We call Dong-A Ilbo, Cho-Sun Ilbo and Jungang Ilbo Chojungdong. These news agencies’ comments on social problems are different from those of Hangyurea Ilbo and Gyunghyang Ilbo because Chojungdong is known for the conservative force, and Hangyurea and Gyunghyang are progressive.

For example, these days, Korea times are turbulent because of the candlelight demonstration against the import of U.S beef. Chojungdong have supported the decision of the Korean government and criticized the demonstration. On the other hand, Hangyurea and Gyunghayng have criticized the decision of the Korean government and supported the candlelight demonstration.

Chojungdong tend to support Grand National Party that is the ruling party and conservative, even if the view of the party is completely wrong. Also, Chojungdong is considered as the press organizations that flatter the powerful in 1980s when President Jeon, Korea’s military dictator, controlled society. Furthermore, Chosun Ilbo even supported the powerful under the rule of Japanese imperialism. On the other hand, Hangyurea and Gyunghyang have tried to protect second-class citizens and criticized faults of people in power since 1980s when President Jeon controlled society. Therefore, I like to read the comments of Hangyurea and Gyunghyang rather than those of Chojungdong.

During the process of making the final project, I have thought an epsode of the book ‘Free Culture.’ The episode is that in a school in San Francisco, teachers teache how to make movie or handle media to students.

 The author says that in process of making video and making stories, students can think in the logical way. I also experienced what the author says during the final project, giving myself the questions such as which story or songs were suitable for my movie, or whether I could edit in this way.

And I got confidence about making video after finishing the final project. I mean that I didn’t know how to make video or how to use the edititing software program, but now I’m confident that when I have a chance to make video in the future, I can do it much better than now.  

Yesterday, I watched the movie ‘Kill Bill’ made by Quentin Tarantino again, I like his movies because he knows well what the audience want in the movie and how to make movies interesting. One of features of his movies is that attractive, tough females are on the center of the story.

Another feature is to remix from the movies already existing. These days, studying about the book ‘Free Culture,’ we are thinking about the mean of remixing. So, his movies give us great opportunity to think about the worth of the remixing.

A remix is an alternative version of things such as songs and movies, different from the original version. Some can move us more deeply than the original version, but others can be worthless compared with the original version.

The movies made by Quentin Tarantino don’t simply imitate B-movies, but he goes further and makes attractive, new films by changing the stories of B-movies and creating a series of images that express his style.

Also, other artists such as a painter, a cartoonist and a composer make their works in this way. The good works affected by the stuffs that already existing make a different impression on us. And these give us enjoyment and at once inspire other artists.

Therefore, if the legal system tries to control strictly these things under the name of plagiarism, artists will have trouble to make new works. That is, whenever they make new works, they have to consider whether it is related to a legal problem or not, which can be an obstacle of making good stuffs. It means if the legal system tries to control strictly these things, it will be hard for people to meet the good works.         

A few days ago, my friend from America visited my place. Sitting on sofa and watching a comedy show, he said, “Why the hell are comedy TV shows made in Korea filled with excessive subtitles? It’s like a Japanese comedy show that I watched in the hotel when being in Japan.” He wondered what the reason is, because American comedy shows are not.

As he said, compared with other countries’, it is true that Korean comedy shows are filled with so many subtitles. Since about 10 years ago, Korean comedy shows have started imitating Japanese shows filled with excessive subtitles. In terms of the content, imitating TV shows made in other countries is a custom of long standing in this field, which is one of the things that people criticize Korean TV shows. That is, most of the TV shows made in Korea are lack in originality.

Of course, inserting proper amount of subtitles to the shows has advantages. Above all, when viewers have difficulty understanding what performers in the TV show are saying, it will help them to grasp the import of the statement. Also, sometimes the subtitles made by production crew members move the viewers to laughing.

However, immoderate subtitles confuse the viewers in understanding content of the show. As the viewers have to follow performers’ saying while reading the subtitles, they feel confused. These days, Most TV shows are filled with uninteresting, rubbish subtitles because the producers suffer from the obsession to make funny subtitles.

Also, the subtitles made by producers tend to remove the viewer’s critical ability. Imagine that a comedian who is considered as a stupid person expresses his serious thoughts about the society. At that time, one subtitle appears on the screen: His thought is still unreasonable. This affects how people think about him. That is, even though somebody agrees with the comedian, he or she is likely to be affected by the subtitle: He is still stupid.

Therefore, in my opinion, proper amount of subtitle makes it easy to understand content of the show, but excessive subtitles make the viewers confused and remove their critical ability.

I watched the film ‘The Silence of the Lambs’ yesterday, which is a thriller and horror film. In this film, there are many brutal scenes: eating human flesh, killing by excoriating men’s skin and torso murder. I think this kind of films cause people to imitate the crimes.

For example, a few years ago, one middle-school student put his classmate to the edge of the knife. After the accident, he said he had been much affected by the Korean film “Friend.” In the film like ‘The Silence of the Lambs’, there are many cruel acts: the most brutal scene is killing ‘Dong Su’, one of four best friends, in the end of the movie. Also, according to a research, after ‘The Godfather’ showed in the 70s, many felonies such as murder, arson and rape drastically increased in America. It means a movie affects a lot of audience whether it is good or bad.

What I most worry about is that common children who are pure and innocent imitate the crimes in the films without any doubt. It is said that the most important thing in one’s life is childhood’s experience because the more people are young, the easier they are affected by environment around them. Of course, I know every movie is rated by many association related to the movie industry. So, it is impossible for children to enter the theater in order to watch the movie which is rated restricted. Nevertheless, if they want to watch the sensational movie, they can do it through the internet, secretly avoiding their parents.

However, because of these things, we also cannot remove every brutal scene in the movie. Brutal scenes which are brilliantly described offer the audience chance to think about violence of people: how vicious people are sometimes. For example, Buffalo Bill, brutal murderer in the movie ‘The Silence of the Lambs,’ kills many women continually to satisfy his greed. Through his unusual behavior, reasonable people can think about the importance of childhood and human abominable cruelty, not imitating them.

In my opinion, in order to get out of the dilemma, we have to consider about children’s accessibility to the restricted. That is, adults must prevent children from access to restricted media such as porno. Also, at once, we have to establish efficient education system which helps children learn how to accept mass media.

This morning I watched a TV show which introduces a variety of short motion pictures. Among them, there was one scene that a woman who is sitting at the table by window in the coffee shop is smoking. People who walk around the table don’t mind about the woman who is smoking. However, after a while, she gets out of there and smokes on the street. People who are around her start to stare at her strangely.  

 I was very impressed by this scene. I don’t remember the name of this movie, but think highly of this movie director of keen observation. As this scene, it’s very hard to see the women who smoke on the street in Korea, and if a certain girl does, people will look at her strangely.  

I don’t know why Korean women must not smoke on the street. In Korea, there is no any law which forbids women to smoke on the street. In my opinion, it’s sort of sexual discrimination. That is, this custom shows that our society is still a male-dominated society. I wish to know when and how this custom started. 

Of course, because smoking is injurious to health, we had better not do it. Nevertheless, if somebody smokes, not damaging to others, we have no right to blame smoking on her or him as smoking is a matter of taste. Anybody can have such taste. If men smoke on the street, women also can. Therefore, this custom should be done away with.

In the village of Little Wallop, there is the vicar, Walter Goodfellow, who is unconcerned with his family. He is totally preoccupied with his work such as writing the perfect sermon for a conference, having little sex with his wife Gloria. As a result, she has an affair with her golf instructor Lance. Her daughter Holly is rebellious and frequently has a new boyfriend and son Petey is bullied by schoolmates. That is, the Walter’s is a broken family. Then the new housekeeper Grace comes to them, and great changes happen to their family.

Grace kills everyone who hinders the family’s peace in the bizarre way. Behind grotesque murder cases, there is biting sarcasm. The villagers who attend church services on Sundays have no concern in others except themselves. The vicar Walter who is in charge of the district but even can’t solve problems in the meeting for flower arrangement represents an incompetent, lethargic religion.

I like watching black comedy films. In my opinion, this movie is not creative compared with other black comedy movies in terms of developing plot in the simply way and coming to a plain end that everyone could expect. However, performers in this films show good acting ability. Especially, turning on the ironical charm, Maggie Smith shows perfect acting for Grace who is a graceful murder and has an expressionless face.

We sometimes saw the banner “You Can Get Married Vietnamese Women by Only Seven Million Won.” Whenever I see these banners, I’m impressed that Vietnamese Woman was considered as goods by Koreans. I think that these advertisements by the company giving unmarried men interviews with prospective brides have serious problems.  

These days, the marriages between unmarried men who are living in the country and doing farming and women from Southeast Asia are drastically increasing because Korean women are reluctant to get married men who are doing farming. In the process of it, the company for international marriage helps them to meet each other.  

These companies treat completely them with the commercial value. In other words, the industry like others is also mercenary. There are so many sites for intermarriage on the Internet. It means that the industry is highly competitive.  

In order to draw people’s attention, therefore, they tend to use the sensational banners: “Vietnamese women are much more obedient to their husbands than others” or “Filipinas are good for children from the educational standpoint because they are good at English.”  

These things contain male-dominated perspective that looks upon women as instruments for giving birth to children and taking care of children. Also, these regard women from Southeast Asia as Korean men’s property. Therefore, such banners have two discriminations: sexual discrimination and racial discrimination.    

Two weeks ago, I watched the movie “My Blueberry Nights” directed by Wong Kar Wai, starring Norah Jones and Jude Law. I like watching such thing as gangster film rather than the film dealing with the theme of love.

However, I like the films dealing with the subject of love made by Wong Kar Wai. He doesn’t express people’s love in the simple way. He knows well about how hard it is to express emotions people feel. The characters in his movies are likely to express their emotion in indirect way to use objects or worthless talking among them. And most of them crash and burn. Even though they gain affections in the end, the process of meeting again is rough and difficult.

Wong Kar Wai made his debut in Hollywood with this film “My Blueberry Nights.” So far, he made many films in Hong Kong. I had looked forward to watching this movie since I heard of the fact that this movie began to be made. Because Jude Law is one of my favorite movie actors and Norah Jones is one of my favorite singers. In terms of her debut in the movies, Norah Jones’s acting is good. Of course, Jude Law’s acting is without doubt the best of all. Also, I have considered Wong Kar Wai, the director of this film, as one of the best directors. Therefore, this movie is very special to me.