‘Paradise’ spotlights Seoul's disappearing queer hubs

The interior of Bada Theater / Courtesy of Matt VanVolkenburg

By Matt VanVolkenburg

In August 2020, UC San Diego history professor Todd Henry decided to combine his interests in Korean urban history (reflected in his first book, Assimilating Seoul: Japanese Rule and the Politics of Public Space in Colonial Korea 1910-1945) and Korea’s queer history (the topic of a collection he edited titled "Queer Korea," and his forthcoming book, "Profits of Queerness: Media, Medicine, and Citizenship in Hetero-Authoritarian South Korea, 1950-1980") by, as he put it, “exploring the unknown history of queer life around Euljiro.”

“It's one of many areas in Seoul that used to have a queer vibe to it, but has since changed in many ways," he told The Korea Times. "So, I was in the process of trying to narrate histories of queer neighborhoods, or queer hubs as I call them, that have since disappeared from Seoul’s landscape.”

Though he had already known about Euljiro, “I couldn't exactly figure out where the bars were.” A solution to this problem was found by “looking through old European gay guides to the world that were popular from the 1960s forward,” which listed numerous places located in the Euljiro area and mapped them out.

While writing his first book, he befriended such Korean architectural historians as Ahn Chang-mo, who, among other projects, oversaw the restoration of Seoul Station and its conversion into Culture Station 284. Having done walking tours with him before, Henry approached Ahn with his findings and they decided to try locating some of the bars.

Joined by architectural historian Lee Yeon-kyung, they ventured along Cheonggye Stream where they discovered a six-story olive-green building that was unknown even to Ahn. Venturing inside to look around, they learned from a chance encounter with the building manager, who had worked there since the early 1980s, that the Bada Building had been built in 1969 and had once housed a theater and a cabaret on its upper floors.

The building manager showed them around Bada Theater, which had closed in 2010, and then, without any prompting, he “called it a gay theater, one that was basically taken over by gay men.”

Signs adorn the exterior of Bada Building in downtown Seoul. Courtesy of National Archives of Korea

As it was a second-run theater, which showed movies on a loop, “the tickets were extremely inexpensive, so you could buy a ticket there and hang out all day long," Henry explained. "This was the sort of gay history lore that I had heard from many older gay men who I had talked to. They had spoken about these theaters, but this was the first time I had physically seen one of the places that those gay men had used.”

One reason for this is that all the other known theaters have since been demolished.

Stories about these theaters appeared occasionally in weekly magazines published by Seoul’s major newspapers. Henry noted that “I had been told anecdotally by people I interviewed that the weeklies were sort of a lifeline for gay men at the time because there weren't groups of gay men that produced their own publications” in Korea as they did in Europe or North America.

Though the weeklies in Korea published sensationalistic articles about “gay theaters” in order to portray them as abnormal, they unintentionally contributed to the growth of their clientele, as “many people told me about how the weeklies were very important for gay men to find the theaters.”

Discovering one such well-preserved theater prompted Henry to make a phone call. “That evening, I called Hong Minki, a friend of mine who's a filmmaker, and I said, 'Minki, I have an idea,'” he said.

As Hong explained to The Korea Times, “As an openly gay man in Korea, I have always been curious about how and where the older generation of gay men met each other, but there have been few opportunities to hear such stories.”

When Henry called him suggesting they make a documentary about the Bada Theater, Hong said, “in my gut, I felt that this was the opportunity I had been waiting for.”

He added, “I myself had always been curious about the culture of gay cruising at movie theaters in Korea, but I was under the impression they had all disappeared. So, discovering Bada Theater felt like coming across a unicorn.”

Bada Building in downtown Seoul, Oct. 25 / Korea Times photo by Jon Dunbar

Hong’s background as an artist was in sculpture, which then turned to installation art and performance. As a result of editing the videos he made to record the performances, “I naturally came to choose video as my preferred mode of expression.” In particular, he drew upon his interest in “the aesthetics, interfaces and interactivity of video games ― or, more broadly speaking, the user’s experience” of those games and their ability to “convey historical information.”

The two-year process of making the resulting film, “Paradise,” began by interviewing the building manager and obtaining permission to film the theater. This was followed by Henry doing research and conducting interviews. To do so, he posted an ad on “an old gay bulletin board that has different chat rooms, for different kinds of age groups and interest groups” in which he explained that he was an American professor interested in the history of Bada Theater and other gay cruising theaters. In this way, he managed to interview around 10 people whose ages ranged from late 50s to early 80s. Pieces of these extended interviews are included in the film.

The entrance to Bada Theater is open for a screening of "Paradise," Dec. 17, 2022. Korea Times photo by Jon Dunbar

Hong then pieced the interviews with these men together into a screenplay, which he wanted “to revolve more around the physical space of the theater rather than their individual experiences.”

Hong’s decision to animate the film came from the fact that many gay men “from that generation got married, and had a sort of a sort of double life, so to speak. So none of them were willing to appear on video,” according to Henry, who added, “for the sake of anonymity, we had to modify their voices.” As a result, “visually, we didn't have much besides the footage of the theater, as well as some archival materials.”

Hong elaborated, “I didn’t want their voices to just appear as ghosts and then dissolve again into the void,” so, collaborating with an animator friend, “I used animated characters to give each of their voices a physical vessel.”

These vessels took the form of memorabilia like matchboxes and bottle caps which were superimposed over the footage of the theater. As Hong sees it, these highlight “how gay people inhabited the theater space” as they sought out “dark, somewhat hidden corners of the theater.” And since these are “everyday objects from the past that are no longer made or sold, the film emphasizes that the culture of gay cruising at movie theaters is something that has disappeared.”

Also animated for the film was its narrator. As Hong put it, in the past, “spaces like Bada Theater were not just for gay men but rather for all types of queer people,” a place “where people explored who they were and what they were into. So, for that reason, I wanted to present the narrator as someone who could represent more than just the voices of gay men," who “seemed committed to protecting this world they were from.” With these traits in mind, Hong’s friend Jungle “immediately came to mind: She is a trans woman who has worked as a drag queen at gay clubs and is active as a model and member of a band.” As a result, the appearance of the narrator was based on Jungle, who also provided the narrator’s voice.

The lobby area of Bada Theater in downtown Seoul is empty, Oct. 25. / Korea Times photo by Jon Dunbar.

Hong’s hope in making the documentary was to “bring back to life these testimonials of the past and pass them down to the next generation," he said. "In particular, in the context of Seoul, where historical spaces are so often erased, I felt the urgent need to document and record this queer space. Why were gay people able to gather here? Or did they have no choice, and this was the only place where they could gather? Why did these spaces disappear? These were some of the questions I wanted to explore.”

Speaking of the deep generational disconnect that exists today, Henry stated that he hopes the film will “create some kind of dialogue that can connect people and create some conversation about what it was like in the past, what it's like now and what it might be like in the future to be gay and live in Korea” and “to give a sense of where today's gay subcultures came from.”

The first screenings of the documentary were held at the temporarily reopened Bada Theater last December, an experience Hong hoped would “create an opportunity for the younger generation that I am a part of ― which never experienced this culture ― to return to this theater before it disappeared. I wanted the next generation to experience with their bodies this theater space that has been patronized by so many nameless queer people.”

A poster for the screenings of documentary film "Paradise" appears next to the box office at Bada Theater in downtown Seoul, Dec. 17, 2022. Korea Times photo by Jon Dunbar

He also hoped the experience would serve “to reimagine Bada Theater as a space that warmly welcomed queer people rather than treated them as unpleasant and inconvenient interlopers.”

The screenings of the film have been well-received. According to Hong, “My sense is that viewers felt similar to how I felt listening to the recorded interviews the first time: They were excited to finally get a clearer understanding of this urban legend of gay cruising theaters that is built mostly on speculation.”

Subsequent screenings have taken place in Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, the U.S. and Europe. Upcoming screenings for the remainder of 2023 include one at the East London LGBTQ+ Film Festival on Nov. 4, the San Diego Asian Film Festival on Nov. 8 and the Boston LGBTQ+ Film Festival on Nov. 18.

Of the experience of presenting at these screenings, Hong said, “Being able to discuss the similarities and differences between respective gay cultures in Asia has also been very interesting. I hope there are more opportunities like this in the future in order to build a more organic network of gay culture and art in Asia.”

Matt VanVolkenburg has a master's degree in Korean studies from the University of Washington. He is the blogger behind populargusts.blogspot.kr, and co-author of "Called by Another Name: A Memoir of the Gwangju Uprising."