1950년대 대중매체와 아메리카니즘: 한국 영화의 문화적 재현을 중심으로

Abstract

This study aims to explore the relationship between mass media and Americanism in the 1950s, focusing on the ways in which Korean cinema represented this cultural phenomenon. The cultural discourse of “Americanism,” which had already emerged during the Japanese colonial period, became a dominant cultural force in 1950s Korea, shaped by the Korean War, the stationing of U.S. forces, and extensive American economic aid. Accordingly, Americanism can be seen as the key element in understanding the meanings and characteristics of popular media and mass culture during this decade. This article begins with the premise that the “Americanism” disseminated through popular entertainment magazines in the 1950s was closely related to Korean cinema. In fact, these widely read entertainment and film magazines featured articles on Korean and Hollywood films, pictorials of actresses, and various reports that conveyed American lifestyles and values to the Korean public. As film production flourished in the mid to late 1950s, numerous Korean films also began to reproduce the visual imagery of Americanism. Within these films, Americanism was most vividly expressed through the sexually objectified female figures positioned between Korean and American cultural boundaries. The spaces they occupied and the objects they used served as visual representations of Americanism. Since popular magazines actively utilized such visual images, Korean cinema became a cultural apparatus that the cultural reconstruction authorities sought to regulate and control. As exemplified in the film <The Drifting Island (Pyo-ryu-do)>-an adaptation of a novel-the portrayal of women as objects of sexual fantasy positioned between Korean and American cultures reveals both the potential danger of Americanized visual imagery and the anxiety of those who sought to reconstruct postwar culture.