COMMENTARY | According to Fox Chicago News, the North Korean government is punishing people with a six-month stretch in a labor camp for not sufficiently mourning the late dictator Kim Jong Il. This is an acting critique on a whole new level.
Jong Il’s death was commemorated with public displays of weeping and carrying on that seemed to be cases of overacting. But it seems if one declined to participate or if one seemed to be insufficiently sad, the North Korean government was prepared to give one something to be sad about.
One can only imagine which criteria was used to determine which people were insufficiently sad. Did squads of secret police roam the public demonstrations of grief to mark down people who were not demonstrative enough, So and so is not crying with enough tears? Mark him down. So and so has not thrown himself to the pavement with sufficient force. Off to the camp for her.
One is not familiar enough with Korean culture about how Koreans express grief naturally, without the prompting of secret policemen. But one cannot but imagine that the naturally taciturn would be at a disadvantage.
Also, those not skilled at acting would certainly be in peril. Understate one’s grief and one can get into trouble. But if one adheres to the William Shatner school of overacting, weeping hysterically, rolling on the ground, tearing at one’s clothing, then one might get popped for trying too hard. One has to not only be sad, but convincingly so.
One also wonders what the point of the whole exercise is. Would Kim Il Sung be thought of as less awesome if his people did not wail and gnash their teeth fit to raise the dead? He was the absolute ruler of 24 million people who lived and died according to his whim. How does one get more awesome than that?
It is not as if anyone dared to celebrate the passage of the tyrant to the infernal regions. Of course it is hard to celebrate on the rations that most Koreans have to survive on anyway. A handful of rice and a little water do not a celebratory dinner make. One supposes on the day North Koreans can eat hearty will be a a cause for celebration.
Source: North Korea Reportedly Punishing Those Who Didn’t Sufficiently Mourn Kim Jong Il, Fox Chicago News, Jan 11, 2011