He just broke the candy machine
April 3, 2010 4:20 AM Subscribe
That's My Uncle Kim "A song about everyone's favourite kooky, incorrigible uncle: Kim Jong-Il" (SLYT) (Previous)
You don't tug on Superman's cape.
You don't spit into the wind.
You don't encourage tourism along the DMZ
And you don't mess around with Kim.
posted by The White Hat at 7:42 AM on April 3, 2010 [3 favorites]
You don't spit into the wind.
You don't encourage tourism along the DMZ
And you don't mess around with Kim.
posted by The White Hat at 7:42 AM on April 3, 2010 [3 favorites]
Psychotic dictators are generally known known for a healthy sense of self-deprecation. I am sure that joking about Km Jong-Il in North Korea would be even more risky than joking about Joseph Stalin during his reign of terror in the Soviet Union, or Adolph Hitler in the Third Reich.
posted by grizzled at 8:07 AM on April 3, 2010
posted by grizzled at 8:07 AM on April 3, 2010
Not to be the party pooper or anything (which is exactly what I'm being, I know):
Seriously?
Look, the man is whack and all and it is funny, but now he's the Steve Erkel of the world where his nation does some fucked up thing and we all just laugh and go lol uncle kim.
????
posted by bam at 8:25 AM on April 3, 2010
Seriously?
Look, the man is whack and all and it is funny, but now he's the Steve Erkel of the world where his nation does some fucked up thing and we all just laugh and go lol uncle kim.
????
posted by bam at 8:25 AM on April 3, 2010
Look, the man is whack and all and it is funny, but now he's the Steve Erkel of the world where his nation does some fucked up thing and we all just laugh and go lol uncle kim.
Yeah. It's a hard balance to strike — mockery's a vital weapon against oppression and all that, but there's something about a guy in San Francisco making cute videos about the man responsible for so much desperate suffering that leaves a bad taste. After all, it's not as if there's any significant chance that this video will ever get seen inside NK. Team America: World Police is one of my favorite movies, but I think we need to ease up a bit on the idea of Kim as harmless eccentric. I recommend Barbara Demick's excellent Nothing To Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea.
posted by game warden to the events rhino at 8:32 AM on April 3, 2010
Yeah. It's a hard balance to strike — mockery's a vital weapon against oppression and all that, but there's something about a guy in San Francisco making cute videos about the man responsible for so much desperate suffering that leaves a bad taste. After all, it's not as if there's any significant chance that this video will ever get seen inside NK. Team America: World Police is one of my favorite movies, but I think we need to ease up a bit on the idea of Kim as harmless eccentric. I recommend Barbara Demick's excellent Nothing To Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea.
posted by game warden to the events rhino at 8:32 AM on April 3, 2010
Look, the man is whack and all and it is funny, but now he's the Steve Erkel of the world where his nation does some fucked up thing and we all just laugh and go lol uncle kim.
If you watch the whole video there's some stuff spliced in the end that adds a bit of a sharp edge to the satire that I missed the first couple of times I watched it. You still might have objections but it's there (and at least the earworm of the chorus has driven that furry song someone post the other day from my brain)
am sure that joking about Km Jong-Il in North Korea would be even more risky than joking about Joseph Stalin during his reign of terror in the Soviet Union,
There were lots of jokes about Stalin.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 9:07 AM on April 3, 2010
If you watch the whole video there's some stuff spliced in the end that adds a bit of a sharp edge to the satire that I missed the first couple of times I watched it. You still might have objections but it's there (and at least the earworm of the chorus has driven that furry song someone post the other day from my brain)
am sure that joking about Km Jong-Il in North Korea would be even more risky than joking about Joseph Stalin during his reign of terror in the Soviet Union,
There were lots of jokes about Stalin.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 9:07 AM on April 3, 2010
I'm reading the Demick book right now; excellent indeed
Question: why in all the indoor shots is there nothing in the background? They all look like he's looking at something on a table, and that table is the only table in the entire room.
posted by forallmankind at 9:30 AM on April 3, 2010
Question: why in all the indoor shots is there nothing in the background? They all look like he's looking at something on a table, and that table is the only table in the entire room.
posted by forallmankind at 9:30 AM on April 3, 2010
He buys some people from a catalog... what'll he do next?
posted by koeselitz at 9:41 AM on April 3, 2010
posted by koeselitz at 9:41 AM on April 3, 2010
I would like to point out that Chaplin took a famous swipe at Hitler. Being evil doesn't mean you are immune to satire.
I'm aware this isn't Chaplin and it's really stretching to call it satire. Getting all hurf-duff serious eater isn't appropriate either. Sometimes making fun of tyrants is all you have.
posted by chairface at 8:41 PM on April 3, 2010
I'm aware this isn't Chaplin and it's really stretching to call it satire. Getting all hurf-duff serious eater isn't appropriate either. Sometimes making fun of tyrants is all you have.
posted by chairface at 8:41 PM on April 3, 2010
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Related, from NPR yesterday, about the level of joking in NKorea about the regime.
SIEGEL: There's a question you ask that I find interesting. It's whether people in North Korea make jokes about Kim Jong Il, the leader, or his regime, for that matter.
Mr. NOLAND: Well, we ask a series of questions that could be thought of as political anthropology. First, you know, among your peers, when you were in North Korea, did you joke about conditions? Did you complain about conditions? Did you joke about Kim Jong Il? Did you complain about Kim Jong Il?
And what emerges from this is that even amongst this population, which one would expect them to be about as dissenting a group as one could identify, is the degree of atomization. Although the numbers of affirmative responses to those questions are rising, they still remain relatively low, and Kim Jong Il himself remains absolutely sacrosanct. Nobody jokes about Kim Jong Il.
posted by SLC Mom at 6:48 AM on April 3, 2010 [1 favorite]