The controversy over Snowdrop is still an ongoing issue.
Recently, historical inaccuracy and excessive Chinese product placements became a thing in the Korean drama industry. As a result, Vincenzo decided to cancel its Chinese food product placement, and Joseon Exorcist called off the entire production.
And since yesterday, JTBC’s mega-scale upcoming project Snowdrop became a new target.
According to the synopsis, the drama took place in 1987. This is when the June Struggle, aka June Democratic Uprising, generated mass protests in Korea. Soon, people’s worries over glorifying the Agency for National Security Planning (Angibu) that tortured innocent people started to mount. Such concerns were mixed with facts and rumors, sparking a heated debate.
To clarify their purpose, the Snowdrop production team released a new press release. In it, they stated, “Snowdrop is not a show that belittles the June Democratic Struggle, nor glorifies the NSP and spies.” They explained, “Snowdrop is a black comedy that satirizes the presidential election amid a face-off between North and South of Korea with the military government of the 80s. Furthermore, it is a melodrama between young men and women who were sacrificed in the chaos.”
Despite their explanation, Korean netizens are still not warming up to the drama’s concept.
People pointed out that JTBC’s statement fails to address the main issues: explaining overusing the real activist name as the heroine’s name if it is really a spy from North Korea. The second male lead character is an agent from Angibu. They are also stressing that putting “black comedy” in front of “June Democratic Struggle” is complete nonsense.
In the meantime, more than 56,000 people agreed to the national petition to stop the production of Snowdrop in one day. The petitioner wrote, “A work that goes beyond the level of selfishness like Joseon Exorcist is about to come out again. We have to stop the filming of this drama, which insults and tarnishes the foundation of our country.”
Here are some of the comments on the statement.
“It’s not a ‘Black Comedy’ to us, not yet.”
“Hello, overseas fans. Have you ever watched the Korean movie ‘1987’? If you want to know why Koreans want to cancel ‘Snowdrop,’ please watch ‘1987.’”
“If they don’t have a problem with the drama, they have to shed light on the setting and the story. The democratization movement can never be consumed as a ‘black comedy.'”
“How can this be a black comedy? So can Khmer Rouge in Columbia be described as a black comedy too?”
“Do you know what is ‘Angibu’ and what they did? Do you know what the victims fought for?”
“If you like Korean culture (like K-pop or K-dramas), then you need to respect Korean history.”
https://twitter.com/Vwium7/status/1375453441686859779
Oh sure. The next drama can be set in 1989 at Tiananmen Square as the protagonist watches her lover get crushed by a tank. She is a daughter of a CCP member and she only finds out about her lover's political stance as she watches him die.
— LabBecca (@Rebecc4choi) March 26, 2021
This “Cancel Culture is WAY Out of hand! It is just a TV show!!
[…] Blue House has issued a statement in response to a national petition calling for the cancellation of JTBC’s upcoming drama Snowdrop due to the controversy over distortion of history. […]