Transgression within limitations: The increasing agency of the female athlete in DPRK video

Despite the DPRK government advertising itself as promoting sexual equality, the heavily propaganda-focused and censored DPRK screen culture has historically not reflected the societal barriers women face. On the contrary, DPRK screen culture has consistently reinforced the domestic and societal roles which women were expected to fill. However, these roles depicted by female characters have become relatively liberalized and dynamic in recent decades. To illustrate, I will investigate representative examples of female characters in recent film and television series concerning female athletes participating in international competition. Specifically, I examine the gradual increase in individual agency of the main female athlete characters as seen in the 2000 film Run to the Sky , the 2011 television series Our Women’s Football Team and the 2022 television series The Last Ball. I look closely at the decision each character makes and consider the factors that led to each woman’s decision. I then demonstrate how they are increasingly transgressing the previous norm by utilizing greater agency but are still ultimately limited by the strict rules of state propaganda. My findings also add nuance to previous research about multi-dimensional and more believable female characters emerging in recent decades of DPRK video.