SEOUL, South Korea — South Korean actor Lee Sun-kyun, famed for his function in smash-hit film “Parasite,” however lately hit by drug allegations, died Wednesday in an obvious suicide.
In a rustic the place high-profile suicides have made world headlines lately, the 48-year-old actor’s demise prompted instant nationwide media consideration.
South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency reported that Mr. Lee was discovered useless by police in his automobile at a mountainside park in Seoul. A charcoal heating briquette – a typical instrument for Korean suicides, through carbon monoxide poisoning – was discovered within the car.
The improvement got here within the wake of native information reviews that Mr. Lee had been grilled by police throughout the Christmas weekend over alleged drug use. He reportedly requested a lie detector throughout the questioning. His drug exams proved unfavourable.
Per reviews, Mr. Lee mentioned he had been tricked into taking medicine by a bar hostess in Seoul’s Gangnam space, then blackmailed.
Mr. Lee gained appearing fame with a breakthrough function within the 2007 South Korean tv drama sequence “Behind the White Tower.” He later catapulted to world fame along with his function as the rich household patriarch within the 2019 black comedy “Parasite.”
The South Korean movie’s tackle middle-class angst captured the world’s pre-COVID zeitgeist. In 2020, it turned the primary foreign-language movie to win the best-picture Oscar in Hollywood.
The peculiarities of Mr. Lee’s case elevate questions for household, pals and the authorities. The miserable frequency of suicides in South Korea – broadly considered as one of many world’s most profitable nations – is a supply of deep hand-wringing for the nation’s wider society.
South Korean self killings
South Korea suffers the very best per capita suicide fee within the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), a global discussion board of 37 democracies with market-based economies all over the world.
The South Korean fee of 24.1 per 100,000 individuals is greater than double the OECD common of 9.7 per 100,000. While the aged are most in danger, suicides of high-profile people are recognized to make headlines, and Korea observers see a number of components at play.
Over the previous half-century, South Korea has achieved middle-class prosperity and full democracy. National behaviors, aspirations and values are largely in sync with these of the West.
But with a conventional background in communal, fairly than individualistic, traditions, South Korean social tradition manifests in intense peer pressures. Some analysts say suicide is seen as an escape from disgrace or as a option to protest allegations of dangerous habits.
Particularly in danger are entertainers, who’re anticipated to be squeaky clear. Mortalities amongst this phase embrace vastly in style actress Choi Jin-sil who died by suicide in 2008, and Kim Jong-hyun, a vocalist of the South Korean boy band Shinhee, who died by suicide in 2017.
Under the pores and skin
Outside observers typically contend that conformity is an in-built a part of South Korean society.
“The term in Korean for the public gaze is, ‘in other people’s eyes,’” mentioned David Tizzard, who teaches Korean Studies at Seoul Women’s University. “When you do the recycling, you are being watched, so you do it properly; when you go out, you dress up, as you are being seen.”
When Mr. Tizzard’s overseas college students complain that they’re being stared at in public, he advises them that they don’t seem to be alone: “That’s the way it is here.”
Celebrities are held to particularly excessive requirements.
Take BTS. One purpose for the boy band’s world success is their vanilla picture as well-behaved lads – very completely different from the “sex, drugs and rock and roll” life-style pursued by many Western contemporaries.
“Celebrity expectations in Korea are very different than in Western countries,” mentioned Michael Breen, Seoul-based writer of “The New Koreans.”
“We almost admire people who behave badly and whose lives are a mess and then there is a redemption story,” mentioned Mr. Breen. “But in Korea, there is no admiration for someone who behaves badly.”
Attitudes towards medicine are unforgiving. In Western well being techniques habit is broadly seen as a well being or psychological well being situation, and handled as such. In Korea, it’s criminalized.
That generates excessive pressures in a judiciary the place authorities have appreciable leeway in garnering confessions. In a nation the place leisure drug abuse is taken into account prison, authorities are empowered to realize convictions.
Prosecution reform is a long-time political scorching potato in South Korea, with many believing the system favors investigators over defendants.
Mr. Lee had reportedly spent 19 hours below police questioning throughout the Christmas weekend.
In the face of excessive conviction charges, “many commit suicide once they come to the attention of the justice system,” mentioned Mr. Breen.
The mixture of public shaming and the facility of the prosecution are components which have led to some high-profile suicides.
Those embrace the 2009 suicide of Roh Moo-hyun, a former president whose household confronted a corruption probe, and the 2020 suicide of Park Won-soon, a mayor of Seoul who confronted allegations of sexual harassment.
“Suicide is sometimes used in Korea as a form or protest, or to demonstrate innocence,” mentioned Mr. Tizzard. “It clears the name.”
