State of exception in South Korean monster cinema: Biopolitics and monsters in The Host (2006) and Train to Busan (2016)

Abstract

In this thesis, I study the relationship between monsters and biopolitics in contemporary South Korean monster cinema with the films The Host (2006) and Train to Busan (2016). I examine monsters regarding sociology, culture, and political philosophy. Fear, desire, anxiety, and fantasy are practically incorporated into the monster's body, giving them life and strange independence (Cohen 1996, 4). Monsters emerge, they create crises where the social and political order is suspended. Grounding on Michael Foucault’s concept of biopolitics, political regulations oppressing bodies and controlling populations (Foucault 1978, 140) and Carl Schmitt's concepts of state of emergency and sovereign, one “who decides on the exception” (Schmitt 1985, 5), Agamben goes deeply into the homo sacer’s bare life in politics which is related to the monsters. Homo sacer, although the literal meaning is “sacred man”, is defined to be a human who can be killed but not sacrificed that has a bare life who lives in the zone of indistinction (Agamben 1998, 8). Homo sacers can be anybody exposed to biopolitics of the sovereign in modern politics. The water monster represents a Leviathan, strong sate, of Thomas Hobbes (1998), in The Host and zombies are the homo sacer in Train to Busan. These two hybrid film monsters, the sealand beast and the living dead, not only support the narrative but also support the concepts regarding the sovereignty of Agamben. A state of emergency is not declared because monsters emerge, monsters emerge because there is always a state of emergency for the sake of the sovereign.