I’ve always wondered about the prevalence of variety shows in South Korea. There seems to be a new one that comes out every season, and there are others that have been going on for years. The more popular shows seem to include the same handful of well-known comedians and entertainers as the hosts. It has quite a vast audience tuning into shows such as “Running Man”, an enormously popular Korean variety show not only in Korea, but other countries as well.
For some background, Korean variety shows are a form of television entertainment in South Korea. Despite its high prevalence in Korea, the concept of variety shows was developed in the 19th century Europe and the United States and adapted from stage to television in the 20th century. As the show’s format started to decrease in popularity in the two countries, the show’s format made its way over to Asia and became popular in South Korea. As seen today, variety shows are a major part of television entertainment. They are usually composed of various stunts, performances, skits, quizzes, comedy acts, and so forth. Popular Korean actors/actresses and K-pop idols also feature on the Korean variety shows. Korean entertainment has recently combined human emotional elements with various entertainment formats that have flowed based on talk shows and confrontational entertainment in the 90s.
Fast-forward to modern Korean variety shows, “Running Man” has greatly contributed to the growth of the Korean Wave, 한류 [hal-ʎu]—popularity of Korean culture—, again. Through entertainment programs such as “Running Man”, various Korean tourist attractions were exposed to the viewers, which promoted them. As a result, Chinese tourists visited Korea and experienced various sights shown in these entertainment programs. Foreign tourists have become interested in various aspects of Korean culture, such as food, fashion, and shopping through the new perspective shown on these variety shows. In another variety show “Return of Superman”, the family-style entertainment program is based on familiar and realistic contexts for all ages, and it naturally injects and reproduces the universal emotions of Korean society and strengthens them at the same time. In the end, television entertainment programs can be used as a very effective means of universalizing the ideology of a society.
It seems that South Koreans had always enjoyed the format of variety shows ever since its emergence into Korean television entertainment. Over time, variety shows adapted to the continuous change in culture and had created a multitude of different programs. Due to the success of certain shows, it had indirectly started to introduce Korean culture to all over the world, resulting in the increase of consumption on Korean culture’s product and tourism in Korea. Furthermore, in its effects, other variety shows contribute to maintaining the influence of Confucianism in Korean culture through its show’s format. I definitely wasn't expecting the information I had researched, but it was very interesting in gaining a better understanding on not only Korean variety shows, but also the historical changes in Korean entertainment.
References:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_variety_show
http://papers.iafor.org/wp-content/uploads/papers/mediasia2018/MediAsia2018_42673.pdf
Artifacts: (English subs available!)
Replies
I absolutely adore Return of Superman. I’m a sucker for the wholesome contents and the father/child(ren) relationships are so entertaining to see. I’ve seen some episodes of Running Man and the cast is hilarious. My favorite “episode” was definitely their dance special and the behind-the-scene dance practice.