{"id":14717,"date":"2015-01-04T16:54:33","date_gmt":"2015-01-04T16:54:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/daveio-pervocracy-the-best-comedy-about\/"},"modified":"2018-12-05T18:21:43","modified_gmt":"2018-12-06T01:21:43","slug":"daveio-pervocracy-the-best-comedy-about","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/daveio-pervocracy-the-best-comedy-about\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"<div id='gallery-1' class='gallery galleryid-14717 gallery-columns-3 gallery-size-thumbnail'><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/daveio-pervocracy-the-best-comedy-about\/attachment\/14718\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"100\" height=\"100\" src=\"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-content\/uploads\/tumblr_nhm10oIhwr1rv7g55o1_1280-100x100.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n<p><a class=\"tumblr_blog\" href=\"http:\/\/tumblr.dave.io\/post\/107023133473\/pervocracy-the-best-comedy-about-north-korea\">daveio<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><a class=\"tumblr_blog\" href=\"http:\/\/pervocracy.tumblr.com\/post\/107015479864\/the-best-comedy-about-north-korea-far-better\">pervocracy<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>The best comedy about North Korea, far better than\u00a0<em>The Interview,<\/em>\u00a0was made six years ago.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s called <em>The Red Chapel<\/em>, and it\u2019s a documentary about two Danish-Korean comedians (and their director\/manager) who go to North Korea to perform for Kim Jong Il. \u00a0The idea they had was that they would do subversive comedy, they would come up with a sketch that looked like goofy slapstick but slyly mocked the North Korean government, and it would be a hilarious slap in the face to do it right in front of Kim Jong Il. \u00a0That big silly wouldn\u2019t even know they were making fun of him! \u00a0Ha!<\/p>\n<p>Over the course of their stay in North Korea, the idea falls apart. \u00a0It becomes clear during rehearsals that their government minders are <em>very<\/em> aware of anything that could be the slightest bit subversive (or even really funny), and if any of that makes it into the final performance, the consequences will be <em>very<\/em> bad. \u00a0Anything remotely satirical gets cut from the routine very early on.<\/p>\n<p>Things go from demoralizing to horrific when the government minders take them on outings to see life in North Korea. \u00a0Of course everyone they see looks totally fine and claims everything is wonderful. \u00a0But one of the comedians has cerebral palsy, and he starts asking: why don\u2019t I see any people like me? \u00a0We\u2019ve been here for weeks, and seen thousands of people; how is it that not one of them is visibly disabled?<\/p>\n<p>He doesn\u2019t get an answer. \u00a0He breaks down emotionally and refuses to keep going along with the charade, but because his voice is hard for the North Korean minders to understand, the director \u201ctranslates\u201d his protests into praise for the regime. \u00a0He\u2019s trying to protect his friend but it\u2019s awful and cruel and gut-wrenchingly hard to watch the scenes where the comedian is screaming \u201cthat\u2019s not what I said!\u201d and the director is frantically whispering \u201cjust play along!\u201d at him.<\/p>\n<p>In the end, they go out in front of a heavily coached audience and do a completely harmless show with kazoos and spring snakes and silly costumes. \u00a0All hope for satire breaks down and they give exactly the show the government minders wanted, because it\u2019s the only thing they <em>can<\/em> do. \u00a0Subversiveness wouldn\u2019t be clever; it might be fatal. \u00a0Instead of getting away with something, they end up hating themselves and violating their own principles. \u00a0They came to mess around with a silly weird country that doesn\u2019t know how ridiculous it is, and instead they found themselves surrounded by very serious and real and terrifying oppression.<\/p>\n<p><em>The Red Chapel<\/em> isn\u2019t funny, and totally fails to satirize or expose or change anything, and that\u2019s why it\u2019s the only good comedy about North Korea.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>I watched this a little while ago and STRONGLY recommend it. All of the above is true.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>daveio: pervocracy: The best comedy about North Korea, far better than\u00a0The Interview,\u00a0was made six years ago. It\u2019s called The Red Chapel, and it\u2019s a documentary about two Danish-Korean comedians (and their director\/manager) who go to North Korea to perform for Kim Jong Il. \u00a0The idea they had was that they would do subversive comedy, they [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-gallery","hentry","category-words","post_format-post-format-gallery"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6PWot-3Pn","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14717"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14717\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14719,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14717\/revisions\/14719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}