Inside North Korea VICE Alexa DiFilippo Blog 1

                                                                                                                                         Alexa DiFilippo

                                                                                                                                            March 6, 2016

                                                                                                                  Advanced Mass Comm Theory

                                                                                                                                                         Blog 1

                                                  

           Inside North Korea

                                                                       VICE

When a person brings up the country “North Korea”, what tends to come into a persons mind? A free country with the best food, great leader, the richest people and a great vacation spot? The Interview? Not at all, well maybe, The Interview it was a hysterical movie. Realistically, some individuals would sum up North Korea as a homogenous, dangerous, militarized, isolated country that has a devastating economic status and a certain one leader who is considered the “Great One.” For this assignment, I felt the “VICE” documentary called, “Inside North Korea” would be perfect because I want to display how the North Koreans want the world to see them and their country as a “perfect place”, how the North Koreans believe that the United States is the worst place ever and how they are better than us, and to raise the question of, could this ever happen in America, to a certain extent? We are in the middle of an election that has many people chatting about person-to-person and over social media. However, maybe not in the most positive light. Someone on Twitter explained this year’s election in a “different” way, “the candidates for this election is like picking which STD you would most want.” That is always a great thing to compare the next possible president of the United States of America to an STD you would most want. Anyway, I think it is a unique topic to bring up because this isn’t happening right now in our country per se but, if we ever ended up having a leader like Kim Jong Un and the leaders before him, how would we deal with it?

The documentary starts with the Vice founder Shane Smith explaining how North Korea is so dangerous and all of the check points and papers him and his crew had to go through and sign just to get into North Korea from South Korea. He mentions most of the time how he is scared and weirded out by the whole experience. Shane Smith says, “The first thing you realize in North Korea is you’re not a tourist in North Korea, you are on a tour. You come in; you are shown what you are shown. You are escorted out; you are escorted the whole time and you’re never allowed on your own. You can’t leave the hotel, which is on an island, until your guards come and get you. You have a guard, guide and secret police.” I think this is an important piece to this entire documentary because it sets a tone to the film. It makes a connection to how he is feeling like he is in like a “lalaland”; everything is a little too perfect. It’s kind of like, “you can look (we are watching you’re every move) but you can’t touch (because if you do you will die). They are fed lies from when they’re small from the people around them and the media their entire life. By North Korea’s governments regulating their media, they aren’t showing the entire truth about what’s going on in the world and their own countries corruption.

Smith continues on by showing the first place on the tour being a US spy ship that was captured by the North Koreans, called, “The Pueblo” during the Cold War. He mentions how they show an anti American video on the ship and how terrible American imperialist are. As the documentary progresses, he mentions that nothing happens when you’re on the road to the designated place the guides are taking the tourist. There aren’t a lot of cars or people and there seems as though there isn’t any electricity either. He’s brought to a teashop where a “tea girl,” who speaks English, most likely has not had human contact in months. Just patiently waiting for this type of moment. However, according to the World Trade Press, “In the DPRK everything is owned by the state so there is hardly any private property. There are, therefore, no  “class” distinctions among women across the country, apart for the women belonging to the relatively privileged ruling elite.” The stereotypes reinforced in this portion of the documentary are, that everything is fabricated that is being shown to the outside world from North Korea. Everything is too perfect to cover up the fact that North Korea is everything but perfect. Nothing-in North Korea that Smith and his crew are shown is authentic especially when he went to the karaoke bar which was most likely state sanctioned. However, the awful singing maybe was authentic. Smith mentions while he is reflecting back on his time in the bar he states, “Now the guards have been waiting. They have studied their whole life, you know, English and they’ve studied political dialectics of their best and the brightest. And this is like the top position but they have to wait all year for about ten days for any tourist to come. So, there’s this kind of like weird like they are holding back their excitement because they get to eat, they get to drink and smoke cigarettes all these great things. And you can see them vibrating they are so excited. You know, yeah have some cigarettes and drinking but they are trying not to show it.” From this, you can see that yes, the North Korean people are not these robots that they were always programmed to be but they are actual real people just like us. They have emotions just like the rest of us but they have to regulate almost everything they do because of their culture.

As for the last part of this documentary this was my favorite part. My first favorite part was the part going through the “Great Peoples library.” Smith narrates his time and experience with the “best desk ever” created by their great leader. The tour guide there shows the VICE group their music library that had no one in it, with modern music like, “The Beatles”. This is my favorite part being that North Korean people are behind but think they are more advanced at the same time. The propaganda of North Korea is out of hand and I find it so interesting because no one, no leader wants to show them that they are living in a shadow of lies. Sometimes I wonder if the leader actually cares about his people. My second favorite part was when they went to the school for kids that excel in the best parts. Smith was shocked by how good these kids were at with everything but these kids are learning because they are under the state to do so. They aren’t learning for themselves or because they love it.

Now, put yourself in this mindset. We elect a leader similar to Kim Jong Un. He or she enforces these strict laws, change the ways of our culture and social lives, the economy changes and children can no longer live out their passions and dreams. I think if anything, North Korea is the opposite of what any American wants in life in this country.

           

Citations:

Three parts of the documentary, “Inside North Korea” by VICE

Part one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24R8JObNNQ4

Part two: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xw46Ll-Zy4s

Part three: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HJj85K_7MQ

World Trade Press. "Contact a Librarian." McQuade Library. World Trade Press, 2010. Web. 06 Mar. 2016.