation of artists every three years. After the surveys in 2015 and 2018, supplementary amendments were made to the bill. After the survey in 2021, a separate "Artists Status and Rights Protection Act" was enacted and was Effective September 2022. The above two bills focus on protecting the civil rights of art practitioners in the economic field. 2024 is also the year of the survey on the current situation of artists. Korean art practitioners have begun to seek further political benefits for themselves based on the above two bills.
In November 2014, the SBS TV drama "Pinocchio" starring popular stars Lee Jong Suk and Park Shin Hye was broadcast. In the drama, a Korean businessman used the actor's scandal to significantly increase the exposure of news about artists suspected of illicit drugs in order to cover up the scandal of bribing politicians. The methods used to cover up political scandals are made known to overseas audiences through TV series.Every time a scandal involving a Korean artist occurs in the future, no matter whether the final evidence is conclusive or not, fans will habitually use "Pinocchio" as evidence when denying the scandal, saying that their brother's guilt is doubtful and it is just a fig leaf for political scandals.
Screenshots from the TV series "Pinocchio"
There have long been rumors that celebrity scandals cover up political scandals. In 1972, Park Geun-hye's father Park Chung-hee was elected as the eighth president of South Korea as the only candidate. In December of the same year, the "Restoration Constitution" was promulgated. Article 53 stipulates that the president has the power to implement "emergency measures" and can temporarily deprive civil liberties and freedoms guaranteed by the constitution. basic rights. The opposition parties were dissatisfied with Park's dictatorship and demanded a constitutional amendment. In May 1975, Park Chung-hee launched Emergency Measures No. 9 to ban citizens from engaging in all opposition movements. For a time, the people were panicked, prices soared, and social unrest occurred. Starting in December of the same year, a large number of well-known Korean musicians were arrested on suspicion of violating the Customary Drugs Control Act. It was called the "marijuana crisis" at the time, and the use of marijuana and other drugs was defined by Park Chung-hee as "a matter of national destruction." , drug addicts were required to apply the maximum penalty at the time.
Park Chung-hee's administration was the low point of U.S.-South Korea relations in the last century. Artists involved in the "marijuana controversy" at that time generally reported in interviews with American media that they were unwilling to serve the Park dictatorship. Most of the American media interviews about the "marijuana scandal" appeared at the beginning of the millennium during the administration of South Korea's 16th President Roh Moo-hyun, and the argument that "artist scandals cover up political scandals" began to take shape. After the broadcast of "Pinocchio", celebrity scandals began to be closely combined with political scandals. In June 2016, Korean artist Park Yoo-chun was accused of sexual assault. The Park Yoo-chun sexual assault scandal emerged in the public opinion and was used to cover up the Lee Myung-bak government's bribery scandal from Lotte Group; in 2017, Choi Seung-hyun (stage name t.o.p), a member of the well-known Korean boy band Big Bang, was arrested for drug abuse. South Korean prosecutors prosecuted, and the public opinion that T.O.P's drug abuse scandal covered up Moon Jae-in's concealment of the "THAAD" deployment scandal...
is different from previous popular inferences. The voice questioning the South Korean government's use of Lee Sun-kyun's drug involvement to cover up political scandals originally came from Moon Jae-in's office. Li Jing, the current deputy party spokesperson of the Democratic Party of China. On October 19, 2023, the Narcotics Crime Investigation Section of the Incheon Police Department revealed to the media that it is currently investigating eight people, including the forty-year-old actor L, on suspicion of violating laws related to drug management; on the 20th , Lee Sun Kyun’s agency confirmed that he was “l” in previous media reports; on the 21st, the South Korean police officially investigated and filed a case. On the same day, Li Jing raised doubts on social media, believing that the Yin Xiyue government in power was using this to cover up the campus violence scandal involving the daughter of a college classmate of the president’s wife, Kim Jian Hee. On the 26th, Min-hee Ahn, a member of the Democratic Party of Korea, questioned on the Korean news channel YTN radio program that the celebrity drug abuse scandal was so coincidental that people thought it was deliberately planned amid the regime crisis. On November 27, the streaming media platform "Voice of Seoul" channel revealed that Kim Gun-hee accepted a Lady Dior pouch bag worth 3 million won, which once again aroused public controversy. The Democratic Party of Korea accused the president's wife of taking bribes and called for Yoon Seok-yue to step down. Lee Sun-kyun's body was discovered on December 27. At this time, Lee Sun-kyun had one more political scandal to cover up involving drugs.
"Voice of Seoul" revealed that Kim Gun-hee accepted a luxury bag
Lee Sun-kyun was involved in drug-related news. Prior to this, South Korea also had news about the arrest of well-known actor Yoo Ah-in and the drug-related news of boy group Big Bang member G-Dragon. There was no "artist scandal covering up politics". Scandal" argument. It was just bad luck that Lee Sun Kyun was involved in the political turmoil. In July 2023, the daughter of Kim Seung-hee, who was in the third grade of elementary school at the time and was the protocol secretary of the Presidential Office of South Korea, bullied a second-grade girl on campus. It took two months for the school violence committee to release the results of the case. She entered the Gyeonggi Province Department of Education because she was questioned about the unfair treatment. As for the scope of state supervision, the results of the investigation were announced on October 20, and Kim Seung-hee was dismissed from office. However, the Democratic Party of Korea lawmaker who presided over the investigation did not intend to stop there. After discovering that Kim Seung-hee's wife was suspected of using her husband's authority to put pressure on the school and that she and the president's wife Kim Gun-hee were classmates in the same grade at university, they worked hard to expand their influence. And October 20 happened to be the day when Lee Sun Kyun’s agency admitted that Lee was involved in drug-related “l” in media reports.
The argument that artist scandals cover up political scandals cannot be fully established in relation to the death of Lee Sun-kyun. We do not rule out the possibility that the ruling party is indeed behind the scenes, but the opposition party is indeed inseparable from expanding Lee Sun-kyun's drug-related influence. There is no doubt that Lee Sun-gyun was a victim of this low-level political struggle in South Korea, and his colleagues during his lifetime were also trying to use his death for their own benefit. The
Federation accused the police of improper investigation and improper disclosure by KBS, which caused Lee Sun-kyun to be overly exposed to the public eye. He continued to undergo public trials before being convicted by the judiciary, and finally chose to die. In order to avoid the next Lee Sun-kyun, it requires legal means to ensure that artist information is not over-disclosed. . In the context of the eyeball economy, in other words, the media is required to limit the disclosure of artist scandals. If the federation achieves its demands, Korean artists will become a new privileged class in disguise: relying on the eyeball economy in exchange for financial benefits, but scandals will be protected as privacy. After Choi Go-eun died of starvation, South Korea had the Artists Welfare Act, also known as the "Cui Go-eun Law." Will Lee Sun-kyun's death push South Korea to introduce the "Lee Sun-kyun Law"?
Drug War
The Korean government’s decision to target Korean artists in combating drug crimes is not simply to pick on the weak. Koreans have obvious herd behavior, and artists have strong social influence. Punishing artists has a certain warning effect. At the same time, the entertainment industry is also the hardest hit area for drug-related crimes in South Korea. On the one hand, the reason is that there is a real demand for Korean artists. Korean artists boast that the pressure in the industry is huge, and the psychological problems and mental illnesses caused by maintaining popularity cannot be quickly and effectively alleviated through formal channels, so they seek relief through drug release. In addition, South Korea's plastic surgery industry is developed, and South Korean society has serious appearance and body anxiety. Korean artists are more likely to rely on drugs to relieve the pain caused by frequent surgeries and maintain a slim figure quickly and easily. The group of Korean artists is huge and highly homogeneous. In addition to borrowing and appropriating other countries' cultures, they still need other creative media to inspire their creations, so they turn to drugs. In addition to the internal needs of artists, the mild and relaxed social environment also makes Korean artists not take drugs seriously. Even if he is arrested and sentenced for drug-related crimes, the artist's image will not suffer a fatal blow. It is normal for him to return to the front line or even reach new heights after a period of time. Comedian Shin Dong-yup was detained for smoking marijuana in the 1990s and is now one of South Korea's best-known hosts. In 2008, Korean actor Ju Ji-hoon, who became famous for starring in the idol drama "Palace", was sentenced to half a year in prison for drug abuse. After being discharged from the army, he was signed by the famous actor Bae Yong-joon to his company and slowly made a comeback. In 2017, he starred in the Korean box office champion "Along with the Gods" in 2018 In 2019, he won the Korean Film Producers Association Award for Best Actor for "The Secret Man". In 2019, he starred in Netflix's popular drama "Kingdom"... Actor Kim Bo-sun, who starred in the popular TV drama "Firebird", was arrested for smoking marijuana. In 2004, he applied to the court for a constitutional review on the grounds that "preventing the use of marijuana violates the constitutional right to pursue happiness"; on May 24, 2022, Korean musician Don Spike used barbecue salt to demonstrate how to take drugs on singer Zheng Ye's YouTube channel program , Zheng Ye himself cooperated in simulating the process of taking drugs, which caused a public outcry after the program was broadcast. In September, Don Spike was arrested for drug abuse.
don spike simulates a drug-taking scene
Drug-taking by Korean artists is not the main culprit of South Korea’s drug problem. Looking back at history, it is not difficult to find that South Korea’s drug problem presents distinct characteristics of the times. Affected by World War II and the Korean War, opium, which has analgesic effects, and the cheaper alternative methadone became mainstream in the 1950s and 1960s. Influenced by American pop culture, marijuana became mainstream in South Korea in the 1970s. Meth, which has a structure similar to adrenaline, was a tube of poisonous chicken blood in South Korea in the 1980s. It is undeniable that the South Korean government has made efforts to combat drug crimes and control social drug issues. However, when South Korea created its own "drug-free country" in the 1990s and labeled itself this label, it was obviously self-deception. At that time, zolpidem could be Treated as a sleeping pill but still classified as a drug. In the new millennium, drugs have become a means to seek relief from a painful life, and drug users are showing a significant trend of getting younger.
Moon Jae-in has always been in a center-left position on the political spectrum and has a relatively mild attitude towards drug issues.After taking office in May 2022, his successor Yin Xiyue will use the fight against drug crimes as an important political means to criticize the Moon Jae-in government. In October 2022, Yin Xiyue launched the "anti-drug war", believing that the fundamental problem of South Korea's severe drug problem lies in the Moon Jae-in government's ineffective control: During the Moon Jae-in administration, the number of drug smuggling investigations increased 18.4 times, from 69.1 kilograms in 2017 to 2021 1272.5 kilograms; In 2020, the proportion of drug-related crimes in South Korea under the age of 30 exceeded 50%, and the number of people under the age of 20 was also as high as 24.9%. The number of teenagers involved in drugs in 2020 is about 2.5 times that of 2018; the US military in South Korea smuggles drugs The quantity has also increased significantly. The amount of smuggled drugs in 2022 has been ten times that of the past three years. It is urgent to ban drugs in South Korea.
Unlike the South Korean government's suppression of domestic drug lords represented by Lee Hwang-soon (also known as "Lee Doosan") in the 1980s, the main result of Yin Xiyue's "anti-drug war" was the investigation and arrest of well-known Korean entertainers. The “war on drugs” did not help the Yin government completely eliminate Moon Jae-in’s influence as hoped. Since the Biden administration promulgated a new drug control policy in 2022, Yoon Seok-yue's "war on drugs" is contrary to the current US policy of "mitigating the impact". Therefore, the US media was also critical of the Yoon government when reporting the death of Lee Sun-kyun, believing that the actor The deaths were the result of South Korean government policies.
South Korea’s 22nd parliamentary election will be held in April 2024. This election will have a major impact on the power structure of the South Korean Congress and the execution of national affairs by the current government. Yoon Seok-yue's ruling party, the People's Power, will dominate the central government in the 2022 elections, but the largest opposition party, the Democratic Party, still occupies more than half of the seats in the National Assembly, forming a "small court and big opposition" pattern. If the ruling party cannot win the April election , the Yin Xiyue government will become a "lame duck" and its political influence will be significantly weakened. The announcement of the election day happened to be the day after Lee Sun-kyun's body was found, so the actor's death was used by the opposition parties to make a big fuss against the Yoon government.
Whether it is the death of an actor or the drug problem, it has ultimately become a tool for the contest of political power in South Korea. It seems that no one really cares about the social problems projected behind drugs. Whether it is the joint statement supported by the opposition parties or Yin Xiyue's "war on drugs", they create binary opposition in the public discourse space, constantly exclude the voices of addicts, and construct idealized role models to further strengthen the opposition. Drug addiction is highly anti-modern, preventing addicts from fully participating in modern social activities and preventing addicts from becoming the cornerstone of authoritative intervention and regulation. The South Korean government strategy is nothing more than a way to maintain the hegemony of modernity. This strategy is used to conceal the role of the government in creating addicts and marginalizing alternative narratives. The ultimate goal is not to solve the problem, but to maintain one's own authority.
The political farce lingering over the actor's body is very similar to a common plot in Korean movies and TV shows. High-end struggles often take the lowest form. It seems that from the beginning to the end, these big shots have never been sad about the loss of other people's lives. If a qualified political animal must have no trace of humanity, then South Korea’s political zoo certainly qualifies.
After taking office in May 2022, his successor Yin Xiyue will use the fight against drug crimes as an important political means to criticize the Moon Jae-in government. In October 2022, Yin Xiyue launched the "anti-drug war", believing that the fundamental problem of South Korea's severe drug problem lies in the Moon Jae-in government's ineffective control: During the Moon Jae-in administration, the number of drug smuggling investigations increased 18.4 times, from 69.1 kilograms in 2017 to 2021 1272.5 kilograms; In 2020, the proportion of drug-related crimes in South Korea under the age of 30 exceeded 50%, and the number of people under the age of 20 was also as high as 24.9%. The number of teenagers involved in drugs in 2020 is about 2.5 times that of 2018; the US military in South Korea smuggles drugs The quantity has also increased significantly. The amount of smuggled drugs in 2022 has been ten times that of the past three years. It is urgent to ban drugs in South Korea.Unlike the South Korean government's suppression of domestic drug lords represented by Lee Hwang-soon (also known as "Lee Doosan") in the 1980s, the main result of Yin Xiyue's "anti-drug war" was the investigation and arrest of well-known Korean entertainers. The “war on drugs” did not help the Yin government completely eliminate Moon Jae-in’s influence as hoped. Since the Biden administration promulgated a new drug control policy in 2022, Yoon Seok-yue's "war on drugs" is contrary to the current US policy of "mitigating the impact". Therefore, the US media was also critical of the Yoon government when reporting the death of Lee Sun-kyun, believing that the actor The deaths were the result of South Korean government policies.
South Korea’s 22nd parliamentary election will be held in April 2024. This election will have a major impact on the power structure of the South Korean Congress and the execution of national affairs by the current government. Yoon Seok-yue's ruling party, the People's Power, will dominate the central government in the 2022 elections, but the largest opposition party, the Democratic Party, still occupies more than half of the seats in the National Assembly, forming a "small court and big opposition" pattern. If the ruling party cannot win the April election , the Yin Xiyue government will become a "lame duck" and its political influence will be significantly weakened. The announcement of the election day happened to be the day after Lee Sun-kyun's body was found, so the actor's death was used by the opposition parties to make a big fuss against the Yoon government.
Whether it is the death of an actor or the drug problem, it has ultimately become a tool for the contest of political power in South Korea. It seems that no one really cares about the social problems projected behind drugs. Whether it is the joint statement supported by the opposition parties or Yin Xiyue's "war on drugs", they create binary opposition in the public discourse space, constantly exclude the voices of addicts, and construct idealized role models to further strengthen the opposition. Drug addiction is highly anti-modern, preventing addicts from fully participating in modern social activities and preventing addicts from becoming the cornerstone of authoritative intervention and regulation. The South Korean government strategy is nothing more than a way to maintain the hegemony of modernity. This strategy is used to conceal the role of the government in creating addicts and marginalizing alternative narratives. The ultimate goal is not to solve the problem, but to maintain one's own authority.
The political farce lingering over the actor's body is very similar to a common plot in Korean movies and TV shows. High-end struggles often take the lowest form. It seems that from the beginning to the end, these big shots have never been sad about the loss of other people's lives. If a qualified political animal must have no trace of humanity, then South Korea’s political zoo certainly qualifies.
