More on the Facebook video

The 2013 'Facebook video'

Part 1: Video surfaces on Facebook showing foreign men mistreating Korean woman
Part 2: Is the Facebook video fake?
Part 3: More on the Facebook video
Part 4: Today's Facebook video update
Part 5: Korea Herald follows up on the Facebook video
Part 6: A conversation with 'Last Known Survivor'
Part 7: Reports on the staged video

Part 3: More on the Facebook video

[Update 3]

At the Marmot's Hole, Korea Herald reporter John Power left a lengthy comment about the sources for his two articles (which are translated into Korean here and here, by the way). The main takeaway is that if his sources are lying about it being staged, they are going to elaborate lengths to maintain this fiction. Do read the entire comment.

Meanwhile, over at the Washington Post article, 'lastknownsurvivor,' the commenter who first named the location (which turned out to be correct) where the video was shot and who said it was staged, posted a comment (in this thread) which reads in part:

I am still waiting from a response from the writer Max Fisher. I sent him a message on facebook which has been seen and not responded to. I also sent him a message on twitter as a response to him saying I did not send him a message and he did not respond to that. I have made an effort to contact him and give him information. Why has he not responded to or tried to contact me?

Earlier, King Baeksu pointed out to me that, while Max Fisher’s Twitter feed stated this – "The guy who claims to be an actor who staged the Korean harassment video is telling people he sent me the name of the director. He didn't." – in the comments to the WaPo article, "thelastknownsurvivor" said merely "I have also sent an email to Max Fisher offering him the directors name," which is rather different. At any rate, it's all he said, she said at this point, but judging by his twitter feed, Fisher doesn't seem to be interested in following up the allegations that it was staged. But hey, just because there are people leaving comments saying how they want to 'tear apart the Yankee bastards' or see them 'get stabbed to death,' in a Yonhap report about his article, there's no reason to look into the possibility that the cause of this anger was not even real, right?

[Update 2]

The New York Daily News and The Blaze have reported the story.

[Update]

The Korea Herald reports that a third person claiming to have been involved in making the video, the 'film studies graduate' mentioned yesterday, has come forward:

While the Korean, who has participated in film competitions here, declined to confirm to The Korea Herald that he was the director, he said that he had played a major part in making the film. He said he and the rest of the crew, whom he did not wish to identify, had intended for the film to be seen as “a work of art.”

He also said that he was very concerned about the reaction of Internet users to the film and felt sorry for the foreign actors involved, stressing that the current video was very different from the intention of the original. He added that he was not in possession of the complete footage.

That last sentence isn't very helpful. At the same time, if the person who first claimed it was staged was making that up, he wasn't just 'anybody on the internet' claiming it was fake, he was someone who knew where the clip had been filmed. That leaves three possibilities that I can think of: A) What he's saying is true because he was there when the film was shot, B) It was indeed a video of harassment, and he knows because he was a participant or witness (through, if a participant, why draw attention to yourself?), or C), He is familiar with the bar and his eagle eye noticed the zebra stripes in the background for the few seconds they are on screen and he decided to get a few friends in on creating a hoax by saying that they staged the whole thing. The question is, which of those scenarios is most likely? King Baeksu also lists several reasons why its most likely staged here.

[Original Post]

So yesterday the Korea Herald reported on the assertions that the Facebook video was staged:

Two men, however, separately contacted The Korea Herald claiming that the video was edited and was in fact part of a series of short horror films shot in 2011. One of the men said that the video had been shot to show the “horror” of how society treats people with physical deformities. In the controversial video, the men are also shown ridiculing the young woman over the condition of her teeth.

One of the alleged actors, both of whom spoke on condition of anonymity, provided a screenshot from a Facebook conversation showing the alleged director admitting that the video was staged. The apparent director of the video studied film at a university in Seoul, according to his Facebook account and a university webpage from 2004.

That the video was "shot to show the “horror” of how society treats people with physical deformities" seems a dubious explanation for why it was made. It would probably take the director coming out and admitting to shooting it and and making available a longer clip to confirm for certain whether this is all true. What is certain is that it was shot at Bedlam, as this post by 'mad statistician' makes clear.

The Korean media has picked up on the allegations of the video being faked, with the comments at WaPo being mentioned at the end of this Donga Ilbo piece (initially mentioning Bedlam - it's since been changed to 'a bar') and the Korea Herald article being mentioned in a Kyunghyang Sinmun article titled "Controversy over the authenticity of the video of white men molesting a Korean woman in a club," and a Chosun.com article titled "'The video of a drunk Korean woman being molested and toyed with was choreographed.'"

Mind you, the Yonhap article which first reported on the Washington Post piece yesterday (and was followed by 13 more news reports) now has over 3,300 comments, including cheerful missives like, as King Baeksu has pointed out, "양키 고홈 십 생기들 외국인 척살" ("Yankee go home, fucking bastard foreigners, die a bloody death") and this one:

At first I wanted to kill the girl, but then I wanted to tear apart the Yankee bastards!! Whites disregard, scorn and show contempt for Asians much more than they do for blacks. Please, let's live with a little more pride!!!!!

Good times.

Just for fun, here's an example of the articles being published yesterday, in this case by NoCut News:

The video of the Korean woman being molested 'blows up'... and the netizen reaction?

"The white men who molested her should be arrested" vs "It's a problem with how Korean women behave."

There is controversy over a video of western men molesting

a Korean woman. (Facebook video capture)

With foreign media reporting on it, the controversy over a video of western men molesting a Korean woman is spreading.

Most netizens have criticized the western men, but some have said that there is also a problem with Korean women's behaviour.

On July 8, the video showing two men of unknown nationality ridiculing and molesting a drunk Korean woman was posted on Facebook.

One man videos the woman's legs and breasts while another man sits next to her and puts his finger in her nostril and mouth. Using an excessive amount of profanity, they insult the woman. In particular, they say to the woman "Why don't you get plastic surgery like other Korean women?" and disparage all Korean women without hesitation.

The mood of the drunk woman, who is smiling at first, sours and she begins swearing at them in English and Korean and gets up and leaves.

On the 15th (local time), leading US newspaper the Washington Post reported on the video saying "It has further tarnished the image and created negative perceptions of foreign men in Korea."

Netizens who have learned of the video have raised their voices in criticism of western men.

Netizens left comments saying "What did I just watch? I can't believe one human being could treat another human being like that." "(Based on pronounciation) one person is Irish and the other is in American or Canadian. They make me feel ashamed to be human. This incident is very regretful and to Koreans, I'm sorry." "I hope the police arrest the foreigners."

Some Korean netizens pointed to the drunken women's behaviour.

These netizens left comments saying, "That girl has disgraced Korea. I'm ashamed of our country's women. Wherever you go, don't do things like that." "Don't be like women who like and follow foreign men like that. And foreign men, please disregard all normal Korean women."

However, not a few netizens raised objections, saying, "I don't understand Korean men who criticize women at this time. Faced with that pitiful scene, how can you think of criticizing the woman's behaviour?"

This is par for the course when it comes to netizen reaction to videos or photos of foreign men with Korean women, such as we saw in the English Spectrum incident (dealt with in detail in this Ilda article (titled "Dirty Korean women who have brought shame to the country?")). As the Marmot noted, this topic was reported on by Jezebel, and followed up there with an article titled "South Korea Assault Video Authenticity Debated, But It Doesn't Matter." That's because it opened a dialogue about something that does happen, we're told. You see, the "notoriously dickish expat community" often acts this way, and "young Western men getting wasted and harassing local women in public" is a "common incident." So even if it - maybe - didn't actually happen this time, it's still, as King Baeksu put it, "emotionally true."

If I were to say that the writer of that article strangled a kitten, I guess it wouldn't matter if it wasn't true as long as it opened a dialogue about cruelty to animals?