21세기 한국사회의 집단적 허무주의: 남성 복수영화의 재현 양상에서 드러나는 변화를 중심으로

Abstract

The revenge film that disappeared in Korea for a while reappeared in the early 2000s and has been in its heyday for 15 years. Contemporary revenge films have appeared in a variety of forms over time, and the mainstream in that trend are in two categories. One is the tragic violent revenge films that appeared in the early 2000s. Films in this category steadily maintains the longest trend. The other is the films of happy endings that have appeared since 2015. There are not many films in this category, which are just blooming. However, the enthusiastic response of the audience to the films in this category tells us that these films are the mainstream trend responding to the collective psychology of the time. The purpose of this article is to examine the differences revealed by the films of these two categories and to see what the differences tell us about the collective consciousness of Korean society. In Chapter 2, we examine what the roots of the charm of revenge drama are, what their actual sources are, and how the present situation of Korean society is involved here. In chapters 3 and 4, we analyze the tragic revenge films of the early 2000s and the happy ending revenge films since 2015 in 74 detail, and in doing so, see how the differences found in the categories are related to the collective consciousness of Korean society. The films of the early 2000s reveals the tragic necessity that operates doubly both in the social structural dimension and in the demension of the subject of revenge, and it expresses the irrationality of the social system that members of Korean society senses while experiencing the neoliberal social system and their collective rage against it. In contrast, the happy ending revenge films since 2015 unfold the story in which a meticulous and sophisticated man succeeds in revenge legitimately by reversing the mechanisms of the power group. This new aspect of the revenge films reflects the psychology of the members of society who have lost the power to face reality while experiencing a series of terrible situations in the 2010s. The collective consciousness of the contemporary society revealed through the modes of representation of these films reflects the collective psychology of Korean society becoming more dark and lethargic than the early 2000s, where nihilism is deepening.