Queering Colonial Aesthetics: Reimaginations of Ero Guro Nansensu in Contemporary Korean Theatre

Abstract: This article examines the theatrical revival of ero guro nansensu , an interwar Japanese cultural trend, in the context of the post-2010 feminist movement in South Korea. It argues that staging ero guro nansensu engages the haunting impact of what the author terms “the ero guro system”—a sociocultural mechanism that fetishizes nonnormative bodies as erotic and grotesque to uphold colonial, cisheteronormative, and ableist ideologies of Japanese imperialism. This article explores how contemporary Korean theatre artists appropriate the colonial aesthetics of ero guro nansensu to create feminist and queer visions of ero guro bodies onstage.