Position Essay ; Final Draft

Advantages of Historical Dramas

Recently, various historical dramas are broadcasted popularly. Some people don't like it because the dramas twist history in order to make their stories more exciting. Nonetheless, I'm sure historical dramas are beneficial with the following reasons

First, historical dramas tell historical facts and interest people in history or tradition. For instance, ‘바람의 화원’ which is on air nowadays informs the audience the 18th century in Joseon dynasty and the popular black-and-white drawings of two historic painters, Shin Yoon Bok and Kim Hong Do through the pictures that couldn't be found in the literate history. As watching the amusing historical drama, people become more and more interested in the genre paintings and in the days of the corresponding time.

Another advantage of historical dramas is a attracting tourists. Historical dramas usually build a set filled with the streets and structures of the past, and if the drama gets popular, the set becomes a famed tourist spot. As an example, a lot of people have visited the set of ‘대조영’ in Sokcho since the drama ended. '대조영' is the name of a historical character who founded a country named 발해, in the late 7th century. So if you visit there, you can see a model of a town of that time.

The most important advantage is that it could be the best advertisement for the countries. To give an example, ‘대장금’ was exported to many foreign countries such as Japan, China, Iran, Hongkong, India, Taiwan and so on. Through the exported drama foreigners became much more interested in Korea and Korean traditional cuisine which appear deliciously on the screen.

Without the possibility of distorting the truth, historical dramas are very advantageous on account of above three reasons. Therefore, producers should be incouraged to make more dramas based on thorough historical evidence and audience should watch those without losing interests in the reality.