ABL added the term ‘dorama’ to its vocabulary and its definition caused debate among fans of Asian productions
Last Tuesday, the 24th, the Brazilian Academy of Letters (ABL) announced that the term “dorama” had been added to its official vocabulary. This is due to the increase in the use of the word in the national territory, since several productions coming mainly from Japan and South Korea are winning over the Brazilian public through streaming.
In addition to announcing this addition, ABL has already released its definition for the term, which is:
Audiovisual work of fiction in series format, produced in East and Southeast Asia, of different genres and themes, generally with a local cast and in the language of the country of origin”.
Despite having positive comments in the publication about the addition of the word, there are also some who questioned the definition given by the ABL. This is because, in this sense, the divisions that exist between these Asian productions, such as k-dramas, made in South Korea, and c-dramas, produced in China, become subcategories of the drama sector, which is not the reality.
There is a big discussion about what to title series and soap operas coming from Asian countries. The term drama should be used exclusively to refer to Japanese productions, but it became very popular in the Western world as a definition for any production coming from East Asia.
What few know is that this generalization brings to light, at least for South Koreans, problems that have not yet been fully resolved with the Japanese. This is because Japan occupied Korea between 1910 and 1945, when it was still unified. According to records from the time, the Japanese regime in the territory had a lot of violence and cultural repression. Everything that was original to Korea was banned, including names, art and the language itself.
Thus, when there is a generalization between current productions, even if they have similar characteristics, there is this feeling on the part of South Koreans that they are once again losing their identities.
It is worth mentioning that K-dramas and soap operas and series coming from other countries in East and Southeast Asia emerged, historically, due to the influence of dramas from the 1950s.
In its post, ABL itself highlights that over the years, productions gained their own cultural marks, according to their country of origin, which also didn’t please internet users very much.
Source: Recreio
