1990년대 초반 김학순의 (최초)증언을 시작으로 전세계적으로 공론화되기 시작한 ‘위안부’ 문제는 아직까지도 ‘해결되지 못한 역사(unresolved history)’의 하나로, 첨예한 대립이 계속되고 있는 기억 투쟁의 장이다. 과거 위안부 피해자들의 증언을 중심으로 촉발되기 시작한 이 암울하고도 놀라운 ‘감추어진 역사’의 발견은 일본의 식민주의, 전쟁과 폭력, 남성주의와 젠더와 섹슈얼리티, 그리고 하위주체(subaltern)에 관한 많은 사회적 관심과 각성 그리고 새로운 연구와 교육의 촉발 계기가 되었다. 식민지 군대에서 벌어졌던 처참한 기억들은 재소환되었고 이 문제는 ‘인권’ 유린의 관점에서 전세계적 이슈로 확산되었다. 이는 즉시 다큐멘터리로 제작되었으며, 영화는 ‘말해지지 않은’ 것에 대한 시각적 재현을 통해, ‘문자’로 기록되지 않은 하위주체 여성을 바라보는 방식을 전했다.
분명히 하지만 이 연구의 목표는 1990년대 이전의 대중 영화가 ‘위안부’를 기억하는 방식이 동아시아 남성주의의 폭력성과 민족주의의 공모 속에서 만들어졌음을 밝히는 것이지, 한국 사회의 폭력성을 드러냄으로써 식민주의의 폭력을 축소하거나 대체하고자 하는 것이 아니다. 오히려 이러한 남성 폭력적 재현을 드러내고 이 과정에서의 한-일 남성간의 성적 공모를 밝히는 것은, 한국 남성중심주의의 후기-식민주의적 발현을 드러내는 것이고 현재에도 지속되는 ‘위안부’에 대한 남성들의 성적판타지나 가학성의 근원을 들춰보는 것이라고 볼 수 있다. 이를 통해 궁극적으로는 동아시아 남성중심의 폭력적 문화가 사회의 이면에 도사리고 있는 한 ‘위안부’ 문제는 어떤 의미에서 ‘해결되지 않는 역사’로 끊임없이 재소환 될 가능성을 가지고 있음을 환기시키는 것이다.In the 1990s, beginning from the first testimony of Kim Hak-soon who was mobilized as a sex slave for the Japanese imperial army during the Asia-Pacific War, the issue of ‘comfort women’ have become the most ‘unresolved’ history between Korea and Japan. While the previously unrecorded testimonials of former comfort women have enlivened the academic discourses of Japanese colonialism, war crime, feminism and subaltern studies, bringing them into conversation, they also ignited the controversies over the politics of ‘history and memory.’ On the one hand, some (often) Japanese historians emphasize the ‘fact’ in historical writing that heavily relying on conventional historical sources, which minimized the historical significance of ‘memories’ of comfort women. On the other hand, other (mostly feminist) scholars take more careful approaches arguing that history is always ‘situational,’ and testimonial process itself reveals not just ‘fact’ of the past but signifies the history of ‘the present.’ While still precarious how to integrate memory into history, many realize that the conventional historical sources have restricted the historical writing within the realm of ‘official’ history, and ‘private memory’ could challenge official history, and make the history retold.
In the course of historical ‘retelling,’ the most notable was the rise of small budge independent filmmakings. Starting with serial documentary of Nazûn moksori 1, 2, 3 (The Murmur, 1995, 1997, 1999) by Pyŏn Yŏng-ju, these films functioned to deliver the ‘reality’ or the ‘fact’ of the comfort women issues by authenticating and visually documenting the ‘memory’ of comfort women. The visual representations of these independent documentary films provided the present images of comfort women provocatively revealing the traumatic histories embedded in these women’s bodies. ‘Minor’ filmmaking, in this sense, was a significant medium bringing private memory into history, and relocate ‘marginal voice’ into a central political realm. However, it is should be also noted that there had been popular and dominant representations of comfort women suggesting strikingly different images before this film movement. Mostly produced before 1990s, some popular historical films (sagûk) surprisingly present graphical gaze of comfort women’s bodies and sexual violence, and erase the voices of comfort women in the movie, which displays the reasons for the silence of comfort women issue prior to 1990s.
This paper, thus, explores the representations of ‘comfort women’ in South Korean popular cinema produced from the 1960s to the early 1990s. Considering the fact that there are few public records of the comfort women remaining before 1990s, popular films’ representations of comfort women in pre-1990s period are small outlets revealing the historical perceptions of comfort women, and explain the ways in which the history of comfort women had been silenced until 1990s. This paper particularly focuses on three films that mainly deal with comfort women issue: Sarûbin kang e noûl i chin-da (Sunset in the River Sarûbin, 1965), Yŏja chŏngsindae 1, 2(The Comfort Women, 1974, 1985) and Emi irûm ûn chosenppi yŏtta (Your Ma's Name Was Chosŏn Whore, 1991). The aim of this paper, however, is not on discovering historical ‘fact’ of the comfort women in pre-1990s period, but on critically examining how ‘major’ films marginalized the comfort women’s image in given historical time and contributed to create a collective memory of ‘comfort women’ as a national shame in male-dominant South Korean society.