Asian Junkie Asian pop. Without discretion.
Jang Dong Min‘s scandals won’t stop coming, as he’s now being sued by a woman who was the last victim found by rescue workers in the rubble after the Sampoong Department Store collapse back in 1995.
KBS 2TV’s ‘Morning News Time’ reported that the last survivor of the Sampoong Department Store in 1995 was suing the comedian for something he said about her. According to reports, in the same podcast as his past derogatory comments, he also said, “When the Sampoong Departmentment STore collapsed, the woman who got saved 21 days later lived by drinking urine.” The woman in question sued Jang Dong Min, and she said through her lawyer, “I barely survived that hardship, and I was so insulted that the process could even be used as a comedic situation.”
To put this in modern K-pop terms, for those who watched ‘Reply 1994‘, this is the event that was talked about in the show.
Or for those who don’t relate everything to K-pop, here’s analysis of the tragedy from the ‘Seconds To Disaster‘ series:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bAggWQXyQk
Fucking terrible, really … so it’s gonna be weird to say that I don’t really like this lawsuit much at all.
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Before people flip out over what seems to be an unpopular opinion anywhere, let me just say that:
1) I’m well aware Jang Dong Min is an asshole.
2) This statement is further evidence of him being an asshole.
3) I realize Korean laws allow for this type of lawsuit (remains to be seen if she can win this though).
EDIT: I’m aware that this is for defamation, but that’s my point. The reach of the defamation laws in Korea is scary.
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That said, it’s just hard for me to support somebody getting a lawsuit filed against them for what essentially amounts to another person getting their feelings hurt. It’s obviously an example that’s more dramatic than just that simplification, but the American equivalent would be making a joke about 9/11 survivors (which does happen) and then suing a comedian over that (which … doesn’t).
See, to counter Jang Dong Min’s shittiness, I find nothing wrong with people using their own platforms to call him out as a shitty person (which is what I enjoy doing) or using their speech to band together and rally to not want to see him on TV or hear him on radio or to boycott products he endorses if that’s what they want. After all, it was his choice to be a dick and it’s also the people’s choice to not want to see him profit off being an asshole, but to litigate over this just doesn’t sit well to me in terms of what it says about speech.
What I mean is that the slippery slope here is Tao suing you guys for making jokes about his emotional state while near windows because all our asshole jokes hurt his feelings. Or suing me for writing said jokes on my blog. That world would suck and be lame as hell. So while I’d rather not side with a guy who is a dick that did another dickish thing, I also can’t support a lawsuit aimed at punishing a person for making a joke that hurt feelings either, no matter how much I think said person deserves it.
