By Yun Suh-young
An MBC TV comedy program is under fire as viewers have criticized one of its episodes as being racially discriminating.
On Jan. 21, during the Lunar New Year’s holiday, its program “Quiz to Change the World” aired an episode with two female comedians, with faces painted black and dressed up as Michol, a black male character from the popular animation “Dooly the Baby Dinosaur,” dancing to a song called Sintoburi. The title of the song means products grown within one’s own land are the best.
A flurry of negative reactions came after MBC, the nation’s second largest broadcaster, uploaded a video clip of the show on Feb. 17 on YouTube.
Following the posting, angry video clips appeared on the site where people labeled the show offensive.
An African-American female uploaded a video clip of herself on YouTube where she openly criticized the program.
She politely explained that when people put black makeup on, they were making fun of black people even if they did not know they were doing so.
“I thought racism was gone, but blackface is still in Korea. It’s not cute, not funny at all,” she said. “People think blacks are from the ghetto and are uncivilized but most of us K-pop fans are not from the ghetto and there are a lot of black fans of K-pop. Korea should stop doing this. It’s just wrong. I don’t want to see Korea as a racist country but if this continues, it will be seen as a racist country.”
Identified as Peris Elsie, she even spoke on a local English radio program Thursday explaining why she had uploaded the post.
Another black woman swore in the video clip titled, “MBC-Blackface!! What the f*** are they thinking?!?!” expressing her disappointment at MBC and the Korean people. The clip is now unavailable as it has been removed.
Other clips, however, are continuously being uploaded. Black men, women and even Caucasians have joined in the attack. Some expats living in Korea have also written about it recently on their blogs.
Some even claim that the incident can be seen as a second round of the “Bubble Sisters controversy” which occurred back in 2003. Bubble Sisters, a Korean female band, made their debut by performing blackfaced. It drew controversy when the reason behind their makeup was known to be their lack of confidence in their appearance. People claimed it was racially discriminating to depict black people as “ugly and fat.”
As the show has attracted mounting online criticism, MBC publicly apologized for its mistake on Feb. 28. Nearly four pages of its Internet board were filled with postings attacking the program for its indifference.
Korean netizens, infuriated by the incident after news of angry foreigners spread through Twitter, posted comments on the Internet board of the program saying that the program should make a public apology.
