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Hello, ‘Hallyu’!
South Korea has invested heavily in the last two decades or so in promoting both traditional and pop cultural products that have been taking the world by storm.
South Korean actor Lee Jung-jae (left) poses with the Emmy for outstanding lead actor in a drama series and South Korean director Hwang Dong-hyuk (right) with the Emmy for outstanding directing for a drama series for 'Squid Game' during the 74th Emmy Awards at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles, California, the United States, on Monday. (AFP/Frederic J. Brown)
W
inning six Emmy awards, the Korean hit drama Squid Games is another testament that global pop culture is not the exclusive domain of the West and or English-language countries. South Korea has invested heavily in the last two decades or so in promoting both traditional and pop cultural products that are now taking the world by storm.
Squid Games and many other Korean TV and movie titles have captivated the world’s imagination, just as young people are now dancing and singing to Korean boy band BTS and girl band Black Pink. K-drama and K-pop are now household names, as are Samsung, Hyundai, kimchi and bulgogi.
Squid Games brought home six trophies out of the 14 categories that it was nominated for in this year’s Emmy Awards in Los Angeles, with lead actor Lee Jung-jae making history as Asia’s first to win best actor in a drama series.
This follows on the earlier successes of Parasite (2019), which highlights the gap between the rich and the poor in South Korea. In 2020, Parasite won four Oscars, including best picture, making it the first foreign movie to win the category. BTS has yet to receive a Grammy, but set a record as the first Asian group to be nominated in 2021.
Squid Game tells the story of people in debt in a brutal competition to win a prize money with their lives at stake. The film depicts South Korean social issues, where the marginalized are left vulnerable. Combined with intense plot twists, Squid Game captivated the world, with over 100 million views in the six weeks after its release in September 2021.
This is the dividend that South Korea is reaping after more than two decades of a concerted campaign to promote the Korean Wave, or hallyu in Mandarin Chinese – a soft-power branding strategy through entertainment. Since the late 1990s, the government and the chaebol (conglomerates), have invested billions of dollars in developing and supporting Korean pop culture – movies, music and online games – to attract a young global audience.
K-pop culture has become an integral part of the economy. The depiction of the country’s landscapes in K-dramas is drawing foreign tourists in large numbers. BTS in 2019 contributed US$4.7 billion to South Korea’s gross domestic product, and last year served as a presidential envoy to a United Nations meeting in New York.
The Korean Wave has also set global trends. Squid Game put Korean childhood games in the spotlight, with many people playing them at public or private events. Hollywood has met its match as an international trendsetter.
Where is Indonesia on this global cultural map?
We are not short on talent going global, but the scale is nowhere near South Korea’s.
There was Joe Taslim playing the villain in Fast and Furious 6 (2014) and Iko Uwais starring along with Mark Wahlberg in Mile 22 (2018). Rich Brian and Niki, two musicians with the United States’ 88rising label have made it in the international music scene. In 2022, Niki became Indonesia’s first singer at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival.
Indonesia has some way to go, but we have the beginning and the example set by South Korea. We need to give local pop culture the support it deserves.
As Squid Game character Sang-woo would say, “We’ve come too far to end this now.”
