In response to the sinking of one of its ships, South Korea recently erected speakers along its demilitarized zone with North Korea — to be used for propaganda broadcasts. A South Korean newspaper reports that the government is also?considering using “songs and music videos by manufactured girl bands such as Girls’ Generation, Wonder Girls, After School, Kara and 4minute in so-called psychological warfare against North Korea.” Wonder if they’ve considered Barry Manilow?[%comments]
Killer Girl Groups
TAGS: music, psychology
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Whats really funny/ironic about the North’s complaints about the South’s speakers is that the North never took theirs down in the first place.
South Korea should just go straight to the big guns and blast some Ke$ha from the start.
“The JCS official said he is unsure how effective the work of girl bands will be. But the revealing outfits worn by the performers and their provocative dances could have a considerable impact on North Korean soldiers.” I love that line…
The giant speakers have been there for years. When I was stationed in the DMZ in the early ’90s, the 2 sides would blare obnoxious music and propaganda at each other all night. They stopped doing this a few years ago, during a thaw in relations. The whole DMZ is surreal.
I wonder if the North Korean situation would improve if we carpet bombed them with CARE packages of rice, cell phones, DVDs, those yellow marshmallow “Peeps” I get for Easter, $2 buck chucks, MacDonald’s cheeseburgers, Gummi Bears, popcorn, Oscar Mayer hot dogs, Coca Cola, etc…..just keep doing it until the government collapses.
Barry Manilow?
Ke$ha?
Peeps?
Surely the Geneva Convention places limits on inhumane and degrading conduct, no?
I’m surprised there is precious little context to this in this blog. Korean pop culture has become a popular “soft culture” influencing force in not just North Korea but also in the rest of Asia. There was an Economist article on South Korean pop culture as instrument of “soft power” not too long ago. A major source of information on the outside world to the average North Korean are smuggled South Korean movies, dramas and music from bootlegged copies in China.
For anyone familiar with what’s currently going on in the Korean peninsula, this move wouldn’t be considered too odd or strange.
In the movie “One, two, three,” they successfully did that to drive the young,classical music loving Berlin Communist by blaring “Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini” over a loud speaker. And that movie was nearly 50 years ago.