The Hollywoodification of North Korean refugees

Casey Lartigue Jr. during an interview at the Freedom Speakers International office on May 28, 2024.

When I was interviewed for a documentary last year, one of the crew members stopped the recording and told me I needed to stop smiling. He said that discussing a serious topic required a serious expression. I responded: was I smiling? I guess I enjoy doing my work and talking about it. We discussed it, then I told him that if my style didn’t align with their vision, then perhaps I wasn’t the right person for the project. He apologized and we continued, but I doubt they used me in the footage. Or perhaps they will use an app to put a frown on my face.

This is not the first time I have encountered this. I have been told in other interviews that I was smiling too much. Well, that comment makes my smile turn to laughter.

Years ago, I came upon a South Korean friend holding a protest sign on the street. I joined her to take photos to highlight what she was protesting about. Later, I was criticized by the People of the Internet for smiling while she had a serious look and was holding a serious sign.

I have been on the frontlines of different social issues and it never ceases to amaze me that people who are on the sidelines, sitting on a couch, or typing away at a cafe are critiquing a superficial thing about a smile on my face while I am at work. There are other examples, and to all of them, I quote Emma Goldman, who was attributed with saying, “If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be part of your revolution.”

Similar moments have occurred with my colleague and co-author, Han Song-mi. During a photo shoot on Wednesday for an international media outlet, the cameraman asked Han to stop smiling. At other times, people have remarked that she smiles while giving speeches about difficult parts of her life in North Korea. Han has been through a lot in life, and has come through it smiling and feeling lucky she is alive and living in freedom. People who haven’t experienced what she has expect her to be dour and sad. They want trauma with subtitles, preferably with background music and a slow zoom-in on tears.

This seems to be the "Hollywoodification" of life being applied to North Korean refugees. People get used to cues in movies: somber music plays during emotional scenes, bright music during happy moments, suspenseful rhythms during tense ones. If someone is talking about pain, many people expect them to look pained. If they’re describing something traumatic, we expect a heavy voice, a long pause, and maybe even tears. Those tears often come at our events, but there is also joy and celebration of North Korean refugees having the freedom to tell their stories. Real life doesn’t come with a soundtrack or a director yelling, “Cut! Now let’s do that again, but more tragic and dramatic this time.”

This dynamic isn’t unique to public speaking; it appears throughout art and storytelling. Consider the Jackson 5 — growing up in impoverished Gary, Indiana, they became known around the world not for protest or pain, but for lively, upbeat songs like “ABC” and “I Want You Back” that celebrated love and innocence.

Bill Withers, who was raised in a West Virginia coal town, is remembered for songs such as “Lean on Me” and “Lovely Day” — music that offered comfort rather than despair. Dolly Parton, who grew up in a one-room cabin, crafted music full of love, imagination, and humor.

On the flip side, there’s Vanilla Ice, a white rapper who burst into the charts in 1990 with “Ice Ice Baby.” He was singing about how life was rough although he apparently didn’t grow up that way. Some see that as cultural appropriation, but that life he had not experienced appealed to him as an artist. He apparently grew up in the suburbs, and the lyrics came straight from the streets of his imagination.

When we were choosing a cover photo for Greenlight to Freedom, the memoir I co-wrote with Han, I went through her social media. One photo that caught my attention was one where she was smiling, but there was something in her eyes that didn't quite match the surface expression. It was odd that her hands were physically moving her lips to make a smile. Many people who commented on the photo said her smile was cute, but when I asked her about it, she told me that during the moment she took that selfie, she was in the depths of depression. That was before she went into counseling and was on the verge of committing suicide. That smile was a reflection of her trying to hold herself together.

Today, when Han smiles during public speaking appearances or interviews, those smiles are different. She smiles not because she’s forgotten or escaped her past, but because she’s speaking on her own terms. And yet, people still ask her to tone down her smile when she talks about serious subjects. Apparently, she’s not a good enough actress when she is speaking and couldn’t play herself in a Hollywood movie about her life.

Casey Lartigue Jr. (CJL@alumni.harvard.edu) is the co-founder of Freedom Speakers International with Lee Eun-koo, and co-author with Han Song-mi of her memoir "Greenlight to Freedom: A North Korean Daughter’s Search for Her Mother and Herself.”