SALON

Monday, Nov 12, 2007 5:08 PM UTC

SpongeBob and the proper role of the State

Cheaper labor isn't the only reason South Korea is a cartoon powerhouse.

By

Topics: Globalization, How the World Works,

A new SpongeBob episode debuts Monday night, an event so culturally monumental that the New York Times saw fit to devote an article to tracing every minute detail of the cartoon’s production from storyboards in Burbank, Calif., to animation studios in South Korea. One passage jumped out:

In the 1980s animation began to migrate overseas because the labor was less expensive and because animated shows were not selling well in the United States. The labor is still somewhat cheaper, Nickelodeon executives said, but South Korea dominates in animation because the country has built an infrastructure for the practice while in the United States there is little formal training for animators.

Regular readers of How the World Works will appreciate that the role of state-directed industrial policy in East Asia in promoting economic growth is a core preoccupation of this blog. To connect such a topic, with all its manifold implications for the proper role of government in economic affairs, to the oeuvre of, as some French acquaintances of mine like to say, Bob l’éponge, is a Krabby Patty dream come true. I had to know more.

An animated TV commercial for Lucky Toothpaste made in 1956 is considered one of the wellsprings for the Korean animation, but it wasn’t until 1994 that a a government report identified cartoons as “Korea’s top cultural product export.” That awareness inspired incentives aimed at further strengthening the sector. Some were as simple as changing the industry’s status from “service” to “manufacturing,” which resulted in a 20 percent tax break. The shock of the Asian financial crisis in 1997, which hit South Korea especially hard, led to additional efforts. The Seoul Metropolitan Government set up the Seoul Animation Center in the late ’90s, intended to “provide comprehensive support to the Korean cartoon and animation industry and act as a major hub for animation in Korea.” The federal government also established the Korean Culture and Contents Agency (KOCCA) around the same time as the chief state institution for promoting the business of culture. Among other things, KOCCA also holds a stake in a handful of venture capital funds that seek out animation co-production investing opportunities with domestic and foreign producers.

From a “fact-finding mission” commissioned by UK Trade & Investment:

Just one example of a KOCCA fund that can accessed by animation companies is the $43 million Sovik Fund, administered by the Sovik Venture Capital Co Ltd… The Sovik fund can fund a maximum of 50 percent of the cost of a production and Sovik is looking at around $5 million-6 million per project. Last year [2003] Sovik’s investment included one co-production between Korea and France, and the company is looking at a potential co-production between Korea and Japan.

South Korea is the 12th largest economy in the world, a remarkable achievement that has inevitably led to its own industries coming under the same kind of globalization-inspired competitive pressures besieging the West. Chinese and Indian animation studios are now undercutting the historical Korean price advantage in cartoon production. But cheap labor isn’t the only key to surviving in the global economy. So is finding your niche. Why are SpongeBob cartoons made in Korea, even at this late date in the evolution of Korean economy? At least in part, because the government made it a priority.

Andrew Leonard

Andrew Leonard is a staff writer at Salon. On Twitter, @koxinga21. More Andrew Leonard.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 10 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
Slave descendants seek equal rights from Cherokee Nation
58 points59 points | 3 comments
vote
Oklahoma senator who voted against federal funding for Hurricane Sandy victims: Tornado aid “totally different” from Sandy aid
40 points41 points | comment
vote
"Apparently, we have deserving and undeserving disasters, Oklahoma senators James Inhofe and Tom Coburn explain"
27 points28 points | 2 comments
vote
Obama opposes GOP bill on Keystone XL oil pipeline: The White House said Tuesday that the bill “seeks to circumvent longstanding and proven processes” by removing a requirement for a presidential permit. The legislation also says no new environmental studies are needed.
20 points21 points | 2 comments
vote
"Slave descendants seek equal rights from Cherokee Nation": long, detailed narrative of legal and historical complications in red-white-black relations
20 points21 points | comment

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations