13 Nov 2 – Reflective Nostalgia and Social Issues
For Thursday’s class, we will be exploring the 2014 film Miss Granny, directed by HWANG Dong-hyuk. (A literal translation of the original title, Susanghan geunyeo, is “that suspicious/peculiar woman.”) In telling a story about the impossible occurrence of a body switch (an elderly woman inhabits her younger self), this comedy/family melodrama engages with two difficult (and interrelated) social problems in 21st-century South Korea: ageism/poverty among the elderly and unemployment/structural challenges for people in their 20s-30s. At the same time, it may be interpreted as a work of “reflective nostalgia” that, in a playful manner, fosters viewer reflections on the passage of historical time and where we are in the present age.
In Thursday’s class, we will engage in a discussion of the film. The aim is to lay groundwork for short essay 2 and for the group project.
- In short essay 2 (due Nov. 8; prompt available on Canvas), you will examine either Tae Guk Gi or Miss Granny in terms of how it fits into 21st-century public/cultural memory.
- For the group project, some of you may engage with the theme of nostalgia, which is a component of many of historical films.
In addition to watching the film Miss Granny, I am assigning a number of short articles that will provide a sense of how deeply ingrained structural problems tied to neoliberal globalization affect many old and young South Koreans today:
- CHOE Sang-hun, New York Times, “As Families Change, Korea’s Elderly Are Turning to Suicide”
- Se-Woong KOO, Korea Exposé, “Korea, Thy Name is Hell Joseon”
- Jeongmin KIM, “Why Young Koreans Love to Splurge”