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The Propaganda Game · Conspiracy! The Show

0:10
Speaker 1: Water insurance truth, I'm a check both insurance the audult.
0:31
Speaker 2: Hey, everybody, Welcome to Conspiracy the Show.
0:35
Speaker 3: I'm Adam Todd Brown. Who are you.
0:38
Speaker 4: I'm Olivia Heidar.
0:39
Speaker 2: We are your hosts and your guests. Like every week,
0:43
Speaker 2: we are both Olivia.
0:45
Speaker 3: How's it going. Have you been since we recorded last?
0:48
Speaker 2: Oh?
0:48
Speaker 4: You know, I'm actually I'm feeling a little better since
0:51
Speaker 4: we recorded last.
0:52
Speaker 3: Yeah, a lot has changed in the world, you know.
0:54
Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly, you know. I've I've gotten out there, I've
0:57
Speaker 4: been talking to people. It's it's good.
1:00
Speaker 3: We're still not in Ukraine. Still haven't sent troops. I
1:03
Speaker 3: hope by the time this goes up.
1:05
Speaker 2: Because here's the dirty little secret. We record these episodes
1:08
Speaker 2: back to back, so we're working in the future right now.
1:10
Speaker 2: We have no idea what happens next week, if there
1:14
Speaker 2: is a next week.
1:15
Speaker 4: Oh my god. Yeah, I really, I really hope we
1:20
Speaker 4: haven't done anything.
1:22
Speaker 3: Oh my god.
1:24
Speaker 4: Well, the way to start the episode, I just am
1:26
Speaker 4: so immediately just driven to depression.
1:31
Speaker 2: I think it's a good thing to mention at the
1:33
Speaker 2: start of this episode because we're talking about something that
1:36
Speaker 2: is going to play a huge part in things that
1:39
Speaker 2: happen in Ukraine going forward, sure, yeah, which is actually, yeah, propaganda,
1:45
Speaker 2: mm hmm.
1:46
Speaker 3: You're gonna hear a lot of it.
1:47
Speaker 2: You're already seeing it, Oh, even if it's not government sponsored,
1:52
Speaker 2: Like there's a ton of stuff going up on TikTok
1:54
Speaker 2: where people are like, look at the soldier filming an
1:57
Speaker 2: invasion on TikTok and it's like that is a guy
2:00
Speaker 2: skydiving in twenty fifteen.
2:02
Speaker 4: Right, Well, I mean even you know, we all we
2:07
Speaker 4: all interact with propaganda every day in our daily lives,
2:12
Speaker 4: just through the pure fact of consuming American media, which
2:18
Speaker 4: is itself an apparatus of propaganda in some form or another.
2:22
Speaker 4: There's very little that doesn't engender a love of a
2:27
Speaker 4: Western capitalistic ideal within us.
2:30
Speaker 2: I've done a couple episodes about a book called the
2:33
Speaker 2: CIA and the Cult of Intelligence, and one of the
2:38
Speaker 2: things they talk about in that book is that in
2:41
Speaker 2: the seventies and eighties and our sixties and seventies probably
2:44
Speaker 2: still now, Yeah, the CIA would set up these basically
2:50
Speaker 2: propaganda outfits that would broadcast fake news stories to whatever
2:56
Speaker 2: region they were hoping to influence, trying to convince the
3:00
Speaker 2: people that the government that was leading them was corrupt
3:03
Speaker 2: and should be replaced, and there was one of these
3:07
Speaker 2: stations in particular that did that. But what their role
3:11
Speaker 2: was was to monitor news reports from other countries and
3:15
Speaker 2: basically report that back to whoever needed it. They would
3:19
Speaker 2: send it to the government, but also people in like
3:21
Speaker 2: academia and things, and they would keep track of legitimate
3:25
Speaker 2: news reports, but they would also keep track of who
3:28
Speaker 2: was paying attention to those fake news stories that the
3:30
Speaker 2: CIA was putting out. And what would happen is sometimes
3:33
Speaker 2: those fake news stories would get mixed in with the
3:36
Speaker 2: legitimate news stories that they were sending out to the
3:40
Speaker 2: government and to academics, and when that happened, they'd be like, oh, well,
3:45
Speaker 2: so like so now professors all around the country are
3:48
Speaker 2: forming their opinion of China based on a fake article
3:51
Speaker 2: we put out.
3:52
Speaker 3: Big deal, right.
3:53
Speaker 2: You kind of see similar things with North Korea, which
3:56
Speaker 2: is the subject to this documentary.
3:58
Speaker 4: Absolutely, North Korea is one of the most I mean,
4:03
Speaker 4: it's such a it's a fascinating country in a lot
4:05
Speaker 4: of ways, but it is also a country that is
4:09
Speaker 4: so intentionally misunderstood in the West, where so many forces,
4:15
Speaker 4: Like what's interesting about that whole CIA thing is I
4:18
Speaker 4: think what they probably realized is that they didn't really
4:22
Speaker 4: need to do any of that work. This is my
4:24
Speaker 4: feeling about a lot of stuff that the CIA did
4:26
Speaker 4: research into, where what we have now is things like
4:31
Speaker 4: our various news conglomerates that have a right wing lean
4:37
Speaker 4: that own local news networks and tell them what to air,
4:41
Speaker 4: whether or not it is factual or not. And that
4:45
Speaker 4: is way more effective than whatever the CIA was planning
4:49
Speaker 4: on doing.
4:49
Speaker 2: And it's also not outside the realm of possibility that
4:52
Speaker 2: that is somehow CIA connected, because the CIA has front
4:57
Speaker 2: companies and influence in companies. No matter who's doing it,
5:01
Speaker 2: that's happening, Like you see those clips all the time
5:04
Speaker 2: of those local news stations. It's usually Sinclair Broadcasting, where
5:09
Speaker 2: every reporter in every town is just reading a script
5:13
Speaker 2: about the same talking point, and that's just as bad.
5:17
Speaker 2: Like I don't know why people are so I don't know.
5:21
Speaker 2: Maybe people do accept it as propaganda, but.
5:25
Speaker 4: I don't know.
5:25
Speaker 3: I think they do. I mean, and that's clearly what
5:28
Speaker 3: it is.
5:28
Speaker 2: That is someone at a very high level government involved
5:32
Speaker 2: or not wanting one message put out to people, whether
5:36
Speaker 2: it's factual, or they just want to influence the way things.
5:39
Speaker 4: Work, and I think this documentary we're talking about the
5:43
Speaker 4: documentary the propaganda game, and I think one of the
5:47
Speaker 4: things that this documentary does a good job at is
5:51
Speaker 4: very gently, without putting too much of an emphasis on it,
5:56
Speaker 4: very gently guiding the viewer towards that real by how
6:01
Speaker 4: it intercuts the way that American media, specifically Fox News,
6:08
Speaker 4: which is weirdly proportionally clipped a lot more in this
6:13
Speaker 4: movie than other news outlets, how they speak about North Korea,
6:19
Speaker 4: and how that is a type of propaganda in its
6:22
Speaker 4: own right. And I think this is a good The
6:26
Speaker 4: thing this documentary is the best at is being a
6:29
Speaker 4: fairly good introduction to the idea that there is a
6:35
Speaker 4: larger dialectical discussion to be had about North Korea other
6:41
Speaker 4: than the Western narrative of it being a hopelessly backward
6:48
Speaker 4: place where only human rights abuses happen and the actual
6:52
Speaker 4: people who live there are totally backgrounded and not thought
6:58
Speaker 4: of at all other as victims which fit into a narrative.
7:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it starts with that right away. One of
7:06
Speaker 2: the things it opens with is a montage of clips
7:09
Speaker 2: of various media outlets and elected officials talking about how
7:13
Speaker 2: insane North Korea is and how unhappy the people are,
7:17
Speaker 2: and then it cuts to the most charming xylophone performance
7:20
Speaker 2: I've ever seen in my entire life. Yeah, And the
7:24
Speaker 2: thing about this scene and a lot of scenes in
7:28
Speaker 2: this documentary if you read reviews of this documentary, which
7:31
Speaker 2: came out in twenty fifteen, by the way, if you
7:34
Speaker 2: read reviews of this there's all these scenes like the
7:37
Speaker 2: xylophone scene, and people are like, well, yeah, that's just
7:41
Speaker 2: North Korea showing you what they want you to see, right,
7:45
Speaker 2: But also, this girl clearly knows how to play the xylophone, sure,
7:49
Speaker 2: and they have all put this routine together, Like, I
7:53
Speaker 2: don't think they learned it overnight upon finding out that
7:56
Speaker 2: a filmmaker was coming. So like, what would this performance
7:59
Speaker 2: have looked like if the cameras weren't there? Was she
8:01
Speaker 2: going to be like beating dissonance in the head? Xylophonistics?
8:06
Speaker 4: It's an interesting thing because and this is something that
8:09
Speaker 4: we'll definitely talk about more, because this is like the
8:12
Speaker 4: heart of the documentary is that there are definitely scenes
8:18
Speaker 4: within the film that, at least in my opinion, have
8:23
Speaker 4: clearly been staged for the filmmakers in order to present
8:28
Speaker 4: some sort of image of how the government wants the
8:33
Speaker 4: country portrayed. But one of the things that I like
8:37
Speaker 4: about this film is that it is constantly showing footage
8:43
Speaker 4: from a distance of people in the country just kind
8:47
Speaker 4: of living and you know, they're at a park, they're
8:51
Speaker 4: you know, they're just going to and from like you know,
8:54
Speaker 4: they're going to the giant bronze statues of their past leaders,
8:59
Speaker 4: which are weird, but so is Mount rushmore like so
9:05
Speaker 4: you though, but like there's enough stuff, like so much
9:08
Speaker 4: of this documentary, like there's enough focus on people who
9:12
Speaker 4: are clearly unaware of the fact that they are being
9:16
Speaker 4: filmed that it does show that there's more going on
9:20
Speaker 4: than just it's not just all a setup. It couldn't
9:24
Speaker 4: be a setup. It would be like it's logistically impossible,
9:29
Speaker 4: and I think it's really effective.
9:30
Speaker 3: Yeah.
9:31
Speaker 2: The documentary is made by a Spanish filmmaker named Alvarro Longoria. Yeah,
9:36
Speaker 2: and he meets up with a guy named Alejandro.
9:39
Speaker 4: Yeah, Alejandro Kyle Debinos. I believe, you know, I'm not
9:43
Speaker 4: I don't speak Spanish, but I believe that's his full name.
9:46
Speaker 2: He is the only foreigner working for the North Korean government. Yeah,
9:51
Speaker 2: and that that's who gets Alvarro Longoria into the country,
9:56
Speaker 2: and he is.
9:57
Speaker 4: A fascinating fucking he is just he ends up becoming
10:02
Speaker 4: the stealth subject of the documentary in a lot of ways,
10:07
Speaker 4: and every little tidbit that we learned about him is
10:10
Speaker 4: so interesting.
10:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, he basically access the guide for the filmmaker's tour
10:16
Speaker 2: of North Korea. And I think a big point of
10:19
Speaker 2: the documentary is in those moments where you're like, well,
10:22
Speaker 2: is this staged or is this actually what North Korea is?
10:25
Speaker 4: Like?
10:26
Speaker 2: The film just kind of leaves that up to you
10:28
Speaker 2: to decide. They don't ever really directly address.
10:32
Speaker 3: It, right.
10:33
Speaker 2: And one of the first moments like that, one that
10:35
Speaker 2: I think was clearly staged is the people taking their
10:40
Speaker 2: wedding photos at the DMZ.
10:43
Speaker 3: It's like, no, it's not even pretty.
10:45
Speaker 2: No, Like I could see if it was a very
10:47
Speaker 2: scenic place, but there's just all these official looking buildings
10:51
Speaker 2: and well.
10:52
Speaker 4: They're painted a nice shade of blue.
10:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, I still give a hose, but I still don't
10:57
Speaker 2: know if Yeah, young newly weds are taking their wedding
11:01
Speaker 2: photos at the DMZ.
11:03
Speaker 4: Look, no, I don't. That's not something that I would do.
11:07
Speaker 4: And I definitely, you know, it seems suspicious. Yeah, it's weird,
11:13
Speaker 4: you know. And like, like I said, North Korea is,
11:17
Speaker 4: for many reasons, just an incredibly fascinating country. There's just
11:21
Speaker 4: so much going on. And one of the things that
11:25
Speaker 4: I think this documentary highlights is how much it is,
11:29
Speaker 4: you know, even though they hate America for some valid
11:33
Speaker 4: reasons and some kind of exaggerated reasons, they are also
11:38
Speaker 4: clearly trying that is their model, you know, and so
11:43
Speaker 4: much of the things that come off as dystopian, especially
11:48
Speaker 4: in Western eyes, are kind of a caricature of American
11:53
Speaker 4: society in some ways. It's very fascinating.
11:56
Speaker 3: Yeah.
11:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's at this point in the documentary where I'm
11:59
Speaker 2: realizing and I don't know that much about the Korean War.
12:03
Speaker 4: You just watched Mash.
12:04
Speaker 3: Yeah, even Mash I didn't like that much. Aw o, guy.
12:11
Speaker 2: We do find out North Koreans are taught in school
12:13
Speaker 2: that America is the reason for their financial hardship and
12:17
Speaker 2: humiliation on the world stage, and it's like, yeah, us too, Yeah,
12:21
Speaker 2: everybody should be taught that.
12:23
Speaker 3: It's probably true.
12:24
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, you know, it's interesting. Yeah. Again, I
12:28
Speaker 4: think they they fudge, you know, their part in the
12:33
Speaker 4: beginning of the Korean War, but so does America, and
12:39
Speaker 4: I think they are definitely correct that their financial hardship
12:45
Speaker 4: is mostly at the fault of America, you know, among
12:48
Speaker 4: other forces. But that's a big one.
12:51
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's how we fight war.
12:52
Speaker 2: When we don't want to send troops, we just exactly
12:55
Speaker 2: choke you out financially. Ask Venezuela. And one of the
12:59
Speaker 2: things they touch on in this, and one of the
13:02
Speaker 2: things I think people don't take into account enough, is
13:06
Speaker 2: it's very logical that North Korea spends as much money
13:10
Speaker 2: on defense as they do, and that they put out
13:14
Speaker 2: this attitude of fucking try us, we will fucking NUQ.
13:19
Speaker 2: What would you do if you were in North Korea,
13:21
Speaker 2: Like they are surrounded by countries that want nothing more
13:25
Speaker 2: than for their government to fail.
13:28
Speaker 3: At least you think that's the case.
13:30
Speaker 4: Right, Well, maybe that's not that, yeah, but no, yeah,
13:34
Speaker 4: it's definitely it's reasonable. It's very similar to Germany pre
13:41
Speaker 4: World War One, where they were this tiny new country
13:46
Speaker 4: and they were surrounded by these larger entities that had
13:52
Speaker 4: way more history that wanted to eat them. So they
13:58
Speaker 4: built up this insane military and you know that ended
14:02
Speaker 4: up becoming a huge problem for the world. But like
14:06
Speaker 4: it's a very it's a totally similar mindset, and it's
14:10
Speaker 4: something that we understand is reasonable when we're talking about
14:14
Speaker 4: nineteenth century Germany, and it's something that we find totally
14:18
Speaker 4: irrational and terrible when we talk about twentieth and twenty
14:22
Speaker 4: first century North Korea.
14:24
Speaker 2: They talk a lot about military exercises that we conduct
14:28
Speaker 2: with South Korea all the time, and countries don't like that. No, Like,
14:32
Speaker 2: no country likes you practicing war in their ocean, Like I.
14:36
Speaker 4: Mean, American military bases. American military actions in our allied
14:44
Speaker 4: countries are out of fucking control and are totally fucking
14:50
Speaker 4: up our relationship, not only with the neighboring countries who
14:54
Speaker 4: are hostile, but also with those allied countries, Like places
14:58
Speaker 4: like South Korea, are they feel safe having the US
15:03
Speaker 4: bases there because you know, they're they're so close to
15:07
Speaker 4: a country that is dangerous in many ways, But like
15:11
Speaker 4: you know, then there's like Japan that still has a
15:14
Speaker 4: million fucking US military bases on it and they hate
15:17
Speaker 4: having him there and they won them on and that's
15:20
Speaker 4: how we should just not have those. It's ridiculous. All
15:23
Speaker 4: we're doing is causing strife.
15:25
Speaker 3: Yeah, people don't like having their land occupied. Sucks, especially
15:29
Speaker 3: in the Middle East.
15:30
Speaker 2: We yeah, found that out the hard way, but anywhere
15:34
Speaker 2: like it's in no, and man, we love doing it right.
15:37
Speaker 4: And this is just the whole North Korea thing, And
15:40
Speaker 4: it's so much about Western devaluation of Eastern sovereignty. Basically,
15:48
Speaker 4: I'm struggling to come up with a word. But like,
15:51
Speaker 4: there is just such this orientalism where any reaction that
15:57
Speaker 4: an Asian country has to Western action is seen as
16:02
Speaker 4: totally irrational and dangerous, when the same reaction from a
16:09
Speaker 4: Western country would be seen as natural and understandable. And
16:14
Speaker 4: it's just it's just a baked in problem when it
16:19
Speaker 4: comes to talking about North Korea.
16:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, so let's talk about Alejandro. Yes, how are we
16:24
Speaker 2: feeling about Alejandro? He seems to genuinely love North Korea.
16:28
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, No, he's a true believer. He's a fucking again,
16:33
Speaker 4: really really interesting guy. I was glad that they talked
16:36
Speaker 4: to his parents because I wanted to know what they
16:38
Speaker 4: were like.
16:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, his dad says, Alejandro was just super duper into communism,
16:44
Speaker 2: like yeah, from early on, and obviously was looking for
16:49
Speaker 2: a society that works in an ideal communist kind of way,
16:54
Speaker 2: and he settled on North Korea, I.
16:57
Speaker 4: Guess, And like it's just so he's like one of
17:00
Speaker 4: the first things that he says to the documentary is
17:03
Speaker 4: that his dream since he was a young boy was
17:07
Speaker 4: to join the North Korean military, which is a weird,
17:13
Speaker 4: objectively weird dream for a Spanish kid to have.
17:16
Speaker 2: Because, for one thing, where did he hear about the
17:19
Speaker 2: North Korean army?
17:21
Speaker 3: Like what was he reading?
17:23
Speaker 4: His parents? Just seem kind of chill.
17:26
Speaker 3: I guess.
17:27
Speaker 2: So, yeah, I don't know where he would have gotten
17:29
Speaker 2: all his information about the North Korean army or what
17:32
Speaker 2: would have made a young boy in Spain want to
17:34
Speaker 2: join them. But yeah, I don't know what to make
17:37
Speaker 2: of Alejandro. It's just a strange situation in general.
17:43
Speaker 4: Yeah, he's kind of an enigma. And like I said,
17:45
Speaker 4: he kind of becomes the subject of the documentary in
17:49
Speaker 4: a roundabout way because as it goes on, like, first
17:53
Speaker 4: of all, we're spending so much time with him because
17:55
Speaker 4: he is their primary guide through North Korea, and we
18:00
Speaker 4: are just occasionally getting more and more bits and pieces
18:04
Speaker 4: of information about his life and his early life and
18:09
Speaker 4: his role within the North Korean government and it's just
18:14
Speaker 4: very interesting.
18:16
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's a character that's really it. For sure. I
18:20
Speaker 3: could have done with a documentary just about him.
18:23
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I think this is the closest we'll ever get.
18:26
Speaker 4: And yeah, and it functions pretty well as that, But yeah,
18:31
Speaker 4: I would I wanted more.
18:32
Speaker 2: He's almost like a celebrity in that country because he's
18:37
Speaker 2: so like he can it seems like they let him
18:40
Speaker 2: come and go as he pleases, and he can go
18:43
Speaker 2: back to Spain when he wants some spress, Spain lets
18:45
Speaker 2: him come back.
18:46
Speaker 4: That's like his job is like to go out and
18:50
Speaker 4: basically it's kind of implied get money from people overseas
18:54
Speaker 4: and bring it back into North Korea and also to
18:59
Speaker 4: and then like his other job is to it seems
19:03
Speaker 4: essentially tell like talk to anybody that he can in
19:08
Speaker 4: North Korea and tell them about how the rest of
19:12
Speaker 4: the world thinks that North Korea is just the best
19:15
Speaker 4: and yes, they love what everybody in the world loves
19:19
Speaker 4: what's happening here. And I think that's a really fascinating
19:23
Speaker 4: job to have within the government.
19:27
Speaker 2: Propaganda is basically his job, yes, and he admits that
19:31
Speaker 2: and he embraces it. Yeah, there's a bit where people
19:36
Speaker 2: talk about how everyone gets free housing and everything is
19:40
Speaker 2: great and there's lots of museums for people to enjoy,
19:43
Speaker 2: and it's hard to know how much of this is
19:44
Speaker 2: accurate and how much is just people saying what they're
19:47
Speaker 2: supposed to say. But again, like I'm always conflicted. When
19:51
Speaker 2: you see this museum, it looks like a nice museum.
19:54
Speaker 2: People are coming in and out, they're visiting, and people
19:56
Speaker 2: are like, yeah, that's just what they want you to see,
19:58
Speaker 2: And it's like, well, the museums there, Like what are
20:01
Speaker 2: they doing with it when the cameras aren't rolling again? Right,
20:05
Speaker 2: like beheading dissidence in that building? Like it's still a museum.
20:09
Speaker 4: No, it's definitely a real museum. It is interesting. Like
20:13
Speaker 4: the part where he says that there was literally no
20:16
Speaker 4: one else in the museum besides the people who came
20:19
Speaker 4: in with him is interesting. I think that's a I
20:22
Speaker 4: think that's an interesting fact that kind of says that
20:26
Speaker 4: maybe it's not as open as they are insisting it is,
20:30
Speaker 4: but it seems like it is a public utility. I'm
20:33
Speaker 4: sure they bring children there. It just seems educational in
20:37
Speaker 4: a way that North Korea would appreciate.
20:40
Speaker 2: But also if something like this happened in the United States,
20:45
Speaker 2: depending on how important the person giving the tour was
20:48
Speaker 2: or the person receiving the tour, I could see us
20:51
Speaker 2: shutting down a museum. So that's what could happen in private.
20:54
Speaker 4: I think, Yeah, I think that's a perfectly rational explanation
20:58
Speaker 4: for why the museum is empty. That doesn't really phase
21:01
Speaker 4: me at all.
21:02
Speaker 2: Like that is just is not standing in line to
21:05
Speaker 2: buy tickets at the broad right, They're just shutting that
21:08
Speaker 2: down for her so she and jay Z can walk
21:10
Speaker 2: through it. Like, I get that it looks weird that
21:12
Speaker 2: there's no one there, but right, I think it.
21:15
Speaker 4: Was an interesting thing to note, But I definitely don't
21:17
Speaker 4: think it's any sort of referendum on you know, people's
21:21
Speaker 4: rights in North Korea, which is how it seems many
21:25
Speaker 4: people react to many of the things that are shown. Yeah,
21:29
Speaker 4: both in this documentary and you know, just in general
21:32
Speaker 4: about North Korea.
21:33
Speaker 2: The water park scene, I think is kind of the
21:36
Speaker 2: same thing where a lot of people would be like, well,
21:39
Speaker 2: that's just what they want you to see, and it's like,
21:41
Speaker 2: I don't know, it looks like they know how to
21:43
Speaker 2: use the water park Yeah, it seems like the people
21:46
Speaker 2: using it have used it before, And it's like, yeah,
21:49
Speaker 2: why would you build a water park just on the
21:53
Speaker 2: off chance that a foreign dignitary is going to come
21:56
Speaker 2: visit and you need to impress them with your water park?
21:59
Speaker 4: And I know, I guess the counter argument would be like,
22:03
Speaker 4: but it's usually only for like military or officials or whatever.
22:08
Speaker 4: I don't know, but like, at a certain point, you're
22:10
Speaker 4: just tying yourself in knots in order to otherise an
22:14
Speaker 4: entire nation, which is not really helpful, even if the
22:19
Speaker 4: nation does terrible things to its citizens.
22:21
Speaker 2: I bet there are countless nations on this earth that
22:24
Speaker 2: do not have a single water park within.
22:27
Speaker 4: More exactly, And yeah, it looks like a nice water park.
22:31
Speaker 4: And again this is one of those times where they
22:34
Speaker 4: are pretty far removed from the water park. They're not
22:37
Speaker 4: interviewing people at the water park. The people down there
22:40
Speaker 4: don't really seem like they know that there are cameras around.
22:43
Speaker 4: It's not a thing that seems staged in the way
22:47
Speaker 4: that some of the other activities that they go to
22:50
Speaker 4: seem stage right.
22:52
Speaker 2: I do like that in these moments. There are some
22:56
Speaker 2: scenes also where it's a little more questionable in that way.
23:01
Speaker 2: Like the scene where they go to a woman's apartment
23:04
Speaker 2: and she's cooking dinner. Yeah, the apartment looks very new,
23:08
Speaker 2: it looks like almost like a model apartment. Yes, And
23:13
Speaker 2: she's talking about how she's gonna cook dinner and the
23:15
Speaker 2: guy's like, what are you cooking? Can I see in
23:17
Speaker 2: the refrigerator? And she's like, oh no, yeah, and they
23:22
Speaker 2: were like, she's just shy. Yeah, Korean people don't like
23:26
Speaker 2: showing what's in their refrigerator.
23:27
Speaker 3: It was like, I don't know if I've ever heard
23:29
Speaker 3: that before.
23:30
Speaker 4: Well in the voiceover, he says, we never saw the refrigerator,
23:35
Speaker 4: Like they literally didn't even see the refrigerator, not let
23:40
Speaker 4: alone open it, which I found interesting again, like there
23:44
Speaker 4: are reasons that you could explain that that is, you know, reasonable,
23:49
Speaker 4: but that's one of those things that seems kind of
23:53
Speaker 4: staged in a way to make it look normal, and
23:57
Speaker 4: you know, I don't.
23:59
Speaker 2: Know, there's all so a I don't know what your
24:01
Speaker 2: take on it was, but I found it to be
24:04
Speaker 2: a very heartbreaking scene where they were sort of trying
24:08
Speaker 2: to set it up to seem like North Korea is
24:11
Speaker 2: again a really cool place because they're interviewing a young
24:15
Speaker 2: guy and he's like, yeah, I went to the military
24:18
Speaker 2: and then I went to university. And they they kind
24:22
Speaker 2: of drive home the point in this documentary that like
24:24
Speaker 2: you get like everyone works in North Korea, like you
24:27
Speaker 2: all get housing.
24:28
Speaker 3: And with the housing, they're like, yeah, but you don't
24:30
Speaker 3: get to choose. It's like, I don't know, free housing
24:32
Speaker 3: is still free using.
24:33
Speaker 4: I mean, look, that's the thing. If you're poor in America,
24:37
Speaker 4: you don't get to choose where you live anyway exactly,
24:40
Speaker 4: and it's not free.
24:41
Speaker 2: So but this guy they interview him and he talks
24:46
Speaker 2: about having gone to school after serving in the military. Yeah,
24:50
Speaker 2: And they're like, well, what are you studying for and
24:53
Speaker 2: he says, I'm studying to be a locomotive driver. Yea,
24:56
Speaker 2: And the guy interviewing him goes, well, what you want
25:00
Speaker 2: to do?
25:01
Speaker 4: Like what what's his dream?
25:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, And this man looks broken for a couple seconds
25:09
Speaker 2: and then goes, I want to be a locomotive driver.
25:12
Speaker 2: That's like, you can tell he doesn't want to be
25:14
Speaker 2: a locomotive driver.
25:16
Speaker 4: I mean I guess, and like, look, maybe he does,
25:19
Speaker 4: maybe he doesn't, but I do think again, I think
25:22
Speaker 4: it's dangerous it's just tricky territory to try to read
25:27
Speaker 4: into someone's body language in a documentary like this, like
25:32
Speaker 4: you could read brokenness or you know, resignation into that
25:38
Speaker 4: or maybe that's just what he looks like when he's
25:41
Speaker 4: thinking about that subject.
25:43
Speaker 3: Like I don't know, I hope so he looked sad though,
25:47
Speaker 3: I mean.
25:47
Speaker 4: Sure, but like, I don't know if he looks sad,
25:51
Speaker 4: maybe that's just what his face looked like, you know,
25:53
Speaker 4: like sometimes I look angry and I'm not angry, you know.
25:57
Speaker 2: But like yeah, I mean, but I'm not saying it's
25:59
Speaker 2: a completely bad thing. Like I know, I have jokingly
26:03
Speaker 2: but also not really jokingly, argued that my favorite version
26:07
Speaker 2: of a dystopian future is the one where a computer
26:09
Speaker 2: makes all your decisions for you.
26:11
Speaker 4: Well, you'll like the Adam Curtis documentaries that were gonna
26:14
Speaker 4: like what but no, but you know, like, look, he
26:19
Speaker 4: probably wasn't given a lot of options when he enrolled
26:23
Speaker 4: in university about what he can major in, and locomotive
26:26
Speaker 4: driver might have just been the one that he was like, Yeah,
26:29
Speaker 4: that seems like the one that I could get behind
26:32
Speaker 4: the most. But you know, it's hard to really criticize
26:37
Speaker 4: that idea too much, because a lot of people aren't
26:42
Speaker 4: satisfied with their lot in life and the thing that
26:46
Speaker 4: they have been forced into doing for the rest of
26:50
Speaker 4: their life, you know, And like, you know, it sucks
26:54
Speaker 4: that when he's talking about his life's dream, all he
26:57
Speaker 4: can think about is the job that he will have,
27:00
Speaker 4: and you know, maybe that is indicative of some deeper,
27:05
Speaker 4: you know, societal ill but also like, I bet you
27:08
Speaker 4: could have that exact same interview with a lot of
27:12
Speaker 4: working class people around the world.
27:14
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I'm.
27:15
Speaker 2: Sure there are people in North Korea who would answer
27:19
Speaker 2: that question in a way that looks less sad, Like,
27:22
Speaker 2: I'm sure there are people who got the job they
27:24
Speaker 2: fucking wanted, right.
27:26
Speaker 4: And also they're interviewing this guy. He seems very young
27:30
Speaker 4: to have served in the military and then gone to college.
27:33
Speaker 4: He seems like he's maybe twenty or twenty one, and
27:37
Speaker 4: he's like just hanging out at a park with friends,
27:42
Speaker 4: like at a skate park, and the people are rollerblading
27:44
Speaker 4: and skateboarding around, and I'm like, you know, that doesn't
27:47
Speaker 4: seem like a total you know, mind controlled, brainwashed masses.
27:53
Speaker 4: That just seems like a bunch of normal people who
27:55
Speaker 4: are trying to get by in a country that is
27:58
Speaker 4: less than ideal.
28:00
Speaker 3: Yeah, I do.
28:01
Speaker 2: Again, whenever I see that, I'm like, well, what would
28:03
Speaker 2: it look like if the cameras weren't there, Like would
28:05
Speaker 2: those people not just be there enjoying their day? Like, yeah,
28:08
Speaker 2: it seems extreme. They get a little I mean, I
28:11
Speaker 2: don't know. I can't say they're being hypocritical, because this
28:13
Speaker 2: isn't an American making this film, right, but they a Westerner, Yeah,
28:19
Speaker 2: a Westerner, and they they get into some things that
28:22
Speaker 2: are meant to be a slam against North Korea, like how, yes,
28:27
Speaker 2: you get free education, but also that means you get
28:30
Speaker 2: indoctrinated by the government from birth, and what happens here,
28:35
Speaker 2: like we have to pay to get indoctrinated by the
28:38
Speaker 2: government from me exactly, Like I don't think I said
28:41
Speaker 2: the Pledge of Allegiance before class as a child because
28:45
Speaker 2: there was educational value in it.
28:47
Speaker 4: No, that's something that's so fucking creepy and never goes
28:50
Speaker 4: examined in our country. That that is a thing. I
28:53
Speaker 4: gotten detention multiple times because I refuse to stand to
28:58
Speaker 4: say the pledge in height school, Like you get punished
29:02
Speaker 4: for not giving into the state and doctrination in America.
29:06
Speaker 4: Like sure, was it like harsh punishment or whatever, but like,
29:10
Speaker 4: you know, these are not dissimilar phenomena.
29:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, the same thing happens when they start getting into
29:18
Speaker 2: how Kim Jong Ill and North Korea in general use
29:23
Speaker 2: the film industry for propaganda purposes. And it's like, yeah,
29:27
Speaker 2: so do we have you seen the hurt locker? Have
29:30
Speaker 2: you seen Zero Dark? Like the CIA has a Hollywood
29:35
Speaker 2: liaison department. That's not rumor or conjecture. You can just
29:38
Speaker 2: go on the website and find it. Like they have
29:41
Speaker 2: a Hollywood liaison who will sit in and guide you
29:46
Speaker 2: along the filmmaking process to make sure you tell the
29:49
Speaker 2: story and make the CIA look the way they want
29:52
Speaker 2: it all to happen.
29:53
Speaker 4: And look, and there are filmmakers who are able to
29:57
Speaker 4: get in a counter message within that system in America,
30:03
Speaker 4: you know, such as Catherine Bigelow with those films. You know,
30:06
Speaker 4: even though they may have help from the government, they
30:10
Speaker 4: still I think make a claim that the way the
30:14
Speaker 4: military and the CIA operates is unsuccessful. But and we
30:21
Speaker 4: aren't North Korean and we don't speak that North Korean dialect,
30:26
Speaker 4: you know, And so that may be the case within
30:30
Speaker 4: the North Korean film industry. It may not, but regardless,
30:34
Speaker 4: you know, of course their films are advancing their country's agenda.
30:38
Speaker 4: That's what I mean, whether they want to or not. Film,
30:42
Speaker 4: you know, has a political subtext no matter what it is.
30:46
Speaker 4: Take your Marvel movies, Jesus.
30:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, as we were researching this, I found another North
30:53
Speaker 2: Korea documentary that I kind of want to try and
30:56
Speaker 2: track down and cover.
30:57
Speaker 3: Also, sure, but it's from.
30:59
Speaker 2: Nineteen eight and it's a Polish documentary And apparently in
31:06
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty eight, North Korea just let a bunch of
31:09
Speaker 2: filmmakers come in and they were like, someone make a movie,
31:12
Speaker 2: and we'll pick the movie we like, and that's the
31:15
Speaker 2: one that'll go out. And they picked this movie called Deflada,
31:19
Speaker 2: which means the parade in Poland or in Polish. And
31:25
Speaker 2: North Korea ends up like super duper praising this movie,
31:29
Speaker 2: and then slowly they start to realize that this movie
31:33
Speaker 2: was actually very critical of North Korea and of totalitarianism
31:38
Speaker 2: in general, and they eventually made this filmmaker like a like,
31:42
Speaker 2: he's banned from the country now. But when at first like,
31:45
Speaker 2: that's why I'm so fascinated to see it? Yeah, because
31:47
Speaker 2: at first they were like, oh, this is great, thank you, right,
31:50
Speaker 2: and then eventually they were like.
31:51
Speaker 3: Wait right, this isn't nice at all.
31:55
Speaker 1: Yeah.
31:56
Speaker 4: Now I would be very interested to watch the documentary
31:59
Speaker 4: and that film. That would be very fascinating. Yeah, And like,
32:03
Speaker 4: you know, speaking of Hollywood fucking like propaganda, I immediately
32:10
Speaker 4: after watching this documentary last night watched the Seth Rogan
32:17
Speaker 4: James Franco comedy The Interview, which was famously you know,
32:23
Speaker 4: that's the reason why North Korea hacked Sony and released
32:27
Speaker 4: all of Sony's emails. It's just funny, got yeah, it
32:31
Speaker 4: got that film, you know, mostly shut down out of theaters.
32:36
Speaker 4: I'm pretty sure it was mostly released digitally. Yeah, And
32:39
Speaker 4: that movie is propaganda. Like it's kind of funny in points,
32:45
Speaker 4: like it's got a couple Seth Rogan gets a good
32:47
Speaker 4: a couple of good lines, but it is mostly jingoistic
32:51
Speaker 4: and xenophobic and kind of racist in a lot of ways.
32:56
Speaker 4: Seth Rogan and James Straco both do a lot of
32:58
Speaker 4: Asian accents and it sucks. And like that is straight
33:03
Speaker 4: up Hollywood propaganda. That's what that movie is like. And
33:07
Speaker 4: I kind of understand North Korea being pissed off about
33:12
Speaker 4: it because also they kill like their current sitting leader
33:17
Speaker 4: and we got mad about a dumb independent movie about
33:21
Speaker 4: the assassination of George Bush.
33:23
Speaker 2: So yeah, well that was the My one issue with
33:27
Speaker 2: that is he was like, well, there's never been a
33:29
Speaker 2: movie where they depict the murder of a sitting world leader,
33:32
Speaker 2: and it's like, yeah, there was in two thousand and six,
33:35
Speaker 2: the George Bush Movie.
33:36
Speaker 4: But the difference is that it was a small movie.
33:39
Speaker 4: It was not a like that was a tiny independent film,
33:43
Speaker 4: whereas like The Interview was a major Hollywood blockbuster.
33:48
Speaker 2: And the difference also with death of a President, which
33:51
Speaker 2: is what I think the George Bush.
33:52
Speaker 3: Movie was called.
33:53
Speaker 2: The thing about that movie you go into it thinking,
33:57
Speaker 2: like cause I remember watching it when George Bush was
33:59
Speaker 2: in office.
34:00
Speaker 4: Me too, and it was at the theater I worked at.
34:03
Speaker 2: I think a lot of people went into it thinking, oh, man,
34:06
Speaker 2: it's gonna be so cathartic seeing George W.
34:08
Speaker 3: Bush get shot.
34:09
Speaker 2: No, yeah, and then it happens and you're like, oh no,
34:12
Speaker 2: this is so bad, Like I didn't want it to
34:15
Speaker 2: end this way, like this is going to be chaos,
34:17
Speaker 2: so it like it's not the movie I think people
34:20
Speaker 2: thought it was going to be.
34:21
Speaker 3: It's not relishing in George W. Bush dying. It's saying
34:24
Speaker 3: this is not what you want to happen in your country.
34:28
Speaker 4: Right, And it's also like again, it's just not a
34:31
Speaker 4: very comparable example. And I think it's a fair thing
34:34
Speaker 4: for North Korea to be angry about. I don't love that.
34:37
Speaker 4: I mean, it's kind of funny the Sony emails that
34:40
Speaker 4: were released, but like, you know, I think maybe that
34:42
Speaker 4: was an overreaction. But again, they're a country that is
34:46
Speaker 4: constantly threatened and constantly othered by Western society, and so
34:53
Speaker 4: you know, I think they're kind of touchy, and I
34:57
Speaker 4: get it if there's just no co operable example, there's
35:01
Speaker 4: no there's no back, you know, like there's nothing back
35:06
Speaker 4: in America that could happen that would be similar to
35:10
Speaker 4: the interview, you know what I'm saying. Yeah, like there's
35:13
Speaker 4: just no there's nothing that would be as insulting.
35:17
Speaker 2: Right, Well, yeah, because we wouldn't show it in our
35:18
Speaker 2: theaters for one thing, one thing made by the country,
35:22
Speaker 2: get into our market for it the matter.
35:24
Speaker 4: Yeah.
35:26
Speaker 2: I found the part where they talk about juice very interesting.
35:30
Speaker 2: That is a word that describes I call it North
35:34
Speaker 2: Korea's swagger. Like it's how they describe their attitude toward life, right,
35:41
Speaker 2: And it's this really interesting section where they talk about
35:44
Speaker 2: how no one understands what it means, and because no
35:47
Speaker 2: one understands it, no one's going to protest against it, right,
35:51
Speaker 2: and no one can explain it.
35:54
Speaker 3: And then they explain it in like two sentences.
35:56
Speaker 4: Well they don't though. That's the thing about their explanations
36:01
Speaker 4: of it is that it doesn't really it's it's vague.
36:05
Speaker 4: It's vague, you know, aphorisms, it's kind of you know,
36:09
Speaker 4: it's kind of like the game, you know that that
36:11
Speaker 4: artist book.
36:12
Speaker 3: That's the thing.
36:13
Speaker 2: It's the secret. It's it's a secret, the science of
36:16
Speaker 2: getting rich. This is the quote. Man is the master
36:19
Speaker 2: of everything and decides everything. Man is the master of
36:22
Speaker 2: the world and his own destiny, and is the transformer
36:24
Speaker 2: of the world and the shaper of his destiny. That
36:28
Speaker 2: is just the science of getting rich.
36:30
Speaker 3: That's all it is.
36:31
Speaker 4: Yeah, And like but again I mean seeing with the
36:34
Speaker 4: science of getting rich or the secret, those things don't
36:37
Speaker 4: really mean anything. They mean whatever the person is saying
36:42
Speaker 4: them wants it to mean, which is kind of what
36:44
Speaker 4: they're getting at with the if no one can understand it,
36:47
Speaker 4: no one will protest it thing, Like there's not really
36:50
Speaker 4: anything to protest there because there's no substance to those statements. Yeah,
36:55
Speaker 4: but like again, you know, like I hate to be
36:59
Speaker 4: well blah blah this and that, like you know, point
37:05
Speaker 4: one finger and you know it's coming right back at you. Like,
37:09
Speaker 4: obviously there are problems with North Korean society, but like
37:13
Speaker 4: there's a lot of fucking lunatic nationalist like slogans that
37:20
Speaker 4: Americans believe without question. Take it back, things like you know,
37:25
Speaker 4: I mean just the the statement, well, America is the
37:29
Speaker 4: greatest country in the world. That is a mainstream thought
37:33
Speaker 4: within America. Like that is just the thing that the
37:36
Speaker 4: casual person doesn't even question during the day. It's just like, well,
37:40
Speaker 4: I mean, obviously America is the greatest country in the world.
37:42
Speaker 4: You know, even if that's followed by a but yeah,
37:45
Speaker 4: like it that's that is the same kind of indoctrination
37:49
Speaker 4: that we're talking about with Juge or any of these
37:54
Speaker 4: North Korean propagandas.
37:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's absolutely propaganda. God bless America is propag Yes,
38:00
Speaker 2: Like why is God singling out America?
38:02
Speaker 3: I bet that again.
38:04
Speaker 4: Yeah, and not to even like not to keep harping
38:07
Speaker 4: on the pledge of allegiance, but the pledge of allegiance
38:10
Speaker 4: is fucking creepy. Yeah, it's creepy as fuck if you
38:14
Speaker 4: ever fucking listen to what it's actually saying, Like you're
38:18
Speaker 4: pledging allegiance to the flag, like you're pledging Like I
38:22
Speaker 4: think that pledging allegiance seems to be kind of counter
38:26
Speaker 4: to the whole oh, freedom and justice for all things
38:29
Speaker 4: of America. But maybe that's just me.
38:32
Speaker 3: And it's absolutely indoctrination, Like it's absolutely.
38:36
Speaker 4: Yes, and it's just that again, And this is a
38:39
Speaker 4: I mentioned earlier. North Korea is just kind of more
38:43
Speaker 4: They just take it to the logical extremes of what
38:47
Speaker 4: American ideology does. Like it's just all out in the open,
38:52
Speaker 4: and they're not really hiding their more extreme views behind
38:58
Speaker 4: like double speak the way we do here.
39:01
Speaker 2: So then the documentary gets into all of those wild
39:05
Speaker 2: stories that we hear about North Korea, like killing people
39:10
Speaker 2: with tank rounds to the chest and discovering unicorns and shit, all.
39:14
Speaker 4: Of which again most of these clips keep coming from
39:18
Speaker 4: Fox News, which I find interest Yeah, because I think
39:21
Speaker 4: that is a good counterpoint as far as a national
39:25
Speaker 4: propaganda arm goes like they are, they are doing the
39:30
Speaker 4: exact same thing that you know, these North Korean news
39:33
Speaker 4: anchors that we see throughout the clip do like it's
39:37
Speaker 4: the same show, it's just a different language.
39:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you see it all over the media, like
39:42
Speaker 2: Fox News isn't totally guilty alone in that.
39:45
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, I'm just singling them out as the again,
39:48
Speaker 4: the most outre kind of yeah version of it.
39:52
Speaker 3: Yeah.
39:53
Speaker 2: Alejandro pops up in Yeah, this part where they're talking
39:56
Speaker 2: about these wild stories about North Korea, and his quote
39:59
Speaker 2: is we are.
40:00
Speaker 3: In a propaganda war.
40:02
Speaker 2: And he's right because a lot of what happens in
40:05
Speaker 2: North inside North Korea is again we see him going
40:08
Speaker 2: to schools and being like, you would not believe how
40:11
Speaker 2: much the rest of the world loves us.
40:12
Speaker 4: Yes, Yeah, and it's funny, which is funny to see
40:16
Speaker 4: objectively as a as a West Center and as someone
40:19
Speaker 4: who lives in outside of North Korea. It's funny to
40:23
Speaker 4: see a man, a grown man, just regaling these children
40:28
Speaker 4: with ideas that everybody in the world, you know, has
40:33
Speaker 4: these specific feelings of love towards North Korea society, but
40:39
Speaker 4: also that's how American children are taught about how people
40:44
Speaker 4: feel about That's how American adults are taught about how
40:48
Speaker 4: like think about the fucking Iraq War. They'll greet us
40:52
Speaker 4: with as liberators, you know, all of that shit like
40:56
Speaker 4: that was the talking point of the Iraq War invasion.
41:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I have no doubt that a lot of
41:03
Speaker 2: these stories that come out of North Korea are not true.
41:07
Speaker 2: The one they bring up in particular is this story
41:10
Speaker 2: about how Kim Jong un killed his uncle, who was
41:15
Speaker 2: a member of the government right and killed him using
41:20
Speaker 2: a pack of dogs, the pack of wild dogs. And
41:24
Speaker 2: it's like, well, if he was controlling them as a
41:27
Speaker 2: pack and sicking them on people, they're not wild. They're
41:29
Speaker 2: just a pair of dogs who are under a person's control,
41:32
Speaker 2: which is the opposite of wild. But also it seems
41:35
Speaker 2: like that story originated with a Chinese blogger y like satire.
41:39
Speaker 2: And again, like I was saying about the CIA sending
41:42
Speaker 2: these stories that they gather out into the world, this
41:46
Speaker 2: is an example of it. Of I mean not saying
41:48
Speaker 2: the CIA is responsible for spreading this, but probably.
41:52
Speaker 4: I mean, well no, but also the Chinese government has
41:54
Speaker 4: just as much of an incentive just spread similar remembers,
41:57
Speaker 4: as does so many That's the thing with a lot
42:00
Speaker 4: of the North Korea stuff. We can't just pin it
42:02
Speaker 4: on the CIA, because there are global interests in keeping
42:06
Speaker 4: North Korea as a weirdo rogue state that no one
42:12
Speaker 4: can control.
42:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they bring up defectors, and yeah, that is
42:17
Speaker 2: also a thing that comes up in the CIA and
42:19
Speaker 2: the Cult of Intelligence. The CIA's way into defectors, or
42:23
Speaker 2: at least they very much were during the Cold War,
42:25
Speaker 2: probably still now because if you're talking about a country
42:28
Speaker 2: like North Korea that we don't have a lot of
42:31
Speaker 2: access to. That's one of the funniest things in that
42:34
Speaker 2: CIA in the Cult of Intelligence book is they make
42:38
Speaker 2: it really clear that at least in the sixties and seventies,
42:41
Speaker 2: we were bad at spying, like we could not get
42:44
Speaker 2: inside Russia, we could not get inside China, like we
42:48
Speaker 2: just had to hope someone would leave and tell us
42:51
Speaker 2: what was going on in there. And even then the
42:54
Speaker 2: CIA especially got so bad at in person spying and
42:58
Speaker 2: flipping people.
43:00
Speaker 3: Point a defector.
43:01
Speaker 2: Leaves Russia and just walks into the CIA's office at
43:05
Speaker 2: some point and is like, Hey, I'm here to defect,
43:08
Speaker 2: and they're like, we think you're playing a trick on us.
43:10
Speaker 3: Get out of here.
43:11
Speaker 2: And then they eventually defect to m I six and
43:14
Speaker 2: m I six was like, Okay, this works, and that's
43:17
Speaker 2: how they got all the information from the guy because
43:19
Speaker 2: we were we were bad at it, but it was
43:22
Speaker 2: also a thing we took a lot of interest in.
43:24
Speaker 2: Whenever someone would defect, the CIA would basically intercept that
43:28
Speaker 2: person and one would you know, interview them, try to
43:32
Speaker 2: get whatever information they could get, but also help them
43:35
Speaker 2: write memoirs because they wanted someone from inside that country
43:39
Speaker 2: to come to the United States and write a book
43:41
Speaker 2: about how terrible this fucking country was. And sometimes those
43:45
Speaker 2: people would kind of make up their accounts of things and.
43:50
Speaker 3: The story later. And I mean that definitely still happens.
43:54
Speaker 3: I'm sure, yeah.
43:55
Speaker 4: I mean, look like there are a couple of defectors
44:00
Speaker 4: who are featured throughout giving interviews separate. I believe. It
44:03
Speaker 4: seems like they're like stock footage interviews not made for
44:08
Speaker 4: the documentary with I believe. Their names were Shindong Hook
44:13
Speaker 4: I'm sorry, I don't speak Korean, and Amyong Chul, both
44:18
Speaker 4: of whom give very moving testimonies about their time in
44:22
Speaker 4: North Korea, and I am not of the mind to
44:24
Speaker 4: necessarily doubt what they say, and I'm sure they are
44:28
Speaker 4: accurate to their experiences in the country, but I think
44:32
Speaker 4: it's also dangerous to paint the entire country, and this
44:38
Speaker 4: is how the West often operates. I don't think it's
44:42
Speaker 4: fair to paint the entire country based on the testimony
44:46
Speaker 4: of defectors like this, but I also don't think it's
44:50
Speaker 4: fair to discount their stories entirely. It's again the thing
44:54
Speaker 4: about North Korea that is that it's extremely complicated. Everything
44:58
Speaker 4: about it is super complicated, and the West has just
45:02
Speaker 4: simplified it into this is a crazy place where people
45:06
Speaker 4: are tortured and murdered in the street and awful things
45:09
Speaker 4: happen all the time, when it's actually a place that
45:13
Speaker 4: people have to live and that life happens in and
45:16
Speaker 4: we can't discount that.
45:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, like under any dictatorship or any regime like that,
45:22
Speaker 2: life does go on. There's still sports and movies, and
45:25
Speaker 2: you go to stores and you can go eat at
45:26
Speaker 2: restaurants like right. What is pretty clear in this documentary
45:30
Speaker 2: is that, I mean it's called the propaganda game because,
45:32
Speaker 2: as Alexandra said, they're in a propaganda war in this.
45:35
Speaker 3: Right, it works both ways.
45:38
Speaker 2: Obviously, North Korea is gonna when someone defects, they're going
45:41
Speaker 2: to be like, well, yeah, but the US is just
45:44
Speaker 2: they're influencing their story. But it's like, all right, but
45:46
Speaker 2: they also defected, dude, Mike, what did they like? We've
45:50
Speaker 2: seen videos of people trying to cross the DMZ and
45:53
Speaker 2: getting shot at. Sure are those deep fakes or is
45:58
Speaker 2: it really like that trying to get out of North Korea?
46:01
Speaker 2: And it seems like it is. It is so, and
46:04
Speaker 2: it's a thing that goes both ways. And I don't
46:06
Speaker 2: think Americans take that into account. I think we just
46:10
Speaker 2: assume that we always tell the truth about the evil people.
46:13
Speaker 4: I do think it's interesting when it comes to the
46:15
Speaker 4: people being shot at the DMZ. Thing is, you know,
46:20
Speaker 4: the way that those can be a lot more gray
46:24
Speaker 4: than the black and white that they appear to be,
46:27
Speaker 4: is that by the very nature of the DMZ, it
46:30
Speaker 4: could also be the South or an American troop killing
46:35
Speaker 4: these people crossing the DMZ, because that is the nature
46:39
Speaker 4: of the DMZ, is that that is a place that
46:41
Speaker 4: you don't cross unless you have authorization.
46:44
Speaker 2: And so I don't know, they bring up in the
46:46
Speaker 2: documentary What an ironically named Place. Yeah, it is the
46:50
Speaker 2: most militarized zone on the planet.
46:53
Speaker 5: Well because it's okay, but it's referring to the space between,
46:58
Speaker 5: so there are it's very vermilitarized on the borders of
47:01
Speaker 5: the DMZ, but in between, it's actually a no man's land,
47:05
Speaker 5: and that is actually where there is no military presence.
47:08
Speaker 2: Fine, Yeah, Alejandro is on some shit when he starts
47:14
Speaker 2: talking about how North Korea is not ruled by a dictator.
47:17
Speaker 2: It's like, man, North Korea has been ruled by the
47:20
Speaker 2: same family since before my mom was born. Like, who
47:22
Speaker 2: did Kim Jong own defeat in the last election. It's
47:24
Speaker 2: a fucking dictatorship. Get out of here.
47:26
Speaker 4: Absolutely. I think that is a thing that they should
47:29
Speaker 4: just own and yeah, try to normalize as this is
47:33
Speaker 4: our society.
47:33
Speaker 2: This is and I think what Americans will never take
47:37
Speaker 2: into account is sometimes people want to fucking dictator.
47:40
Speaker 3: Yeah.
47:41
Speaker 4: I mean whether or not that is a healthy desire, right,
47:45
Speaker 4: you know, which is its own conversation. Absolutely, the people
47:49
Speaker 4: of North Korea clearly have genuine whether indoctrinate it or not,
47:56
Speaker 4: they clearly have genuine love and affection for all three
48:01
Speaker 4: of their great leaders of the.
48:04
Speaker 2: Past, and they make such a big deal about people
48:07
Speaker 2: being forced to cry, like when Kim Jong ill died,
48:12
Speaker 2: and it's like people in England weep when their fake
48:16
Speaker 2: royal family dies.
48:17
Speaker 4: Exactly.
48:18
Speaker 2: How is that any different? What do you shit on
48:21
Speaker 2: North Koreans for weeping for their president for like.
48:25
Speaker 4: People cried about fucking Ronald Reagan. Yeah, like people cry
48:29
Speaker 4: about the people, whether again, whether healthy or not. People
48:34
Speaker 4: around the world invest pieces of themselves into their world leaders.
48:41
Speaker 4: And while I find that personally disturbing and abhortant and
48:46
Speaker 4: not something that I am capable of doing, it's a
48:50
Speaker 4: fact of life around the world. And to just criticize
48:54
Speaker 4: North Korea because of that, and to claim that they
48:58
Speaker 4: are faking it, to read all of these nefarious intents
49:03
Speaker 4: into those sorts of things, is again total orientalism, total
49:08
Speaker 4: alienating these people who are just human beings like the
49:11
Speaker 4: rest of us.
49:12
Speaker 3: What do you think about the church scene?
49:14
Speaker 4: Creepy? I thought it was creepy.
49:15
Speaker 2: The church scene was weird. On the one hand, there
49:18
Speaker 2: are people there practicing religion.
49:20
Speaker 3: But sure, I don't know, Like one thing.
49:23
Speaker 2: I've always heard about a regime like this is there's
49:27
Speaker 2: not really room to worship someone else.
49:30
Speaker 4: No, I look as a Westerner, I have no way
49:35
Speaker 4: to comment on whether or not any form of Christianity
49:38
Speaker 4: is allowed to be practiced within North Korea. I can
49:42
Speaker 4: only go based on what they are telling me in there,
49:45
Speaker 4: and also the fact that they you know, they tend
49:48
Speaker 4: to imprison missionaries, but also like a lot of countries
49:52
Speaker 4: do that because missionaries are often agents of chaos within
49:56
Speaker 4: the country. But like, this church scene was very it
50:02
Speaker 4: just felt stage. I can't help it. It just felt staged.
50:06
Speaker 4: Everything about it felt off enough that I could tell
50:10
Speaker 4: that they're just I don't know, but maybe this is
50:13
Speaker 4: just me, this is just my Western chauvinism showing.
50:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it did sound like they'd been practicing that song.
50:20
Speaker 2: They were saying, yeah, whole lot.
50:21
Speaker 4: And he comments on the fact that they're all really
50:23
Speaker 4: good singers and that there was no priest and so
50:28
Speaker 4: they did not have a Eucharist and could not perform communion,
50:33
Speaker 4: which is whatever. I'm not Catholic. I don't know the
50:36
Speaker 4: protocol when a priest isn't available, I don't know, but
50:40
Speaker 4: like that's a coincidence. I would say that the priest
50:42
Speaker 4: just happened to not be available on the day that
50:45
Speaker 4: they went and showed it. But also the church was
50:48
Speaker 4: very plain for a Catholic church. There was no real
50:53
Speaker 4: Christian iconography that I could see except for a picture
50:56
Speaker 4: of maybe Jesus and a baby and that's it. And
51:00
Speaker 4: I don't know a look. And like I said, I
51:03
Speaker 4: think they were on in extremely guided to her making
51:07
Speaker 4: this documentary. And I'm sure that at least a percentage
51:11
Speaker 4: of the things that they were shown were fake, even
51:15
Speaker 4: if I think they got some very real, candid footage.
51:18
Speaker 4: And I think that this is one of the things
51:20
Speaker 4: that was faked.
51:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, because the documentary very rightfully after this moment gets
51:25
Speaker 2: into the story of Kenneth Bay. Right, Alejandro goes on
51:30
Speaker 2: this huge rant about how they're never going to release
51:32
Speaker 2: Kenneth Bay and then he gets released like a couple
51:34
Speaker 2: months later. But if religion is so allowed in the country,
51:38
Speaker 2: why did Kenneth Bay get arrested for bringing Bibles into
51:42
Speaker 2: North right Korea? Which here's the thing though, whenever I
51:46
Speaker 2: don't know, I'm always suspicious when someone gets arrested in
51:51
Speaker 2: another country and accused of being a spy, because nine
51:54
Speaker 2: times out of ten, I'm like, right, it's probably because
51:56
Speaker 2: they're a spy. Like, yeah, please know that if you've
52:00
Speaker 2: ever been allowed into North Korea, I do not trust you.
52:03
Speaker 3: I assume you are government of some sort.
52:07
Speaker 4: I mean, I guess, but like I don't know. I
52:09
Speaker 4: basically trust, like well, trust is a strong word, but
52:13
Speaker 4: I believe Alvaro Longoria, the director of this film.
52:17
Speaker 3: Okay, let me backtrack.
52:18
Speaker 2: If you are an American who is allowed into North Korea,
52:23
Speaker 2: please understand, Dennis Rodman, I think you're working for the government.
52:27
Speaker 4: Now, wow, wow, Okay, I didn't know that.
52:29
Speaker 2: I did a video at Cracked about how Dennis Rodman
52:32
Speaker 2: is clearly a government agent, like he's getting too much
52:35
Speaker 2: access in North Korea.
52:37
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, look, maybe and maybe, like maybe he's
52:41
Speaker 4: like Alejandro, just a convenient fool who wants a good time.
52:46
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, No, I'm not saying he's necessarily there for
52:49
Speaker 2: nefarious reasons. But if you're being allowed into North Korea,
52:52
Speaker 2: someone's using you for.
52:54
Speaker 4: Reason for sure, Like definitely, an American in North Korea
52:58
Speaker 4: is super suspicious. Sure is because they don't like us,
53:03
Speaker 4: and you know, they mostly have pretty good reasons for
53:06
Speaker 4: not liking us.
53:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, so the last thing they talk about and I
53:10
Speaker 2: think it's really interesting is the idea that a crazy
53:15
Speaker 2: North Korea actually benefits most involved parties. Korean unification would
53:22
Speaker 2: maybe benefit the United States a little bit, maybe China,
53:27
Speaker 2: depending on how things shake out, it's going to be
53:29
Speaker 2: one or the other. But as they explain in the documentary,
53:33
Speaker 2: China doesn't necessarily want that because they like having that
53:36
Speaker 2: communist buffer right there on their border. The US wants
53:41
Speaker 2: to still be able to sell weapons to people to
53:44
Speaker 2: protect them from North Korea, like the surrounding countries that
53:47
Speaker 2: we consider allies, right, and Russia thinks a unified Korea
53:52
Speaker 2: would strengthen America's position on the world stage.
53:57
Speaker 4: And South Korea doesn't want a unified because they'll be
54:01
Speaker 4: the ones who have to pay for it and it
54:02
Speaker 4: will cost a fuck ton of money.
54:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, So it seems like the only people who might
54:08
Speaker 2: want the North Korean government toppled for real are the
54:11
Speaker 2: people of North Korea. Maybe maybe those I'm sure those
54:16
Speaker 2: people exit, Like every government has people that want topple
54:18
Speaker 2: it exactly.
54:20
Speaker 4: That's just a they will someday.
54:22
Speaker 3: Normal part of society. People just agree with your government.
54:25
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I think the fact that it like the
54:29
Speaker 4: no one seems to think that that is a like
54:32
Speaker 4: the regime being toppled from within is a possibility, which
54:36
Speaker 4: I think is an example of Western infantilization of Eastern countries.
54:43
Speaker 4: Like they just don't think that it's possible that these
54:47
Speaker 4: babies will be able to stop suckling at the teat
54:51
Speaker 4: of they're a great leader. Yeah, and I think that
54:55
Speaker 4: that is a really disgusting way to view them. They're
54:59
Speaker 4: human being, and if enough of them are fed up
55:03
Speaker 4: enough with how they're being treated, then that there will
55:07
Speaker 4: be an uprising someday.
55:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's usually how it happens, either that or will
55:11
Speaker 2: figure out a way to cause it like that.
55:13
Speaker 3: Maybe that's also how it happens.
55:16
Speaker 4: Yes, that's also how it happens. I don't know, man,
55:18
Speaker 4: but I do just know that I think North Korea
55:21
Speaker 4: is an extreme, like I've said, an extremely fascinating country.
55:24
Speaker 4: Maybe it's in the running for most interesting nation on
55:29
Speaker 4: the planet just from us for sure.
55:31
Speaker 3: Yeah, just from.
55:32
Speaker 4: An anthropological standpoint in the history of the world, there's
55:36
Speaker 4: never really been a place like that. Yeah, it's I
55:42
Speaker 4: don't know, it's just so fascinating and it's such an
55:44
Speaker 4: interesting mirror to America. And to how America sees itself
55:51
Speaker 4: on the world stage, which is why I think they
55:55
Speaker 4: that we have, or at least our propaganda apparatus, has
56:00
Speaker 4: an instinctual, discussed reaction to them, because you know, they're
56:06
Speaker 4: kind of like a little cartoon America in a lot
56:10
Speaker 4: of ways, Like they're candy colored, and they are you know,
56:15
Speaker 4: they love their right, they love their military, they're and
56:19
Speaker 4: they're not hiding the things that they are indoctrinating people
56:25
Speaker 4: with in the way that we hide behind hide our ideology,
56:31
Speaker 4: and I think we find that repellent. And I think that,
56:35
Speaker 4: you know, I just think this is a good documentary,
56:38
Speaker 4: like I said earlier, if you want to just broaden
56:41
Speaker 4: your perspective on North Korea and start to get into
56:45
Speaker 4: how it is not the boogeyman of the world that
56:48
Speaker 4: you might think it is, and how there are actually
56:51
Speaker 4: real human beings who live, real human lives in this country.
56:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's an interesting documentary. We'll link to where you
56:58
Speaker 2: can watch it in the show notes. You can still
57:01
Speaker 2: buy copies of it on DVD, but you have to
57:04
Speaker 2: have the right DVD player to play them, or you
57:06
Speaker 2: just have to know how to change that setting in
57:09
Speaker 2: DVD which isn't impossible.
57:11
Speaker 4: Well, in your PlayStations are all region free, which is
57:14
Speaker 4: something I've always liked.
57:15
Speaker 3: That is nice.
57:17
Speaker 2: So yeah, I think that's our episode. Yeah, people watch
57:20
Speaker 2: this documentary and decide for yourself. It's an interesting one.
57:23
Speaker 4: It is.
57:23
Speaker 3: Do we have anything to plug before we get out
57:26
Speaker 3: of here?
57:27
Speaker 4: Yeah? I want to plug no war in the Ukraine,
57:33
Speaker 4: no American military intervention in the Ukraine. I think that
57:37
Speaker 4: would be the downfall of our society. And then you
57:42
Speaker 4: can also follow me on Twitter and leatherbox.
57:45
Speaker 3: That either while Twitter still exists.
57:49
Speaker 4: While it still exists and isn't pumping talk about a
57:52
Speaker 4: propaganda game?
57:53
Speaker 2: Oh right, Uh, you can follow me on Twitter and
57:57
Speaker 2: Instagram at Adam Todd Brown. It's Todd with one D.
58:00
Speaker 2: So follow the show at Conspira Pops on Twitter and Instagram.
58:04
Speaker 2: I don't update that Instagram as much as I should,
58:06
Speaker 2: but I'll get around to it, don't worry about it.
58:09
Speaker 2: And bonus episodes at Patreon dot com, slash on Pops
58:13
Speaker 2: and Popsnetwork dot Supercast dot or right there in your
58:17
Speaker 2: Spotify app and in your Apple podcast app soon. So
58:21
Speaker 2: uh hell yeah, do all that get bonus episodes? Hear
58:24
Speaker 2: us talk about Jesse Ventura and things like that, and
58:28
Speaker 2: I think that's it.
58:29
Speaker 3: Let's get out of here. Olivia say goodbye, bye, goodbye everybody.
58:33
Speaker 3: We love you.