Are Koreans Racist? MBC Drama Teaser Vanishes After Backlash Over Offensive Middle Eastern Stereotypes
- lewishooper1
- Sep 4, 2025
- 2 min read
SHOCK VIDEO: Removed! An MBC drama teaser sparked global fury over insensitive Middle Eastern culture; did they think they would get away with it? We have all the details!
In what was intended to be a humorous throwback, this recent clip has sparked backlash due to issues surrounding cultural appropriation. The MBC drama To the Moon
has been slammed for allegedly mocking Middle Eastern cultures through the scenes pictured above.
Its viral teaser, featuring stars like Lee Sun-bin and Ra Mi-ran, includes reductive and offensive imagery, such as Aladdin costumes, "genie lights", and flute music, that reduces Middle Eastern and South Asian culture to harmful, archaic stereotypes, sparking outrage across the globe, but is it really a big issue?
So what is cultural appropriation?
Cultural appropriation is using elements from other cultures, such as hairstyles, fashion, or dance, by K-pop artists, has been a point of contention. Debates have centered on where cultural appreciation crosses the line into appropriation, but we wonder: "Should it continue?"
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Worldwide cultures are constantly being represented throughout various media channels; however, this time, mainly South Asian viewers expressed a strong sense of disappointment, and therefore, they have accused MBC of recycling harmful stereotypes for entertainment.
Comments were scathing, from calling the teaser a "cheap Aladdin cosplay" that is "completely racist and ridiculous", to accusing the creators of a severe double standard: "They get offended when mistaken for Chinese or Japanese, but freely mock other cultures with stereotypes."
MBC Caves into pressure
MBC has since deleted the teaser and issued an apology. This is thanks to the overwhelming and global backlash from the teaser being offensive and controversial. The production crew issued a statement, weakly claiming they were only parodying 80s/90s ads but admitting, "we failed to consider how it might be perceived in other cultures." This forced compliance highlights the new stakes of the globalized K-drama industry. Because K-dramas are now instantly available worldwide, producers can no longer rely on purely local standards of humour.
What a Korean audience might have found "humorous and nostalgic", international viewers immediately perceived as ridiculing and oversimplifying a culture, demonstrating why cultural awareness is now paramount in the production process.
With K-culture becoming more mainstream, will Cultural Appropriation continue to be an issue?
K-pop and K-dramas along with other aspects of K-culture, are becoming more popular world-wide, and as a result of the increased interest and visibility. This is more likely to cause Korean companies to research and target their products to become more culturally inclusive moving forward, as seen in the US and the UK, which are both culturally diverse countries.
Future controversies will necessitate that Korean media actively invest in diverse, non-tokenized creative teams and adopt stringent cultural awareness guidelines to prevent damaging their global brand integrity and alienating the very international audiences that fuel their success.
Let us know your thoughts on this culturally diverse topic in the comments below.
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