Playing with Blackness: critical race humour and the shifting dynamics of Black identity in South Korean media

Abstract

This study investigates how Jonathan Thona Yiombi, a Black celebrity in South Korea, significantly influences and transforms the prevailing public perceptions of race in Korea through his distinctive use of race humour on his YouTube channel. Black individuals in Korean media have often been depicted as exotic foreigners or victimised mixed-race Koreans, perpetuating stereotypes. In contrast, Jonathan's content adopts a markedly different approach. Through 'discursive racialisation', Jonathan integrates Blackness into his comedy and utilises race humour to make racial issues more visible and approachable. First, his humour unveils the prevailing colour-blindness in Korea, compelling viewers to reflect on coexisting with diverse racial identities. Secondly, he overtly utilises racial identity in his content, by consistently addressing his Blackness, parodying Black-related popular culture, and playfully exploiting his visual exoticness. Furthermore, he engages with the nurture versus nature discourse, juxtaposing his inherent identity with acquired attributes to challenge and deconstruct essentialist views of Black people. Therefore, he constructs a polycultural identity that navigates his racial identity within Korea's national discourse of gukmin. By examining the politics of (re)presentation of Black celebrities in Korea, this study contributes to an understanding of the evolving Korean ethnomediascapes.