Disney+'s New Series Is Already Stirring up Controversy Across Social Media

By Alyssa Fikse

Disney+'s new K-drama Snowdrop has only recently dropped in select regions, but it's already courting controversy. The Daily Beast reports that Snowdrop, which stars Blackpink singer Jisoo in her first acting role, Is a Romeo & Juliet-inspired romance that takes place in 1987 when South Korea transitioned from a dictatorship to a democracy. In the drama, Jisoo's Eun Yeong-ro is on one side of the conflict as her father is the director of ANSP (the Agency for National Security Planning). Her Romeo is popular South Korean actor Jung Hae-in, who plays a North Korean spy named Lim Soo-ho.

There has been a lot of discussion regarding how this period in South Korean history is portrayed in Snowdrop, with many arguing that the series seems to echo the deposed dictatorship's version of events and propaganda. Since Snowdrop's release, Variety reports that many South Koreans have called for the show's removal, with one of the dozens of online petitions receiving over 325,000 signatures. Sponsors  Teazen and Puradak Chicken also withdrew their support when the series' slant was brought to light.

Georgia Institute of Technology's assistant professor of Korean studies Bae Keung-yoon shared an open letter on Twitter, not calling for the removal of the series by rather that Disney+ reconsiders the historical references contained in the show. "Rather, we write to request that your company seek experts —there are many, well-qualified modern Korean history experts in Korea and all over the world—to carefully examine the historical references made in the show, and consider for yourselves the way those historical references are used," the letter read.

"[W]hile we understand the defense that fiction has a right to explore creative narratives,that defense can also feel hollow when a show uses numerous, specific details that reference actual people and incidents from recent history," the letter continued. They specifically pointed to the fact that one of the characters bears almost an Identical name to real-life student activist Cheon Yeong-cho—whose  husband "was arrested and tortured on suspicion of being a communist and a supporter of the North Korean regime."

"In other words, the drama originally used the name of a victim of anti-communist propaganda in a narrative that actually echoes the propaganda—a narrative that affirms, 'yes, there are North Korean spies among the students, and the students are too naive to realize this,'" the letter said. Ultimately, those speaking out against Snowdrop want Disney+ to be aware of the message that they could be broadcasting to uninformed viewers. "[W]e believe that platforms should make an informed decision when globally broadcasting a show set in recent, still-relevant Korean history (1987)," they explained.

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