Cultural Film of Park Jung-hee Regime and Forms of Amnesia

1970년대 박정희 정권의 문화영화는 경제와 안보라는 두 개의 전황(戰況)을 시시각각 소개하는 한편, 이 전쟁에서 승리할 수 있는 병참학(兵站學)을 교육하는 매체였다. 「어느 근로자의 하루」(1970)와 「열사의 젊은이」(1979) 역시 산업 자본의 군사적 배치를 정당화하는 서사의 전형이면서, 노동과 젠더, 민주주의가 병참학적 우선순위에 따라 어떻게 처리되는가를 특징적으로 보여주는 문화영화다. 반복적으로 등장하는 고속도로의 스펙터클은 1970년대 박정희 시대의 성취를 과시하는 거대한 축적물이자, 국민적 기억을 육성하는 기억 상실의 형식을 집약하고 있다. 이 영화들은 관객의 내면에 침투하지 못하고 겉도는 일방적 프로파간다가 아니라, 생계의 압박과 가난의 공포에서 벗어나기 위해 당장에 집중해야 할 것의 우선순위를 합리화 하는 방식을 설득력 있게 제안했다. 그리하여 수탈적 경제 시스템의 구조적 모순과 폭력성에도 불구하고, 노동을 소외하는 노동에 희생적으로 몰두할 수밖에 없고 젠더와 민주주의의 퇴행이 방치된다.

Machines were used quite dramatically as political propaganda during the Park Chung Hee era(1961-1979). His government publicized the image of “diligent workers handling machines” as a symbol of a modernizing country. This was particularly true during the Third Five-Year Economic Development Plan (1967-1976), when the government invested heavily in the large-scale heavy and chemical industries. In this period, the Ministry of Culture and Public Information, the propaganda agency of the regime, produced several “cultural films” that vividly displays the image of diligent workers in the new factories. This article aims to analyze the characteristics of mechanical symbols and the patterns of political propaganda that appear in two films, <One Day of a Worker> (1970), <The Young Men of Hot desert> (1979). The “machine,” as depicted in these films, was an explicit design for a plan to make people, marketed by the regime. It is represented as a device to expand and constrain the meaning of the social body in the process of becoming national subjects. The image of a “father” handling a machine was commonplace in these films. Without exception, he was a diligent worker who carries out the government's economic development policies as well as serving as the faithful head of the household, respected by his family, neighbors, and colleagues. A “father handling machine” was praised and designated as a hero by the Park Chung Hee regime, and could be seen in the scenes in which a tunnel is being dug through a mountain, a building is built, or a road is constructed. This kind of propaganda and symbolization policy has acted as a structural limit in the cultural history of Korean technology up to the present. Complex problems such as nationalism, meritocracy, gender bias, the absence of reflexive thinking in the technical culture of Korea are compressively anticipated in the four cultural films produced by the Park Chung Hee government.