강남다움의 한 기원, 1990년대 압구정동 문화와 문학

Abstract

In the 1970s and 1980s, Gangnam was primarily regarded as an a place for apartment speculation, an 8th school district with a high university enrollment rate, and a residentail area for the corrupt upper class. However, in the early 1990s when Apgujeong-dong emerged as the epicenter of a new youth culture and the cutting edge of consumerism, Gangnam became associated with overwhelming economic dominance and consumerism. Yoo Ha's poetry and Lee Sun-won's novel about Apgujeong-dong, along with the topicality of Rodeo Street, played a large role in this process. These texts showed that Apgujeong-dong was a space for the purpose of consuming the space itself as well as images of Apgujeong-dong. They also represented the ways in which Apgujeong-dong is represented as a gendered or sexualized space, depicting it as a space of sexually degraded or attractive women and men who abuse political power and a huge money. By positioning Apgujeongdong as the center of Gangnam-ness, these texts provided ways to desire and emulate Gangnam-ness, while at the same time ensuring that "following Gangnam" remains a process that stimulates the "unattainable" and infinitely delays the desire to rise in economic status.