I also recently watched two Korean romantic comedies, the first Korean films I've watched since the first few months I got here, and to me they are fascinated in the way they relate to Korean society and culture. I haven't formalized anything, but there is definitely a very different relationship between Koreans and Korean films than from American and American films. Because Korea is so small and insular it is much easier to see in the films a kind of national identification process. How the Koreans see themselves and how they would like to be perceived are both very evident in these movies.
Korean television (the variety shows that is, I don't watch any of the dramas as it's too hard to figure out what time they're on) are very 'safe'. The popular comedy shows humor is almost always focused on misunderstandings, wordplay, embarrassing people (breaking them), or bodily functions. As far as I can tell there is no social satire, sarcasm exists in a very infantile form, and public institutions and corporations are never questioned.
There is a sort of blind faith in the corporations and government here and the sense that everyone is working together. The corporations and the government are so intertwined that there is little distinction between them anyway. They are both equal authorities and neither is more important than the other. So, for example, when I tell someone I don't like Oprah they are very suprised. "Is it because she's black?". Or if I say that I hated the Transformers movie they look astonished, "But it was #1 at the box office".
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Rant to continue later. So long for now.
