The Many Eccentricities of Kim Jong Il

1542 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: An essay about dictators

Over the course of history, it can be determined that the most evil of dictators follow the same set of characteristics. Generally, these tyrants rule with an iron fist, deploying military power whenever they feel they should. They often funnel their state’s coffers into their own personal bank accounts, and it is common for dictators to force their people to treat them with the utmost reverence and respect. These traits are seen in rulers like Hitler, Stalin, Mugabe and Hussein. However, there is one dictator set apart from the rest--the North Korean former President Kim Jong Il. It is Il’s eccentricities, of which there are many, distinguish from the other members of Dictator’s Club.

Kim Jong Il has been characterized by many renowned psychologists as narcissistic, antisocial, sadistic, paranoid, schizoid and schizotypal, as per what a “normal” dictator can be diagnosed with. However, he has also been typified as pteromerhanophobic, or deathly afraid of flying. This leads to his first eccentricity: his insistence of leaving North Korea only by armored train. The train spans seven rail-cars with two electric diesel cars to pull it along. Its windows are bulletproof, and though it does not seem to be armored, the fuselage of the cars is made from heavy metal plating. Though armored trains are not generally considered useful, and most are not in use, Il employed his regularly, using it to travel to such destinations as Moscow, Beijing and Siberia. A Russian emissary who traveled by the train described it as very ornate, and also disclosed that Il had had live lobsters airlifted daily to the galley car. Another traveler aboard the train said Kim Jong Il had multiple sets of pure-silver chopsticks stored aboard with which he might...

... middle of paper ...

...w.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/northkorea/8965098/Kim-Jong-il-double-rainbows-fear-of-flying-and-Godzilla-10-things-you-might-not-know.html>.

"No Motherland Without You." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 24 May 2012. Web. 25 May 2012. .

Fuller, Graham. "Mad for the Movies: On Kim Jong-Il's Insane Obsession With Hollywood (and Elizabeth Taylor)." Artinfo. 19 Dec. 2011. Web. 25 May 2012. .

Savage, Mark. "Kim Jong-il: The Cinephile Despot." BBC News. BBC, 19 Dec. 2011. Web. 25 May 2012.

"Pteromerhanophobia." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 21 May 2012. Web. 27 May 2012. .

Show More
Related

  • Heartbreaking Tale in Escape from Camp 14 by Blaine Hardyn and Imprisoned, Shin Dong-hyuk

    1352 Words  | 3 Pages

    Blaine Harden, former national correspondent and writer for the New York Times, delivers an agonizing and heartbreaking story of one man’s extremely conflicted life in a labor camp and an endeavor of escaping this place he grew up in. This man’s name is Shin Dong-hyuk. Together, Blaine Harden and Shin Dong-hyuk tell us the story of this man’s imprisonment and escape into South Korea and eventually, the United States, from North Korea. This biography that takes place from 1982-2011, reports to its readers on what is really going on in “one of the world’s darkest nations” (back cover of the book), that is run under a communist state and totalitarian dictatorship that was lead by Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-il, and currently lead by Kim-Jong un. In Escape from Camp 14, Shin shows us the adaptation of his life and how one man can truly evolve from an animal, into a real human being.

    Read More

  • Clue and the Crisis of the American White Male

    2701 Words  | 6 Pages

    In the piece “Cinema/Ideology/Criticism,” Jean Luc-Comolli and Jean Narboni define the critic's job as the discernment of “which films, books and magazines allow the ideology a free, unhampered passage, transmit it with crystal clarity, serve as its chosen language” and which films “attempt to make it turn back and reflect itself, intercept it, make it visible by revealing its mechanisms, by blocking them” (753). Through their examination, seven film categories are outlined. Clue falls into the “E” category, which is defined as “films which seem at first sight to belong firmly within the ideology and to be completely under its sway, but which turn out to be so only in an ambiguous manner” (75...

    Read More

  • Women In Hollywood: Pre-code and Post War Eras

    1963 Words  | 4 Pages

    Nichols, John. ""Counbtering Censorship: Edgar Dale and the Film appreciation movement (critical essay)."." Cinema Jouranl. Fall 2006.

    Read More

  • Censorship In Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis

    679 Words  | 2 Pages

    An extreme precaution taken by the Iranian government is banning Western music, film, television, writings, and books (Iranian’s par. 1). It is believed by the Islamic leaders that all of these forms of entertainment are a “soft war” of propaganda being used against their rule

    Read More

  • Little Caesar: Gangster Life in New York City

    2304 Words  | 5 Pages

    Kuhns, William. “The Movie Columnists.” Movies in America. London: The Tantivy Press, 1975. 142-73. Print.

    Read More

  • Film Analysis: Birth Of A Nation

    1523 Words  | 4 Pages

    Many early films made were based on religious contexts and have evolved from romanticism to thrillers, telling different stories (Fang, 1997). There have always been different national cultures being expressed in film. This is seen both in a deliberate and an unconscious fashion until the rise of Hitler in 1933 who stressed that the film should be seen as an art form (Briggs & Burke, 2009). Used by Hitler, the United States, and other world leaders during World War II, the film was seen as a force of with considerable impact onto discourse and culture. Realizing film was not only an entertainment apparatus, but also a tool to disseminate propaganda to the masses. During the Cold War with the red scare running rampant across the U.S., many actors, writers, and directors were black listed from working on films if they were suspected of communist leaning and denied

    Read More

  • How Did Kim Jong-Un Rule

    166 Words  | 1 Pages

    North Korea is ruled by Kim Jong-Un a dictator who was born in Pyongyang, North Korea on January 8th, 1983. Kim Jong-Un is a controlling dictator who wants everyone to follow what he says. Kim Jong-Un became the leader of North Korea in 2011, inherited his position from his father Kim Jong-il. Kim Jong-Un has continued the country’s nuclear testing and the development of bomb technology,internationally it was disapproved. He has promised to focus on educational and economic improvement and is engaging in his approach to leadership.(Bio.com) Kim took over his father's position when his father passed away. Kim Jong-il died of a heart attack on December 17, 2011 at 8:30 in the morning while traveling to an area outside in North Korea. During

    Read More

  • Analyzing the Film Food Inc and the Propaganda Message for Positive Change

    1448 Words  | 3 Pages

    Society tends to associate propaganda films with issues such as Nazi Germany and their film messages for their country; however, it is also possible for small independent companies, groups of like-minded people and individuals to use the media of film to incorporate messages for our society (The Independent, 2010). These messages are often in relation to changes that individuals should make in order to improve the standards by which they live their lives and changes to everyday habits that will benefit the individual, the individual’s family, a group of individuals or even a single person (Barnhisel and Turner, 2010).

    Read More

  • North Korean Prison Camps: Kim Jong Ill

    927 Words  | 2 Pages

    Have you ever wondered what it would be like to have your freedoms taken away? To not be able to say what you think, or do what you want. Well, believe it or not in the country of North Korea there are people that experience those kinds of limits every day along with the cruelty of being starved, beaten, and worked to death. These harsh conditions are found within prison camps that were set up by previous leaders Kim Ill Sung, and Kim Jong Ill after the Korean War. These camps were originally created to capture political traitors along with scare North Korean people into being fully committed to the regime. Today, the current leader Kim Jong-Un has still continued the prison camps and has taken it to the extreme of capturing any North Korean

    Read More

  • Film Culture Essay

    735 Words  | 2 Pages

    With the popularity of film culture experiencing a drastic increase, a large amount of what happens on screen is mirrored in our society. Movies can evoke thoughts and emotions that shape the average man’s ideals, sometimes even stirring up propaganda that pressures governments to create new laws.

    Read More

  • Power and Corruption in George Orwell´s 1984

    627 Words  | 2 Pages

    Wilcox, Cody, and Cody Bahler. "Internet Censorship." North Korea and the Kim Dynasty. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Mar. 2014. .

    Read More

  • The Influences of the Gossip Industry

    1072 Words  | 3 Pages

    Havrilesky, Heather. “Stalking Celebrities.” Remix: Reading and Composing Culture. Ed. Catherine G. Latterell. 2nd ed. Boston/New York: Bedford/St. martin’s, 2010. 446-450. Print.

    Read More

  • Full Service Cinema: The South Korean Cinema Success Story (So Far)

    4912 Words  | 10 Pages

    This raises a question about the viability of art cinema, independent feature films, short films, independent documentary, and other less profitable and commercial modes of filmmaking in South Korea. It may even lead some people to believe that those other modes of filmmaking are not an integral part of the new South Korean cinema success story. Yet, my third and final point will be to argue against this and for the importance of what I want to tentatively call “full service cinema,” including a full range of modes of production and consumption. In making this point, I want to challenge another very common assumption not only in South Korea but everywhere—the idea that art cinema and independent cinema are opposed to mainstream commercial cinema. While there may be an aesthetic opposition between them, it is a strategic mistake to translate this into an institutional opposition.

    Read More

  • North Korea International Relations: A Realistic Interpretation

    878 Words  | 2 Pages

    The negotiations talking on the nuclear threaten and the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula has recently shaped the agenda of North Korean system of international relations, thus affecting the patterns of foreign policy of the DPRK. This issue has gained such a priority to lead to the establishment of the 6PT experiment, thus proving to stand at the core of the debate on the stability and safety debate in the Northeast Asia region.

    Read More

  • A Brief Note On Stardom

    1195 Words  | 3 Pages

    Movie stars. They are celebrated. They are perfect. They are larger than life. The ideas that we have formed in our minds centered on the stars that we idolize make these people seem inhuman. We know everything about them and we know nothing about them; it is this conflicting concept that leaves audiences thirsty for a drink of insight into the lifestyles of the icons that dominate movie theater screens across the nation. This fascination and desire for connection with celebrities whom we have never met stems from a concept elaborated on by Richard Dyer. He speculates about stardom in terms of appearances; those that are representations of reality, and those that are manufactured constructs. Stardom is a result of these appearances—we actually know nothing about them beyond what we see and hear from the information presented to us. The media’s construction of stars encourages us to question these appearances in terms of “really”—what is that actor really like (Dyer, 2)? This enduring query is what keeps audiences coming back for more, in an attempt to decipher which construction of a star is “real”. Is it the character he played in his most recent film? Is it the version of him that graced the latest tabloid cover? Is it a hidden self that we do not know about? Each of these varied and fluctuating presentations of stars that we are forced to analyze create different meanings and effects that frame audience’s opinions about a star and ignite cultural conversations.

    Read More

More about The Many Eccentricities of Kim Jong Il

Open Document