SNL Korea, which came under scrutiny recently for poking fun at Korean American adoptees in a recent sketch, issued a formal apology for its insensitive and tasteless content that understandably drew angry responses from the international adoptee community.
The program, produced by cable network TvN, aired a skit, titled “Meeting You Now,” which depicted a Korean American man at an airport in Korea meeting his birth mother for the first time. Fictitiously named Jason Dooyoung Anderson, the man speaks to his mother with a broken Korean accent, saying, “Why did you abandon me, mom? Were you ass broke?”
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Following a barrage of angry responses from the adoptee community, SNL Korea released a formal apology Tuesday.
“We bow our heads and apologize to all international adoptees and their families for hurting them with our recent skit,” the statement read. “We apologize for our lack of sensitivity in dealing with a sensitive issue, and will therefore cancel the rerun of the skit and delete the replay video posted on the Internet. We will do everything possible to prevent similar cases from reoccurring in the future.”
Shortly after SNL Korea’s apology, Global Overseas Adoptees’ Link, an adoptee organization in South Korea, published an open letter to the producers and the writers of the comedy show.
“It was uncomfortable because a reunion between an adoptee and his or her birth parents is for many adoptees, a very, very long awaited moment in their lives,” Nikolaj Leschly, secretary general of G.O.A.’L, said in the letter. “When the purpose of the parody, to bring awareness about a dark part of Korea’s past as claimed by SNL Korea, does so at the expense of those who you are purportedly trying to raise awareness about, it doesn’t sound sincere or truthful.”
“If SNL Korea would really like to raise awareness about the struggles of adoptees, or birth mothers or single unwed mothers, I respectfully ask that you get to know us better before you try to make a parody of our lives.”
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