Hahaha, talk about doubling down HARD! After four days of media and netizen bashing on the first two episode plot and set up of 1980’s romance drama Snowdrop being exactly what it was feared to be, a distortion of the events of the 1980’s democracy movement where the male lead is actually a North Korean spy and the second male lead a righteous government agent in the national security bureau, production company and broadcast channel jTBC issued a statement once again saying the plot does not distort history and asking viewers to watch further as the unfolding plot will clarify it, and stated emphatically that it will not be cancelling the drama early. M’kay, this would be more believable had the drama set up not dovetail exactly with the early concerns about it, and the only thing jTBC changed after the March controversy was the female lead’s name from Young Cho (the uncommon same name of a real female democracy activist who was herself arrested and tortured and her activist husband died in prison) to Young Ro. I don’t know if jTBC’s statement is enough to quell the controversy as it continues to brew – a netizen reported the PD and screenwriter to the government for breaking National Security Laws for making this drama and the family of famed dead democracy activist Park Jong Chul, who run his memorial museum, issued a hard statement that the plot of this drama absolutely distorts history by validating the false narrative used by the government at that time to falsely arrest, torture, and imprison students fighting for democracy.
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Too late, Disney says it will investigate the issue. Many Korean viewers have pulled out from Disney +
Where?
Koreans won’t be falling for it again… Feels like JTBC had this agenda all along to spread right-wing propaganda. The actors must be regretting big time, it’s not like they can pull out now.
I mean, his identity was the vocal point, if he is a spy then he justified the dictator agenda. If he isn’t a spy then he is a bad person that make the dictator agenda worse like how the college’s students doesn’t know who is their friends and shielding suspicious people.
Why can he just be a protester or someone who was in status quo because he is afraid.
I remember in To all the men who loved me, someone call to the police ratting about the protester who make the poster, they didn’t even find the poster or went to his Uni,take him at the shop, get jailed for years and coming out crippled. They just take random accusation true but JHE character is suspicious to the core.
Not to mention the agent.
Even if they will later unravel that he may not be a spy and the agent is way more problematic but the aired episode already shows that the agents behaviour as not true.
This isn’t character development, what happen is more of “the agent comes and take the students forcefully” translate to “the agent ask if the student is here and then leave”
It changes the whole narrative.
But wasn’t the spy hired by the dictator party to sabotage the opposition? That’s what was shown in the 2 episodes. The writer seems to be going for some irony here. The dictator party accuses the protesters of being spies and hires actual spies to infiltrate the movement and discredit it. Calling the drama right wing propaganda off the bat seems premature since the story seems to be going another route.
“Asking viewers to watch further..” Not at all a cheap ploy to use the controversy to get high ratings after flop after flop after flop. Lmao
Looks like JBTC has chosen Snowdrop as the hill they want to die on. Wonder why.
If the plot keeps distorting history and the controversy continues, I wonder if it’ll turn into a viewer boycott of JBTC (it already is of Disney+).
Any actor with a drama lined up to be broadcast on either JBTC or Disney+ should be worried right now that their drama viewership might be affected.
Why do you guys keep peddling the false unverified notion that people are unsubscribing from Disney.. That is not true.. But u guys can keep peddling that gossip blog nonsense to feel better bcos no matter all your agenda snowdrop won’t be cancelled.. It will run both on Disney and jtbc till all the episodes finishes.. So you guys better prepare to cry harder
Again , could of easily been avoided when the script was leaked months ago and the actors / actress could of also dropped out to avoid backlash
Yeah no sh**, of course there’s a “jaw dropping” twist they think on its own would please audiences but they’ve already badly bungled the path to that twist. It matters just as much because the payoff needs to be worth it to your audience for a twist to be received well.
Even if nothing is what it seems and the twist turns the current story on its head, it might not matter if you offend and completely turn off your audience getting there! This is even more important if the story closely follows real events that are extremely sensitive for your audience tf. IMO, the only thing that MIGHT help with your local audience is if this twist is revealed early on and the rest of the drama is more aligned with history.
The writers, producers and network are all aware of all of this but the head honchos at JTBC are willing to die on this hill. at this point, it’s obvious it’s not because of this mythical twist they keep talking about.
I agree that whatever twist they have to save the drama from itself, they better reveal it fast. Otherwise, it’s just a cruel prank.
Tbf to JTBC, they are right that the two leads did not participate in the democratization movement (June Struggle) since that scene of Sooho being chased by the ANSP agents was after a 6-month time jump from spring of 1987, while the FL just doesn’t participate in any protests lol I watched the two episodes btw also the ruling conservative party hired the NK spies(?) to kidnap a prominent figure from the opposition to undermine them when the election is near. On agents being watered down probably has to do with optics since again, election is near and they’re trying to retain the dictatorship
Personally I will still check out episodes 3 and 4 to see where it goes but I kinda see how plot has gone sideways politically, the setting is already a very sensitive time as it is
I’m assuming the reason jTBC refuses to cancel the show is because it’s streaming on Disney+. They probably got a lot of money from Disney so it’ll hurt them financially if they cancel the show now. That’s the only way it makes sense to me. I don’t blame the actors and actresses, they’re not historians.
You don’t need to be a Korean historian to know about the drama’s events. This stuff is covered in school. Plus, there was already warning months ago.
JBTC is thinking short term instead of long term here. All the Disney+ Snowdrop money isn’t going to be worth it if this results in a viewer boycott of the channel.
You don’t need to be a historian to have basic knowledge or even empathy for the victims of a certain period in history, especially if that period is less than 35 years ago.
The plot twist is that Jung Hae-in’s character is not from the country of rocketman, but that he is an exchange student from the US and that he lives in the Northern part of Koreatown of LA, which he shortens with North-Korea. But due to the language barrier he misunderstood everything. That is how Disney will spin it. Joking, of course… But this show is troublesome and on top of it, they gave the lead role to an inexperienced idol that is known for her speech impediment. Two things Koreans hate the most: history distortion and nepotism/cronyism…
This ‘why don’t you wait and watch for the ending’ is such a sly, clickbait strategy to only garner and boost their viewership ratings. Time and again, the team kept pushing for this. The premise of the story has shown to be like what has been suspected by many in their introductory episodes and at this juncture, the ending of the plot, regardless good or bad, is immaterial. At the end of the day, whatever the outcome is, fans will leave happy, production team leaves happy and smirking at the success of their controversial creation whilst disdaining public outcry. The rest of us, who are more concerned about the socio-political implications the drama has brought about, will be left crying even more. By that time, it’s pointless to ‘cry over spilled milk’ as what most fans will end up chiding us anyway (“The drama is over. Just move on”). Their refusal to simply come out clean now and clear the storyline is in fact very unprofessional and disrespectful, especially considering the current social/political climate they’re in now leading up to the elections in Q1 next year and public reception towards the drama, is very telling. Freedom of creation still, undeniably, comes with a great degree of civil obligation, at any stage of the production process.