Even within the batty realms of North Korea’s propaganda, the invective thrown at South Korean President Park Geun-hye is remarkable.
In perhaps its lengthiest and harshest verbal attack on Park since she took office in 2013, the North’s official Korean Central News Agency on Saturday called her a “tailless, old, insane bitch,” a “senile old woman” and a “murderous demon” destined to meet “a sudden and violent death.”…
North Korea previously called Park a “prostitute” and said she lives on the “groin of her American boss.” It has frequently questioned her womanhood because she has no children, which the North labels as an “obligation” for women. North Korea also frequently refers to the “swish of her skirts,” a Korean phrase used to describe women seen as overly aggressive.“The swishes of Park Geun-hye’s skirt, created by her American boss, are so unpredictable they’re dumbfounding,” an unnamed spokesman of the North’s Joint National Organization of Working People said in a statement last year published by the KCNA. “This is all because the United States’ black, hairy hands reach deep into Park Geun-hye’s skirt.”
Apart from the absurd sexism, there’s a more politically unnerving aspect to it. For all its apparent insanity, North Korea’s propaganda traditionally tried to appeal to South Korean leftists. This messaging indicates a new level of ignorance of the world outside, a turning-inwards of its paranoia.