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Hasta la Vista, Kimnator


Hasta la Vista, Kimnator

German TV Presents "Dear Leader" as Killer Robot

Jan Creutzenberg (jannberg@zedat.fu-berlin.de), June 18, 2009

 

  

 

Kim Jong-il is a man of many faces: Dear Leader to most of his people, guaranteed frustration to diplomats and a madman with a bomb to the rest of the world—is he a cyborg, too? In a forced attempt to shed some ironic light on the current situation in North-East-Asia, the "auslandsjournal" (a weekly newscast on foreign affairs in German public TV) presented the "Kimnator", a hybrid of North Korea's dictator and the humanoid robot from the Terminator-movies that made Arnold Schwarzenegger famous in the 80s.

 

The two-minute spot begins with an animated flight around the globe, circling down to New York City and into the United Nations headquarter, where the "UN Kindergarten" (thus the title of this satyrical series) is located: A bunch of politicians, among them German Chancellor Angela Merkel, South Korean Prime Minister Han Seung-soo and the President of the United States, all depicted as cardboard-jumping jacks.

 

 

After briefly expressing some concern about the recent nuclear test in North Korea, these rulers of the reasonable world gather in front of a television—it is movie-time! What follows is a rapid montage of seemingly unrelated found footage that would turn Michael Moore green with envy: Scenes showing Kim Jong-il playing with his gun or riding a white horse alternate with images of gunfire, explosions—and killer robots from the latest installment of the Terminator-franchise.

  

"We all considered him dead, but we were wrong", an epic voice-over narrator shouts out: "He has been altered and now he's back: stronger than ever." The short clip imagines an Evil Emperor with a robotic grin, an insidious warlord in the guise of a fragile old man who sets the world on fire with the help of modern technologyy. After the final mushroom cloud has faded away, the skeletal face of cyborged Kim emerges from a burning cityscape: "soon in a rogue state close to you." 

 

  

 The clip also features a task force of politicians who try to stop the Kimnator by issuing "the ultimate ultimatum"—dozing in parliament while Kim clinks glasses with his namesake from the South. After a minute the show is over and Angela Merkel breathes a sigh of relief: After all it was just a movie!

 

 What does this video tell us about the way Kim Jong-il's latest extravaganzas are seen in Germany? Well, in contrast to caricatures in German newspapers that usually depict Kim as a child-like jester exhibiting his bare back to the world with his hair standing on edge, the Kimnator has a more aggressive twist. Still, the North Korean dictator essentially remains the wayward weirdo, only this time with steely limbs and red eyes. 

 

 

Nevertheless, the idea of depicting him as a tyrannical mechanism is neither new nor creatively put. The makers of "South Park" presented a Kim-marionette as an arch-villain for their "Team America" in 2004, while the authors of the weblog "The Onion" already reported Kim's transformation into "a 70-foot-tall, 62-ton giant robot" in early 2003.

 

In any case, the mechanical metaphor does not really fit: Juche, the official state ideology of North Korea, is based on national self-reliance and this might have technocratic connotations (the word "Juche" literally meaning "main body"), but the gap between theory and political reality is wide. In fact, concerning internal security, Kim rather seems to function as a charismatic icon—more like the Ozian Tin Man than the Terminator...

  

Even as a statement about the way democratic politicians handle seemingly irrational dictators the clip does not work: The metaphorically dozing assemblymen, a well-worn symbol for political apathy, belong in the dustbin of satire. By the way, Kim Jong-il is no newbie to the "UN Kindergarten": Last year, on the occasion of a surprise party to his 66th birthday, Kim held a lecture on "Being a Dictator for Dummies".  

 

 

And sometimes even state-sponsored TV holds a surprise. As an antidote to the "Kimnator", I suggest an animation that was shown on NDR (North German Broadcast) in 2006: "Super-Kim" 

(all images © ZDF, 2008/09)

 

 

A Translation of the Dialogue in "UN Kindergarten: The Kimnator"

[UN Headquarters]
JAVIER SOLANAS: Sí, sí. We, the European Union, think this is very alarming.
NICOLAS SARCOZY: Well, I even condemned this test very harshly. Oui, oui!
TARO ASO [?]: We demanded a resolution.
ANGELA MERKEL: We've done everything we can. Let's watch a movie—that will help our dear South-Korean friend Mr Han to take his mind off things.
[All gather in fron of the TV, the movie begins...]

VOICE-OVER: We all considered him dead, but we were wrong: He lives! They changed him and now he's back—stronger than ever.
KIM JONG-IL (in Korean [?]): Beware! [gunfire, explosions] Not bad, eh?
VOICE-OVER: They are humanity's last hope. A group of politicians, bound and determined. But can they stop this man? He might not even be a man—but a machine... Frenetically these politicians are forging the ultimate ultimatum. Will it be enough to save humanity? Terminator Resolution—in theaters on June 4th. And soon in a rogue state close to you.

[Back at the UN Kindergarten]
ANGELA MERKEL: Whee, fortunately it is just a movie!