hankyoreh

Nam Ji-en　

“That puts it on the society page instead of the culture page, doesn’t it?”

This was the quick reply delivered at the scene of a “Gag Concert” taping in late 2010 by 32-year-old Jang Dong-hyeok after an interview request describing him as a “leading figure in current events comedy for 2010.” Jang unwittingly found himself the focus of social attention last year, including protests from conservative groups, over his “Big Brother Dong-hyeok” character, who speaks refreshingly on absurdities of society and culture.

“That is why I did not do interviews for a while,” Jang said. “And I rejected some because I did not want my management company to get caught up in a controversy. Now I have changed companies, and it has been two months since I stopped doing that character, so there is no reason I cannot do it.”

When the Hankyoreh met Jang again on Jan. 5, he was so verbose that it was hard to imagine that he had kept it all in for so long. He spoke freely about the issue people were most curious about, namely the situation at the time. Alongside Park Sung-kwang, who popularized the expression “this dirty world where they only remember first place,” Big Brother Dong-hyeok was on everyone’s lips with his acerbic quips about social issues ranging from the furor over Seoul City and the Korea Food and Drug Administration’s announcement of heavy metal-contaminated octopus to corruption among government employees. While current events comedy has always existed, the criticism from conservative groups was especially fierce last year, with Citizens’ Solidarity for Media Reform making accusations of “populism.”

“At the time, I was just standing still and everything was going crazy around me,” he said with a laugh.

“It was not so much that I was upset. It was more of a ‘what are they talking about?’ reaction. It was the first time I had ever heard the word ‘populism.’ Comedy is just comedy. They are responding with that kind of thing?” Jang laughed.

“After ‘The World Makes Me Sad’ finished, I was asked a lot about whether there had been any outside pressure. There wasn’t anything like that, but I was somewhat careful, not saying some things out of fear that it might hurt ‘Gag Concert.’ But there is no reason you cannot do current events comedy in the Republic of Korea.”

At the same time, Jang also said it was burdensome to see Big Brother Dong-hyeok elevated to the status of a “gag world Joan of Arc.”

While current events are a frequent subject for comedy, the Jang Dong-hyeok style of current events comedy is different in that it offers plain-spoken criticism and presents an alternative at the same time. It scratches an itch by singling out particular issues that viewers actually sympathize with and worry about in their daily lives rather than tackling politics or society as a whole.

This is the product of research by Jang, who said, “I prefer hearing that my jokes are ‘refreshing’ to hearing that they are ‘funny.’”

“I always read and compare newspapers from different political slants, and I choose things the viewer is likely to sympathize with from among fact-centered articles. I have also done some investigation myself on areas that I did not really know about or that different newspapers represented differently.”

“When I dealt with unregistered taxi drivers, I asked a police officer all about it. After spending close to a year studying and investigating like that, I saw that newspapers got the facts wrong, too,” he recounted with a laugh.

After saying goodbye to Big Brother Dong-hyeok, Jang is now appearing alongside Lee Su-geun as an anchor on the “Nine-ish News.” There, he serves a mediator connecting reporters like Kim Won-hyo and Lee Gwang-seop, generating current affairs jokes in the process. Another segment, “The Interviewer from Hell,” subtly twists an interviewing environment focused on physical appearance and academic cliques. The “Norma Jean” segment, which made him into a star within three years of his 2003 debut, showed all the aggravations of using products, with an emphasis on sympathy and laugh-out-loud humor.

Jang is known as a smart gagster whose jokes use words rather than physical humor.

“At first, I was just making people laugh in order to get my face out there, with characters like the black bean noodle delivery boy ‘Jjaru Jjaru,’ but now I sense that language-based humor is suited to me. The other comedians get quiet when they go home, but I am even noisier at home.”

Jang said that becoming a comedian was never his dream as a child. Instead, he said, he simply hated putting on a necktie and heading to work at the same time every day. During his military service period, he was debating what to do when he heard his friends talk about how funny he was and decided to try out to become a comedian.

“Originally, I studied to become a bartender, but after taking the ‘gagster test,’ it was all I could think about. It was like a drug addiction.”

Also a help was his wide range of experiences prior to becoming a comedian, including part-time work at a beer and chicken restaurant and as a salesman of English study materials. But after “Norma Jean,” it took two years for “Big Brother Dong-hyeok” to emerge, and viewers will have to wait longer to see the next character who will follow upon his popularity.

“For comedians, it is hard to start over when a segment ends, but I also enjoyed the process,” Jang said.

“I want to be a comedian with longevity, someone who keeps moving slowly up and own with dreaming of making a big smash.”

Please direct questions or comments to [englishhani@hani.co.kr]