Revolutionizing the family: A comparative study on the filmed propaganda performances of the People's Republic of China and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, 1966--1976

This dissertation investigates the dynamics of the filmed propaganda performances created by the newly founded East Asian socialist states, the People's Republic of China (the PRC) and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (the DPRK), from 1966 to 1976. This period roughly marks the Chinese Cultural Revolution and the height of the DPRK's dogmatic pursuit of independence, when sets of filmed theatre performances were produced by the state for massive circulation. The general aim of the propaganda performances was to create the spirit of an ongoing socialist revolution. But an even more compelling aim for their production was to promote the authority of the state leaders and the unity of the newborn states by appropriating Confucian ideas regarding the nation as a patriarchal family structure with a state leader as a father of the nation and the members of the state as his obedient sons and daughters.; The dissertation primarily focuses on how the multiple notions of family are negotiated in the so-called "model theatre works" ( yangbanxi) of the PRC and "revolutionary operas" ( hukmyung kageuk) of the DPRK, which closely resemble each other in terms of their hybrid forms of mixing traditional and modern music, dance, and performance style in an attempt to create a revolutionary form of art.; On a larger plane, it explores how a state produces a self-legitimizing myth about its existence through repeated political propaganda. Both the PRC and the DPRK regarded model theatre works and revolutionary operas as more than theatre productions, and envisioned them as a process of making a national identity by clearly indicating one's appropriate place in the structure of a family-nation. This helped the two states establish the much-needed mechanism for inscribing the politically correct thoughts and behaviors on the mind and body of the members of the newly found states.; Together with the similarities between the People's Republic of China and North Korea's operas, this dissertation also takes into consideration the diverging point of the cultural expressions of the People's Republic of China and North Korea, which is shaped by the specific historical circumstances of the two states.