JTBC’s Response To The Outcry About Upcoming K-Drama “Snowdrop” Further Enrages Audience

The official statement may have worsened the situation.
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Skylar Adams
Skylar Adams

Following JTBC‘s official statement regarding the concerns surrounding the upcoming show, Snowdrop (featuring actor Jung Hae In and BLACKPINK‘s Jisoo), the general Korean public has become further enraged by the explanation provided by the broadcasting channel.

“Snowdrop” Poster

On the popular online forum, Reddit, one user shared a thorough post explaining why Koreans believe they should boycott the show in question, by breaking down the importance of the movement and why it should never be referred to as a “comedy.”

This show is about a terrible event that happened in the late 1980s in South Korea, when South Korea was under [a] dictator based on his military power. This dictator killed hundreds of students who rallied against his dictatorship and called the students spies from North Korea.

This terrible human is still alive (very old, but still alive) and has many followers who still believe that these innocent students who just wanted democracy were spies.

The show Snowdrop’s main plot is about a young student saving a protester who is actually a secret spy. Sounds familiar? It should be, because of what I explained above. This is what former President Chun Du Hwan claimed, [in his defense of] killing hundreds of innocent students. This show will only justify his actions and words. This show must be stopped. This is not matter that can be treated lightly, where the victims and offenders are still alive. Again, this happened in the late 1980s, [which was] only 30-40 years ago. Many Koreans, including my parents, vividly remember this awful event and how this dictator was removed from the office.

Koreans want this show to stop filming because it might downplay the movement Koreans did for the true democracy in [the] 1980s, and how awful the government was back then.

South Korea is a country that had multiple dictators, with multiple fraud elections. But with events like June spring, we were able to become country with democracy, where every citizen’s opinion matters. In between, a lot of young innocent lives were taken. And these hard work they put in for our democracy should never be downplayed or be [the] subject of comedy.

— @yuran0925/Reddit

The post garnered responses from fellow Reddit users who found JTBC’s statement problematic, especially after the deeper understanding of the historical background with which the show is trying to work.

| @sansasscheek/Reddit
| @rainefrost/Reddit
| @fluff_perper/Reddit

Viewers on Twitter also expressed their disappointment in JTBC’s response, sharing actual photos from the uprising to criticize the use of the phrase “satirical black comedy” to describe the premise of the show’s setting.

This particular Twitter user, @TaeJa_94, uploaded a lengthy message explaining the history behind the movement and why the concerns about the drama arose in the first place. The user claimed the tweet is being shared “because foreign viewers should know about the show.”

Others also chimed in with their thoughts on the situation, as well as the statement made by JTBC. Most remain utterly frustrated, despite JTBC’s attempted clarification, with the pursuit of production of Snowdrop  — insisting that even as fiction, using the uprising and the authoritarian era as a setting is “offensive, inappropriate, and f*cked.”

With the growing sensitivity around historical inaccuracies in K-Dramas, the Korean audience has remained vigilant by continuing to call out production companies on these issues.

Source: Reddit
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