(Yonhap Feature) Viewers open up, but law stays put about sexuality on screens

(ATTN: photos available)
By Shin Hae-in
SEOUL, May 13 (Yonhap) -- There were some gasps here and there, but hardly anyone
looked discomforted. Seeing an actor's "private parts" on the screen was
apparently no heartstopper for local film buffs who buzzed excitedly after
watching Park Chan-wook's "Thirst," which boldly revealed the leading actor's
full frontal.
"Yes, I was surprised, but it was hardly unpleasant," said 32-year-old Lee
Jae-hoon who called himself a devotee of Korean films. "I feel local fans are
ready for just about anything on the screens. I admire actor Song Gang-ho for
being brave enough to reveal his genitals in front of the camera."
For a traditionally Confucian country where police once patrolled the streets
scissoring off men's longish hair and tape-measuring miniskirts to check
compliance with the law, South Korea has been opening up toward sexuality -- at
least in entertainment -- at an overwhelming speed.
Scenes containing nudity and explicit sex no longer make headlines here as
filmmakers continue to explore subjects that were once considered taboo, and
moviegoers gladly accommodate the changes.
But rules and public sentiment seem to be headed in separate directions.
The Korea Media Rating Board, the state-run media censoring body, ordered a
screen ban on Cannes award-winning Mexican film "Battle in Heaven" for the third
consecutive time this month. While the board called the film's sex scenes
"excessive and unacceptable to ordinary people's moral standards," the film
industry criticized the decision as "standpat and anachronistic."
"I wanted to laugh out loud," said media critic Lee Moon-won in a recent
interview with Yonhap News Agency. "Whose moral standards are the rating board
referring to? Its own more than the public's, if you ask me."
Despite longstanding disputes over media censorship, current South Korean law
continues to dictate that all movies must be approved by the board before
release.
There are currently five ratings levels, the strictest being the "restricted"
label for X-rated films, which can only be shown at designated theaters. The
label is, in reality, a death sentence for the movies that are stamped with it,
as no such venues currently exist. All of them shut down, unable to turn a
profit.
Thus, local filmmakers often walk a tightrope, testing limits only to a certain
extent. Last year, all five movies that received the dreaded label were
foreign-made.
"Most Korean directors know by now how to avoid a complete screen ban," Lee said.
"And it is true that the rating board opened up a lot in the past five, six years
after many bold and daring local movies were invited to international film
fests."
A series of recent court decisions on the issue of freedom of expression also
highlights the ongoing changes in liberalizing the media and arts sector.
Earlier this year, the Supreme Court ordered the rating board to lift a ban on
"Shortbus," a U.S. film that was prohibited from local screens in 2007 for its
allegedly explicit depictions of homosexuality, group sex and sadism.
Following the decision, the Zurich Film Festival-winner by John Cameron Mitchell
made a belated release here in March.
"Although the movie does feature scenes of explicit sex, it cannot be regarded as
lewd material as it has artful value. The rating board's decision to ban
screening (of the movie) was an abuse of authority," the court said in its
ruling.
The ruling came after the Constitutional Court's order last summer for the rating
board to scrap a provision in its censorship laws, saying the "ambiguity of the
terms" puts too many movies under screen restriction.
The board revised the law, which was approved by the parliament last month. What
critics argue, however, is that the revised law is closely similar to its former
version, with a few details attached to "scrap the ambiguity."
"The court ruled unconstitutional not the system itself, but the ambiguity of
it," explained Ji Myung-hyuk, head of the media rating board. "So we came up with
some specific grounds to base our monitoring on. There is no doubt that some sort
of standard is still necessary to protect teenagers from rampant sex and violence
in the cinema, and to filter films that go against the majority's sentiment."
Members of the rating board base their judgment not upon one specific scene, but
the overall story, said board member Yoo Jong-seok.
"I do agree that times have changed, but we still have very traditional film
fans. I don't think now is the time to abolish the monitoring system altogether,"
he said.
The film industry, which has long hoped for the system to be tossed out, called
the changes insufficient.
"This doesn't seem to reflect change at all," said Byun Jong-suk, head of World
Cinema, a local distributor of foreign movies. "Even if some details are stated
in the law, each board member will go on relying on his or her personal opinion
and views when rating the films."
Media critic Lee agreed.
"Nowadays, films are not just made for national fans but for viewers all over the
world. It is wrong to have two separate standards on what is OK for local viewers
and for the foreign audience," he said. "Local fans have every right -- not to
mention far more sophisticated taste these days -- to decide what they can and
cannot see."
Controversy over the film rating system is not a phenomena limited to Korea.
In 2004, disputes rose in the United States over an Italian movie, "The
Dreamers," by Bernardo Bertolucci, which exposed the leading actor's genitals.
After much debate, the film was slapped with a strict NC-17 label, the first such
case in six years. The film was released in South Korea in 2005.
"This is a debate that will go on for years more," said Cho Kwang-hee, head of
local filmmaking firm Bom. "Even Europe, one of the most open places in the arts
and film sector, went through this stage."
"What we must note is the fact that the Korean cinema keeps growing as it
experiments, but still has limited freedom," he added. "The conservative lid will
come off completely eventually, I believe. What we need to do, meanwhile, is to
all put our heads together on controlling the speed of these changes for the best
result."
hayney@yna.co.kr
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