Theme: Manufactured Martyrdom
Episode 2 examines how a real historical tragedy was transformed into a tool of national myth-making and ideological conditioning.
As a child in South Korea, I was required to watch a state-produced film recounting the murder of a young boy during a 1968 military incident. The viewing was not optional. The film was shown repeatedly in schools, accompanied by essay competitions, public speaking events, and collective rituals of mourning and anger. What remained with me was not the full narrative — but the intensity of the violence and the emotional choreography that followed.
This episode does not attempt to reconstruct the historical event itself. Instead, it investigates:
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How trauma is institutionalized
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How children are positioned as moral witnesses
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How grief becomes political fuel
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How repetition transforms tragedy into nationalist mythology
The “Yellow Boy” in this episode is not the historical figure. He is a symbolic composite — representing how identity is shaped through mediated fear.
By stylizing the violence through exaggerated color, texture, and theatrical performance, the episode critiques the aesthetics of propaganda rather than the historical tragedy itself.
The work asks:
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What does it mean to grow up inside a narrative of inherited hatred?
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How does early exposure to spectacle shape moral identity?
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When does remembrance become indoctrination?
“I was one of the children who was forced to watch this film. It was about thirty years ago, so I don’t remember most details of the film, except for the murder scene. It was the most horrifying scene imaginable, especially for a child. The murder scene was very long, and I remember I covered my eyes many times, but the sound of stabbing, cutting, a violent male voice screaming, and the boy crying while he was choking on his own blood still came through. I opened my eyes in a quiet moment and realized the scene was not over yet. The boy was struck on his head, again and again, by a large rock. After the film viewing in school, we had essay competitions and public speaking competitions. We chanted the name of this national hero. We expressed how very sorry we were that he died, how very angry we were, and we promised his vengeance. We spoke out strongly, perhaps as a way to normalize our lifelong trauma and the beginning of a repeating nightmare of dismemberment. This was an integral part of my childhood.”