Credit: ITM, DisneyNorth Korea, a country famously closed to outside influences on their culture, has apparently been making some pretty big exceptions for Mickey Mouse and friends.
Footage from Korean Central Television, or KCTV, an outlet run by the state, shows one classroom of middle schoolers at Segori Junior Middle School in Pyongyang learning English using the Disney film Frozen.
A North Korean school asks students, ‘Do you wanna build a snowman?’ https://t.co/Kyvozr1Kqt pic.twitter.com/NjxmRurZ16
— Chad O'Carroll (@chadocl) May 10, 2023
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This is incredibly unusual, mainly because the ruling political party in North Korea, called the Workers’ Party, actively discourages foreign influences on North Korea’s culture, and have even gone so far as to pass laws penalizing anyone who views what they deem to be “Reactionary Ideology and Culture.” Anyone in the country caught watching foreign media may be face lifetime imprisonment, or even execution.
It is clear from the video, however, that this particular viewing of Frozen has, in fact, been approved by the state. An analysis of the video done by NK News found that the subtitles shown underneath of the clips that they showed used syntax and vocabulary that are not commonly found outside of the country, meaning that North Korean state officials likely edited and approved the captions themselves.
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Still, it is an interesting precedent to set in a country that is ordinarily so staunchly against external cultural influences of any kind – and it seems to be part of a pattern of exceptions made for Disney. Disney characters sometimes appear on North Korean hospital walls in children’s wings; performances featuring popular cartoon characters are allowed to take place; DVDs of movies like The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast appear at government-run markets. Kim Jong Un himself once even attended a concert that involved performers dressed as Mickey Mouse.
The dictator’s whole family seem to have a soft spot for Disney: An attempt to go to Tokyo Disneyland unsupervised by security was what caused his half brother, Kim Jong-nam, to lose all power in the family, and a second attempt later in life later got him killed.
The country also established Kaeson Youth Park in Pyongyang as an answer to Disneyland – though it is rumored that this park is only open on special holidays, as the rest of the country experiences blackouts and food scarcity.
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All of this comes together to give the impression that North Korea doesn’t view children’s media the same way it views other media from foreign cultures, perhaps either believing that any political messages would either be lost on children, be entirely nonexistent, or be easy to scrub out.
Whether this is a wise assumption to make on their part is another question, but, given how strict the country is with all other external media influences, any exceptions they make are extremely interesting.