Is Korea Interfering With Art?

By Michael Breen

When the singer G-Dragon, in his first solo performance without his group Big Bang, featured a short horror movie of himself murdering a woman and had simulated sex with a backup dancer chained to a bed, the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Family Affairs thought he had gone too far in front of the youthful audience and filed obscenity charges.

The subsequent interrogation of G-Dragon (real name Kwon Ji-yong) by prosecutors in February raised questions about the use of law to protect social mores in a democracy where those mores are constantly changing.

Does the interference of state authority with artists ― and a visit to the prosecutors is a message in itself ― over the moral content of their art, protect us ― and in this case, minors ― from harm? Or does it intrude on an artist's freedom and creativity and, in this way, damage society?

Isolated from the context, the performance seems shocking to parents. But the audience was young and the music they like is not about passing French exams and getting into Seoul National University. It's about teenage idealism, insecurity, rebellion, and, underlying it all, love and sex. Was it shocking to them?

In the end, YG Entertainment was fined 3 million won, for including two songs (with the lewd bits) that had been ruled unsuitable for minors when the album was released. But no charges were brought against the performer. (The DVD of the full performance comes out this month with a separate edited version for under-19s).

However, from a strictly legal point of view, G-Dragon's performance may well have been obscene. The Supreme Court has in the past interpreted obscenity as that which provokes people's sexual desire and causes the public to feel shame, therefore possibly harming people's mental and physical motivations.

If prosecutors had applied this test, interviewed the audience, and found that a majority had actually felt aroused and ashamed, a court would have had no choice but to find him guilty.

But, to return to our question, would such an outcome be desirable? More broadly, do laws designed to protect public morals work?

One thing about such laws is that enforcement is erratic and therefore unfair. Michael Jackson was not arrested in Korea, for example, when he thrust his pelvis and grabbed his crotch in a performance. Nor did the teenage children of officials at the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Family Affairs file a class action complaint against the minister in January when she announced that once a month she was switching the lights off at the ministry at 7p.m. to encourage officials to go home early and have sex. Given how revolting parental sex appears to most normal teenagers, the ministry's campaign to raise the birth rate could be considered offensive.

Inconsistent application, however, is not always that bad. Sometimes, you need to set an example. There are many cases in history when prosecutors could have singled out victims to protect society and its members. If, for example, Roman prosecutors had arrested the entertainment company which organized one of the first Coliseum events where Christians were mauled and eaten in public by lions, that society may not have degenerated into moral chaos, and many lives would have been saved.

On the other hand, it's clearly possible for acts in the name of protecting society to be excessive. For example, did the policemen in the 1970s who forcibly cut the long hair of young men successfully protect Korean society from moral decline, as the law intended? No. In fact, not so long after, the establishment that devised this law was rejected by the society it tried to protect.

That is not to say that long hair was not a social issue. It was. Arguments about it took place in every home in Europe and North America where there were teenagers. My father, who was a British air force officer, felt that people wore long hair to signal they rejected what was good in society. This may have been true of some young people, but for others, long hair symbolized the rejection of the pursuit money and status. For most, it was just the fashion.

Fortunately, the law in free countries stayed away from this argument because individual freedom was considered more important than hairstyles.

This was an easier decision to make in the West than in Korea. The underlying theme of western cultural history is disobedience. Ever since Adam and Eve disobeyed God, Westerners have been defying previous generations, and regenerating their culture.

Of Korean virtues, on the other hand, obedience to parents and elders comes top. Every Korean family seems to have its own unspoken stories of suffering that come from the struggle to suppress self in the interests of obedience to parents and social expectation.

But that is now changing. And as the idea of acceptable expression in society changes, prosecutors need to know when to act and when to stay still.

Michael Breen is an author, former foreign correspondent and the chairman of Insight Communications, a public relations consulting company. He can be reached at mike.breen@insightcomms.com.