Previously, healing media was popular for exhausted modern people. They loved entertainments with calm and warm contents such as <Little Forest>, <Three Meals a Day> and <Hyori's Homestay>. However, stimulating and dangerous contents like spicy foods have turned the trend. <SKY Castle>, <The World of the Married>, and <Penthouse>, which are called representatives of suggestive dramas, received high ratings and the love of Koreans. In addition, Netflix original series such as <Kingdom>, <Sweet Home>, and <Extracurricular> also became popular. These series also have violent and suggestive scenes. Does this mean that Koreans do not want to be healed anymore? No! Surprisingly, these provocative contents can heal people. Koreans, who used to relieve stress with spicy food, are now relieving their stress with spicy stimulating media.

1. Easy to See, Easy to Transmit, Easy to Produce

  Why did high-level provocative contents become so popular in Korea? This is because of the expansion of OTT[1] services. Recently, due to OTT services such as Netflix and Watcha, people can easily see foreign media dealing with psychopaths, infidelity, and murder. Other countries were using subject matters more commonly than in Korea. These high-quality foreign contents have come in. As a result, more and more people in Korea also wanted great works, even if it is violent and suggestive.

  In addition, the OTT service has become a background for producers to transmit provocative contents more easily. National broadcasting contents are regulated strictly in terms of story and violent level. On the other hand, Netflix original series are relatively less regulated. Netflix itself also prefers subject matter that are difficult to make on Korean national broadcasters. Netflix's original series <Extracurricular>, which is a story about school violence and youth prostitution, is a shocking and provocative show that is certainly hard to see on national broadcasting of Korea. Furthermore, a staff from the drama industry said, "It is going to produce drastic contents as original series that cannot be seen in local broadcasting. So, we can consider consumers with different tastes." According to writer Kim Eun-hee, who wrote <Kingdom>, "On local broadcasting, a cruel scene such as the neck being sliced open was impossible. Netflix readily accepted and supported it." She talked about the OTT service's production environment, which is much more unconstrained than local broadcasting. Hence, it has an unconstrained setting not only in transmission but also production, making it much easier for people to enjoy spicier contents than before.

2. Reveal the Naked Inside of Humans

       Among the spicy content that people love, suggestive dramas, are representative. Human psychology is also reflected in the suggestive dramas. First, it touches the human desire for suppressed destruction. In suggestive dramas, there are endless dangerous incidents. People were astonished and experienced vicarious satisfaction while watching the incidents in the drama. The psychology associated with this is Freud's Thanatos theory, a desire for destruction. To be specific, Thanatos, a desire for destruction, means dangerous and adventurous instincts that want to destroy others and themselves. The provocative spicy content stimulates this instinct in human unconsciousness. Because society harmonizes human instincts and reality through law and ethics, humans do not act violently recklessly. Nevertheless, these instincts are still alive in our unconscious. A suggestive drama mainly shows forbidden love, revenge, or violent scenes. These extreme and unrealistic suggestive dramas have vicariously satisfied the unconscious instincts that are difficult to come across in reality.

       Second, it provides catharsis. Suggestive dramas give people a sense of freedom that they cannot dare to do in reality. Besides, people can express their anger at the villains in the drama from others who spite them in real life. Criticizing drama characters rather provided emotional empathy and satisfaction to people. In particular, as COVID-19 continues through 2021, ‘The pandemic blues’ are occurring. However, there is no place to completely reveal and relieve anger, depression, or lethargy that one cannot share with others. This is true for social workers who live behind masks. Therefore, this provocative content can help relieve stress in modern people.

3. The Poison of Contents: Dangerous Scenes and Lack of Alertness

  However, provocative content has problems that can lead to copycat crimes and trauma for victims. First, there is the possibility of copycat crimes. If they repeatedly see sadistic scenes, immature teenagers who have not fully established their values can be desensitized to violence. This is because it can remain unconscious and be reproduced when a similar situation occurs. The Korean drama <Taxi Driver>, which aired in April, showed excessively sadistic scenes of women with intellectual disabilities being sexually abused. The public strongly criticized the drama. Also, the scene of school violence in <Penthouse> was too specific and dangerous. Meanwhile, <The World of the Married> showed a scene in which a man assaulted his girlfriend on a date. Provocative and violent scenes have repeatedly appeared in these dramas.

   No matter how necessary the scenes were in the drama, the controversy of direct and repetitive violent representations is inevitable. Some people might say it is to inform us of the socially disadvantaged who are in danger, but they say nothing about the possibility of copycat crimes. In particular, television, which is a mass media, has relatively high accessibility for teenagers. For example, they can see it at home or in public spaces at any time. Therefore, producers should be careful so that teenagers’ perception will not be insensitive in terms of assault and crime. Moreover, overly provocative contents can stimulate a victim's trauma. Trauma is often accompanied by a clear visual image. Therefore, there is a risk of being greatly stimulated when viewing scenes such as school violence, sexual harassment, and suicide. In other words, these scenes became triggers for past experiences. The reason why video contents trigger victims more easily, is that most of the scenes were directed from the perspective of the perpetrator. Thus, people can see the victim's fear and distress from the perpetrator's point of view. This makes people recall their past trauma images more vividly. As it can also stimulate the trauma of suicide risk patients, we should be extra careful when describing suicide. Drama contents must not describe the methods and tools specifically or use suicide as a problem solution. For example, <H.U.S.H> and <The Counter>, which are series ended in 2021, showed suicide scenes specifically. The latter even showed a scene in which all of the family members kill themselves. According to Lee So-young from Korea Communications Standards Commission (KCSC), "They displayed violent scenes as a way to maximize the pleasure of revenge rather than empathize with the victim's suffering."

Provocative contents have been a joy and stress reliever in modern people's daily lives. It is like a delicacy that refreshes people in their everyday life. However, it can also be a poison that dulls us to violence and crime. Critic Hwang Jin-mi said, "The KCSC's sanctions are somewhat perfunctory because they just judge the level of certain scenes. Recently, it is more effective when they are denounced by public outcry than KCSC." As she said, not only producers but also viewers need to be alert and look at the content from a critical perspective. Instead of accepting scenes in the media just as they are, people should clearly set their own standards of judgment while enjoying the media. CAH hopes that spicy contents will develop healthily and play a role in relieving Koreans' daily stress.