• Cartoon and Animation Studies
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• s.47
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• pp.81-101
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• 2017

The present study argues that film director Lee Ae-rim animation works depict the world of the grotesque and not only are important sociocultural phenomena but also hold the significance of humor and subversion. The grotesque exhibits the intriguing characteristics of expressing a perspective critical of the existing society through the sensibilities of minorities and is used broadly as a term not only in the aesthetic sense but also designating sociocultural phenomena. Although discussed separately in terms of Mikhail Bakhtin's carnival grotesque and Mary Russo's uncanny grotesque, the grotesque fundamentally rejects existing order and conventions and is externalized through unique expressions, thus opening up a rich possibility for rejection, humor, satire, transformation, and deconstruction of and regarding the authority of the mainstream. Although they constitute a fictional medium, animation films are social products as well so that they are affected by society, culture, and history and stand as important texts that must be interpreted in terms of the relationships between humans' instinctive desires and society and between the overall culture and artistic media. However, the rarity of grotesque portrayals in South Korean animation films also proves that it is a society where even problems that are in themselves sensitive must be manifested ingeniously on a conventional level. South Korean society has a unique history of colonialism and national division and is simultaneously in the unique situation of a society that has undergone growth at a nearly unprecedented rate. Consequently, the society exhibits closed yet dynamic particularity where everyday tension and rigidity, wariness of others and extreme competition are intertwined in a complex manner. Intensively analyzed in the present discussions, director Lee's animation films and are characterized mainly by grotesque images, nonlinear narratives, and vivid depictions. In such a context, these works not only are artistic products of South Korean society but also rejections of a rigid society and share the significance of the aesthetics of the carnival grotesque, which consists of subversive expressions directed at a new world.