Foreigner fans have intervened the history distortion controversy of “Snowdrop”: “This is unfair”
“Snowdrop” fans have posted a petition for refutation against the demand of banning “Snowdrop” due to the controversy of distorting the democratization movement.
A petition for refutation to the opposition against JTBC’s Saturday-Sunday drama “Snowdrop,” which has recently been embroiled in controversy over distorting the democratization movement, has raised eyebrows among many netizens.
On the 20th, a petition titled “Let me tell you the truth about the drama ‘Snowdrop’” was posted on the bulletin board of the Blue House National Petition.
The petition contained content that refuted the controversy over “Snowdrop” one by one, saying, “’Snowdrop’ is not a drama that is sponsored by the Chinese capital.”
The petitioner claimed, “The folk song ‘Sol-A Sol-A Blue Sol-A’ was used as the background music because the protesters were singing it in the drama,” and “It is not a distortion of history because it also fully reveals the evil deeds of the National Security Agency.”
They also dismissed the controversy, saying, “’Snowdrop’ puts its main background amidst the presidential election in the winter of 1987, and it is only a ‘fictional story’ in which the military regime and the National Security Agency work together with the North Korean dictatorship.”
As of 8 a.m. on Dec 21st, more than 3,500 people have agreed to the petition.
However, most of the comments on the petition agreement are posted using Facebook and Twitter IDs, not the Korean site Naver, and it is notable that most are English comments saying “I agree.” In fact, BLACKPINK‘s international fandom was found to have shared the petition link on Twitter and explained the steps on how to sign the petition, sparking a stir among netizens. The drama “Snowdrop” stars BLACKPINK Jisoo, who has many foreign fans.
Upon seeing this, users of the online community “theqoo” commented, “It’s funny that foreigners put their names on Koreans’ national petition”, “They don’t even know properly about the Korean democratization movements”, “What rights do foreigners have in this?”, “What are you doing in another country’s petition?”…
Earlier, even before its airing, “Snowdrop” was embroiled in controversy over distorting the democratization movements in the 80s and 90s, which served as the foundation for Korean democracy. In particular, it is well known that the Agency for National Security Planning (NSP) accused activist students as North Korean spies and tortured them at the time of the democratization movements. In fact, the death of the late Park Jong-chul, who sparked the democratic uprising in June, was also due to the fact that NSP accused him of being a spy and tortured him. At that time, the government attempted to cover up the incident with an official announcement that “he died of shock.”
However, “Snowdrop” contained the story about “a romance begins when the female protagonist saves the male protagonist, who is actually a spy”. This got the drama embroiled in controversy over the beautification of the National Security Agency which has tortured and killed many students by accusing them of unjust activism.
In response, the public expressed anger on the bulletin board of the Blue House on Dec 20th with a petition demanding to stop broadcasting the drama. As of 8 a.m. on Dec 21st, 300,000 people have signed the petition.
