Despite Korea’s success in cultural export and industrial development, why did Korean animation fail to attract a domestic or global audience after massive state and corporate support? Why did Korean animation, one of the pioneer industries of globalization, collapse in the transition to neoliberalism and remain at the level of labor-intensive outsourcing while the rest of the Korean wave of popular culture took off? That is, why did state-led development and global outsourcing, two opposing strategies, reach the same dead end?To answer these questions, this thesis traces the history of Korean animation from the colonial era to the present. Each chapter highlights important animated works that are representative of a Korean historical epoch and discusses both their production and aesthetic qualities. As an industrial art, animation not only follows the history of Korean economic development but reflects on it aesthetically. This dissertation argues that while each period gave birth to animation that aspired to represent the nation, the limits of capitalist development quashed each attempt. Theorizing Korean animation as encompassing South Korea, North Korea, the international diaspora of Koreans, and the labor of Korean people in global animation production, this dissertation asks three theoretical questions: what are some of the absences in animation theory filled by the addition of transnational Korean animation? What does the experience of Korean animation tell us about the evolution of global manufacturing based on labor arbitrage? How do we tell the history of outsourced commodities from the perspective of those who make them? Through these questions, this dissertation argues for the centrality of Korea to theorizing the general nature of global monopoly capitalism. Chapter one introduces the fundamental theoretical issues imminent to Korean animation. Chapters two, three, and four go through history in chronological order, starting with the many potentially first Korean animations in the post-war period, then the era of Japanese industrial mimicry, and finally the Asian financial crisis. Chapter five discusses the concept of outsourcing going back to the Japanese colonial era up to the 1980s. Chapter six explores the history and ideology of North Korean animation. Chapter seven discusses Korean animation today and the possibilities and limits of webtoon based animation. Finally, chapter eight concludes with a retelling of Korean animation’s history through The Simpsons.
Cookie SettingseScholarship uses cookies to ensure you have the best experience on our website. You can manage which cookies you want us to use.Our Privacy Statement includes more details on the cookies we use and how we protect your privacy.