The reason why Korean netizens are paying attention to the Chinese company Tencent in the controversy over drama “Snowdrop” distorting historical facts
JTBC’s drama “Snowdrop” is being harshly criticized for history distortions, such as disparaging the democratic movement and beautifying the National Security Planning Agency.
Despite repeated explanations from the production team, “Snowdrop” still faced a series of “losses”, starting with a petition demanding the suspension of this drama’s broadcast, boycott campaigns, and the canceling of sponsorships and advertisements.
In the meantime, some people have raised speculations that this history distortion issue might have been due to the Chinese company Tencent’s investment.
Recently, numerous online communities have posted articles claiming the connection between “Snowdrop” and Tencent. In the article, the author revealed that the Chinese company Tencent invested 100 billion won in JTBC Studio.
In December last year, JTBC Studio decided to receive a total of 400 billion won in investment from Praxis Capital and Tencent. In particular, Tencent is an IT company that developed We Chat, which is like Kakaotalk for Chinese.
Especially, Tencent is also well-known as a company that is really supportive of Xi Jinping. Earlier in April, the Chinese authorities introduced a series of high-intensity regulations on platform companies. As stock prices continued to fall, they actively invested 50 billion yuan (about 9 trillion won). In addition, a mobile game called “Excellent Speech: Clap for Xi Jinping” was created. The players are said to praise President Xi Jinping in the game.
In this regard, experts were concerned that the “influence of the Chinese government” may affect the products of JTBC after receiving Tencent’s investment. This is because “Chinese style” scenes have been noticed several times in many video content in Korea that was produced based on investment from this Chinese company.
In fact, SBS’s drama “Joseon Exorcist” was canceled after airing only two episodes as netizens pointed out that this drama explicitly used Chinese-style props and costumes. Moreover, tvN’s drama “Vincenzo” was also involved in controversies after showing Chinese bibimbap as an indirect advertisement (PPL).
Therefore, Internet users have raised suspicions that investment from the Chinese company might have affected the production of “Snowdrop” and resulted in the distortion of historical facts. They said, “We can’t let them distort our history”.
Set in Seoul 1987, “Snowdrop” tells the desperate love story that goes against the times between a university student Im Su-ho, who suddenly jumps into a women’s university dormitory while being wounded, and the college student Youngro, who hides Suho and takes care of him despite the severe surveillance and crisis.
When an unconfirmed synopsis spread online ahead of the broadcast, many people suspected the drama of disparaging the democratization movement and glorifying the National Security Planning Agency.
As criticisms became more intense, the production team released an explanation, saying, “‘Snowdrop’ is not a drama that disparages the democratization movement and beautifies the National Security Planning Agency”, adding, “The current controversy stems from fragmentary information due to the leak of an incomplete synopsis and parts of characters’ introductions.”
However, after the first broadcast, the controversy over history distortion was brought up again. More and more people have been requesting the drama’s broadcasting to be suspended. Therefore, “Snowdrop” is expected to face more difficulties in its future journey. Currently, all sections of JTBC’s viewers’ review section for “Snowdrop” have been set to private.
