PEONIES OF PYONGYANG Women in North Korean Cinema
Whether they be mesmerising athletes or emblematic traffic conductors, graceful goose-stepping soldiers or meticulous ‘model workers’, women in North Korea have arguably received more attention in cultural expressions than their sisters in the ‘free world’. As cogs in the machinery of Pyongyang’s mission to promote the Great Leaders and the Party, women are primarily depicted across various media as agents of ideological change. The oscillation between representations of women in the past and the present – between domestic tradition and public revolution – is one of the most enduring aspects of the country’s films, and it is the opaqueness between these representational boundaries that makes North Korean cinema all the more compelling.
While it has long been official policy in North Korea to bridge the gender gap, the propagandist fervour underpinning even the subtlest of cinematic offerings has been arguably geared more towards nationalism and the cult-personality construction of the country’s leaders than towards women’s rights. As writer Paul Fischer notes, Kim Jong Il was his father’s publicity guru, venerating him as a hero and a saint. Although Kim Il Sung was rarely portrayed in films as the lead protagonist, his position as Supreme Leader would catapult him into the mythological realm in just under a quarter of a century. In North Korean cinema, as in North Korean life, the grand patriarch is ever present, with women mostly serving as decorative tools to assist men in accomplishing the objectives of the revolution.
