As a pre-emptive measure to ease tensions with Mennonite colonies living in rural Manitoba, the People’s Republic of North Korea (PKR) has indefinitely postponed the release of 순종 여성 목장 손, which translates into “Obedient Female Ranch Hand.”
“Upon learning that Western media showed sympathy towards our respect for the Supreme Leader by suppressing “The Interview” from theatres, our regime made the decision to proactively accommodate the fragile nature of the cowards in our international community,” said Sang Yoo, Minister of of the PKR’s Department of Knowing.
Yolanda Stumphacker, the bookkeeper for the Manitoba Mennonite Historical Society, said that her community’s opinion of North Korea “took a 180” after learning of the film’s cancellation.
A formal complaint was launched after many Manitoban Mennonite communities were initially upset by the false hopes portrayed in the story. “Obedient Female Ranch Hand” features 7-year-old Yut who, after eight hours of study each day, replenishes the republic’s fruit bounty during six to seven hours of labour on the farm. The nature of the complaint centred around a reference made by Yut, in which she aspires to still be in school at age 11.
“We felt as though the PKR was eroding family values by suggesting that a girl older than nine should be hogging the education that was designed for our men,” Ms. Stumphacker said.
Although female students from the PKR still receive education until they’re at least 14, “The concern of [Mennonites] were valid,” Mr. Yoo said, adding that, “[PKR]’s entertainment producers should have been more considerate towards cultures outside of our own.”
According to Peter Levant, who’s currently applying for jobs related to international affairs, the mutual cancellation of theatrical releases is the greatest advance in diplomatic relations between the PKR and South Korea since 1945, when the occupying Japanese army was forced to retreat amid the dawn of nuclear warfare.
The Mennonites were able to obtain a bootleg VHS of “Obedient Female Ranch Hand” last month during the Ox Farming Games in China, when weedpicker Hu Yong from North Korea befriended bison milker Gilfred Lumberwater from Manitoba.