군대 소재 블랙 코미디 드라마 <신병> 연구

Abstract

The military, which used to be one of the tabooed materials, has begun to be reproduced in realistic/direct ways following the rapid change of the drama platform environment in recent years. This study examined the ways that <New Recruit>, which is a drama to reproduce the military with comedy attributes, induced laughs and their meanings. The most basic tool used to induce laughs in the drama is exaggerating. Exaggerations lead to the setting of main characteristics, stereotypical characters, and their unexpected acts, creating various laughs. Such laughs are based on the premise of the rank/power order operating in reality, which means that the laughs induced in the drama are bitter laughs reflecting reality. These laughs are combined with other heterogeneous elements in the event, character, and structure aspects. The drama eventually establishes a viewpoint that the same principle works between the military life and the real life, ultimately signifying the military as an altruistic/inclusive life. Using the metaphor of “new recruits" for the years of life when human beings are inevitably immature because of many firsts, the drama proposes tolerance and understanding for the new recruit days that every person goes through. These ways of <New Recruit>'s reproduction are not direct compared to whistle-blowing or disclosing the hidden side of the military, but the drama is significant in that it induces viewers to look back on the real world as well as themselves through the material of the military. The drama deserves high praises for the excavation and utilization of the material amid the pluralization trend of the drama platform environment. If such new attempts continue, they will contribute to the further expansion of the base of Korean dramas as well as discussions about the military.