SLC New Colleagues Research Seminar Series | Fearless Faces: motherhood and gendered mobility of North Korean refugees in Jero Yun’s films
SLC New Colleagues Research Seminar Series
Fearless Faces: motherhood and gendered mobility of North Korean refugees in Jero Yun’s films
Dr Eun Ah Cho (Korean Studies)
Friday 3 November 2023, 4–5:30pm
Abstract
More than 70 percent of North Korean refugees who cross the Sino-North Korean border are women, and approximately 60 percent of them send money to family members they left behind. How does the North Korean refugees’ monetary remittances change their relationship with family members? This paper answers this question particularly focusing on Jero Yun’s Madame B (2016), Beautiful Days (2018), and Fighter (2021). By reading North Korean refugee issues as a part of dispersed families (isan’gajok) in the history of a divided Korea, the director delivers a strong message of motherhood through the North Korean women in his films. The women, however, reveal how desperately they want to escape from the conventional image of “Korean mothers” who sacrifice and devote themselves to their children. With monetary and emotional remittance to their family members, the North Korean women gradually turn over their hierarchy in a patriarchal family system and change into ‘tearless mothers’, unapologetic for their absence. By establishing their own moral boundary, these women not only cross the conception of clan-based family but bid farewell to the nation (North Korea), which is a collection of individual families.
About the speaker
Dr Eun Ah Cho’s work focuses on the modern and contemporary Korean literature, films, and media and explores how these representations create stereotyped images and social discourses on the marginalised sectors in South Korean society. Her current research examines the political, cultural, and industrial contexts of North Korean refugees in East Asia, and her second project is about the sexuality and disability of aging bodies. Before joining the Discipline of Korean Studies at the University of Sydney, she taught Korean literature, cinema, culture, and language at University of California, Irvine, University of Southern California, and San Diego State University.
SLC New Colleagues Research Seminar Series
This series of new colleagues’ lectures is presented by the SLC Research Committee to welcome newcomers in research positions. Presentations allow school colleagues and the wider community to get to know the research interests of recent arrivals.
Join online via Zoom
For more information, contact: Lei Gong (lei.gong@sydney.edu.au)
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