Even More on Oldboy and TV

Looking down on what other people have written, I noticed like everyone wrote on this...but, I'll try to bring something new to the table.

Oh Dae-Su embodies in a literal way one of the principles that Joyrich talked about: his reaction to the emasculating influence of TV (and also of being held captive--not even able to decide when he would sleep, as they gassed him) is the hypermasculinity he exhibits through the rest of the film.  However, the situation is complicated by the fact that the TV not only plays an emasculating role, offering visions of mundane situations and consumerism, but also plays a role in his training, which greatly aids in his later masculinity: there is an image of a boxing match for example, and later he is shown dodging punches and throwing them himself very much in the style of a boxer at times.  So it seems the TV plays an odd dual role, both acting as tranquilizing agent of emasculation, and hypermasculine fighting instructor.