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I SWEAR TO @ GOD I LOVE YOU LIKE A CHILD

The best comedy about North Korea, far better than The Interview, was made six years ago.

It’s called The Red Chapel, and it’s a documentary about two Danish-Korean comedians (and their director/manager) who go to North Korea to perform for Kim Jong Il.  The 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.  That big silly wouldn’t even know they were making fun of him!  Ha!

Over the course of their stay in North Korea, the idea falls apart.  It becomes clear during rehearsals that their government minders are very 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 very bad.  Anything remotely satirical gets cut from the routine very early on.

Things go from demoralizing to horrific when the government minders take them on outings to see life in North Korea.  Of course everyone they see looks totally fine and claims everything is wonderful.  But one of the comedians has cerebral palsy, and he starts asking: why don’t I see any people like me?  We’ve been here for weeks, and seen thousands of people; how is it that not one of them is visibly disabled?

He doesn’t get an answer.  He 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 “translates” his protests into praise for the regime.  He’s trying to protect his friend but it’s awful and cruel and gut-wrenchingly hard to watch the scenes where the comedian is screaming “that’s not what I said!” and the director is frantically whispering “just play along!” at him.

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.  All hope for satire breaks down and they give exactly the show the government minders wanted, because it’s the only thing they can do.  Subversiveness wouldn’t be clever; it might be fatal.  Instead of getting away with something, they end up hating themselves and violating their own principles.  They came to mess around with a silly weird country that doesn’t know how ridiculous it is, and instead they found themselves surrounded by very serious and real and terrifying oppression.

i watch wives ask their husbands: do you like this necklace? do you think she’ll like this gift? will this look good in our home?

and the husbands send me a long-suffering look and roll their eyes or they shrug or they walk away. that moment when she looks for him, and he is gone because he does not care - something small in me breaks at it; for the fact her love is asking his opinion and he has been taught to carefully school his.

let him care. let him tell her that silver looks better on blue veins and gold on green ones. let him know her favorite makeup brand, let him find her a pretty nude lipstick. more than buying her a bra not just because he wants to take it off her, let him buy her one he knows saves her back and gives her good support. let him buy tampons without making a face or a scene or being completely lost in the aisle. let him know his boyfriend is hurting and do more than flowers, than throwing a party with just cake and ice cream.

we teach boys: it only matters if it matters to you. and only certain things should matter to you.

you can’t care about makeup, it’s not for you. don’t touch it if it’s girly. fashion doesn’t matter, it’s not for you. starbucks and pink and baths and nice soaps. no dancing, no touching your friends, no sharing secrets. surface level love; whoever cares less, wins.

there’s a a post on facebook about a woman writing in her diary how her husband doesn’t love her. he writes about how his bike is broken. the joke is that she cares and he only cares about his transportation. women are taught: what matters to your man should matter to you. and don’t we? don’t we pour ourselves out to support others? don’t we hear ourselves silenced for their voices? don’t we have our problems laughed at while theirs are seen as serious? aren’t our hours worth less?

so give them back deep. give back falling in over your head and crying. give back giving yourself over completely. let him love his cat so much that he makes little birthday parties for her. let him blow the bubble wand that’s got princesses on it. it’s okay. don’t make him enjoy things ironically, with an air of being caught. let him just love it, and love it, and be in love with life and with everything. let him have opinions about the drapes and the necklaces and the tea towels.

because we teach them: women only matter if they matter to you. would you want someone to hurt someone who you love? 

Eating Chinese food, watching Bollywood movies, going to see Cambodian dancers, or learning to speak Korean so you can watch every K drama in existence is totally fine. The invitation to participate in those things came from within those cultures. The Mexican family that owns the place where I get fajitas wants me to eat fajitas. Their whole business model kind of depends on it, actually. 

If you see something from another culture you think you might want to participate in, but you don’t know if that would be disrespectful or appropriative, you can just…ask. Like. A Jewish friend explained what a mezuzah was to me, recently. (It’s the little scroll-thing near their front doors that they touch when they come into their house. It basically means “this is a Jewish household.”)

“Oh, cool,” I said. “Can I touch it? Or is it only for Jewish people?”

“You can touch it or you can not touch it,” she said. “I don’t care.”

“Cool, I’m gonna touch it, then.”

“Cool.”

It’s not hard.

Modern technology is making us anti-social!