The Korea Herald

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Culture Ministry pulls down ‘sexist’ Olympics video, apologizes

By Kim Min-joo

Published : Oct. 30, 2017 - 16:39

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A promo video for the upcoming PyeongChang Winter Games has been removed after viewers took issue with sexist content in the video.

According to the Culture Ministry on Monday, the video in question was posted to the Korean government’s official Twitter account @hellopolicy on Thursday, and pulled down after a flurry of comments accused the video of being sexist.

The video, titled “What to do when your boyfriend loves sports more than you,” contains a scene in which a man violently pushes his girlfriend away after she asks him to watch speed skating together on TV. In addition, when she starts telling the man what she knows about speed skating, his ear is seen bleeding, suggesting that her explanation about sports is an annoyance.

Screenshots from PyeongChang Olympics pro-video, which has been pulled down for depicting dating violence and misogynistic attitude towards women. Screenshots from PyeongChang Olympics pro-video, which has been pulled down for depicting dating violence and misogynistic attitude towards women.

An apology was posted on the government Twitter account late Thursday, which read, “We’ve pulled down the video after receiving complaints about certain content in the video depicting dating violence and misogynistic attitudes towards women.”

The video in question was the first of a five-part series commissioned to a private company by the Culture Ministry to promote PyeongChang Olympics.

A Culture Ministry official told Yonhap News Agency that the ministry will carefully examine the four other works in the series before putting them out.

(mjk625@heraldcorp.com)