재조일본인 미디어의 모던 걸 부재와 여급의 표상 - 『조선급만주(朝鮮及滿洲)』와 『조선공론(朝鮮公論)』을 중심으로 -

Abstract

In both Japan and Joseon after the mid-1920s, a new type of woman called modern girl appears, and it is mentioned as the major characteristics of career women. In the society of Japanese people in colonial Korea, however, it is hard to find the discourses on career woman as a modern girl. For its reason, there was no group or magazine mainly held by career women in the society of Japanese people in colonial Korea, so that the discourses on career woman as a modern girl could not be spoken out for themselves. Thus, the discourses were distributed through general magazines with male chief editors equipped with privileges as a colonist. Those articles show a remarkable tendency to handle career women as an object of criticism like just highlighting the point of using their sex appeal as a purchase strategy and regarding them as something against healthy family and maternal love of a country at war, instead of paying attention to the professionalism of career women or modern girls as a cultural phenomenon. In this background, the cafe waitress in literary works by Japanese people in colonial Korea of the 1930s, is described into an image of ‘decadent woman giving off erotic charm’ and ‘fancy Western appearance’ by appearing as a mysterious character involved in a crime at a space of cafe with exotic and modern atmosphere, on top of the popularity of the Western detective stories. Also, as they are compared with cafe of ‘native country’, they go through the continuous relativization process in the facilities of cafe, appearance of cafe waitress, and service. The representation of cafe waitress within Japanese people in colonial Korea is diversely divided according to region(‘native country’/‘foreign country’), and ethnic group. Concretely, the comparison of ‘native country’ and colonial Joseon is defined on the basis of the superiority of ‘native country’ and inferiority of Joseon. Through this, they are described as Japanese women of superior empire while they are also described as Joseonized-depraved women, which is divided into discriminative beings.