A post about my weekend, an attempt to combine the genres of ethnographic field note and fan account, touching on social theory, precarity, a Tom Stoppard play, and parasocial relationships.
Context: I went to New York to see a play this weekend and it was great.
Join us for a deep dive into hiphop history with BTS and Coolio!
“We can work through the indexical chains together” -actual nerd quote from our discussion of the classic BTS reality show American Hustle Life. A rich, multilayered show that leads to juicy conversation! Join us!
Reblogging for the evening crowd
“We can work through the indexical chains together” -actual nerd quote from our discussion of the classic BTS reality show American Hustle Life. A rich, multilayered show that leads to juicy conversation! Join us!
Heyo, it’s another one! We’ll be releasing episodes on alternate Wednesdays, which gives us all enough time to digest the heavy theory (with lots of kpop examples!) that’s on tap in this episode. Join us! :)
Hi friends! It’s me, Kay, back again with a new project! I’ve teamed up with my friend Emily to get some more anthropological analysis of k-culture onto the interwebs. We’ll be updating every 2 weeks and have forthcoming episodes on BTS, underappreciated b-sides, stanning talent, kpop fans in South Africa, and more. We’re excited to hear your feedback - catch us on twitter @ 2ndLead and subscribe on soundcloud or itunes!
The email Professor Jo reads aloud unites this drama’s two stories. On the surface, it’s telling the girl who was cheated on her cello not to give up, because what you get from an instrument depends on what you put into it. But the email is also about Sun Jae and Hye Won, and the futility of devoting your life to the material world. “If your heart is not there, it’s just an item, no matter how valuable it is.“ As Hye Won has learned through the course of the show, expensive, empty things are meaningless. “No matter how cheap the instrument is, it can express your feelings and contain them.” Like that cheap instrument, Sun Jae doesn’t have much to offer Hye Won, but the things he has are the ones that matter: love and trust and hope.
I finally, diligently rewatched SLA this week and it was so much juicier than the first time. Not sure how I missed so much in the first go-round, but wild props to Ahn Pan Seok et al for creating such a layered and coherent drama. Anyway, I liked this read of the email Professor Jo shared, and my rewatch brought out another read that connects with some other aspects of the show, too...
Remember in one of their lessons when Sun Jae and Hye Won are figuring out the nature of their relationship, and Sun Jae says, “It’s like music - I just want to enjoy it to the end. The staccato that I didn’t like before - somehow it works now. That’s what love is to me - enjoying till the end.” This idea comes up in several other contexts - enjoying something (ramen on the rooftop, the awkwardly placed pipe at the cabin getaway) purely for its own sake, wholeheartedly, without judgment or critique. And in Sun Jae’s narrative coda in Ep 16, he talks about playing Rondo in A minor, noting, “You don’t play this piece so much as touch it... There are 2770 notes in this piece and 500 chords.” Love, to Sun Jae, is meticulously taking in the sights. He sees Hye Won’s misdeeds, but he doesn’t think they make her a bad person who is unworthy of love; instead, he recognizes them as part of Hye Won’s complex and evolving self, and he still adores her and wants the best for her.
In the email Professor Jo reads, the writer says that if you put your heart into the instrument as you play, you can produce the best music, no matter how substandard the instrument is. He adds, “People are the same way.” If you treat a person with earnest care and devotion, as Sun Jae has treated Hye Won from the very beginning (and as he does with the quintet of misfits!), you can bring out the best in them. The culmination of SLA shows Hye Won’s best: she realizes that she can and should love herself the way Sun Jae loves her. Accepting her mistakes, remembering her dreams, and, with Sun Jae’s help, taking in the sights of who she truly is, Hye Won begins to restore her own integrity.
With Seol and Jung, everything is two steps forward, one step backward.
Even after their big night, Seol still hasn’t told Jung about what’s happening in her life–that she’s still struggling with Young Gon, or that she’s helping In Ho study for the GED. She herself forgets that she never told him about the rift in her parents’ marriage, expecting Jung to be surprised when In Ho tells them that her mom and dad are on a date. If In Ho and his piano teacher hadn’t joined them at lunch, I think Seol would have gotten around to telling Jung at least some of this, but her first impulse is to shield him from anything bad. She wants to look good in front of him, and she also worries about how he’ll respond.
Which, of course, is exactly how Jung feels about her. That’s his character’s saving grace, I think. Jung knows that what he did to In Ho was wrong, and he’s ashamed of it. That’s one of the reasons why he’s working so hard to keep Seol and In Ho apart–he wants Seol to see him as a good guy, and he knows that his image will take a major hit when she finds out what happened. Unlike so many asshole male leads, this show doesn’t ignore Jung’s bad behavior. It’s given real weight and meaning, impacting his life and everyone in it.
Interesting that this flashback shows In Ho and In Ha telling Jung’s dad about a girl In Ho allegedly likes. Jung sulks right past them, obviously annoyed at what he hears. Does this mean that Jung and In Ho have liked the same girl before?
*emerges from woodwork having peeped all your excellent meta on this show* I thought this flashback explained why Jung was so upset and shut down so hard at this lunch. In the flashback, we see Jung’s dad palling around with In Ha and In Ho, being curious about intimate details of their teenage lives, and when Jung walks in, Dad barely even greets him. To Jung (as is shown in more detail in Ep. 12), In Ho and In Ha are interlopers who occupy all of his dad’s interest and affection - and they’re not even biologically related! Despite being Dad’s actual son, Jung is the last person to be in on the family goings-on, and only through overhearing, not even invited to the conversation, really.
So, during the lunch when it emerges that Seol and In Ho have been building a friendship entirely independent of Jung - that In Ho knows things about Seol that Jung wouldn’t even know to guess at - it’s like lemon juice in a paper cut. Once more, In Ho is intruding on the attention and affection of someone Jung loves, and Jung is left out in the cold. It makes sense to me that Jung shuts down when he sees history being repeated, but his inability to explain to Seol how he feels and why he feels that way further sabotage his attempts at a close relationship with her.
I wanted to riff a bit on this post on the significance of Finn and Rey’s hug and also on this post about Finn being full of Light… I think those are key entry points to exploring Finn’s complex and evolving morality throughout TFA.
There’s no question that Finn is the moral center of the film, and for me this makes him the most compelling character: he’s repeatedly faced with choices that put his life on the line and ask him to prioritize either his regimented past or an uncertain future. We know from the beginning of the film that Finn exercises moral agency independent of his conditioning, and his refusal to fire on innocent civilians in spite of (or without considering?) the repercussions to his person signals that Finn’s moral agency tends in one direction (whereas, say, Kylo Ren’s agency tends strongly in the opposite direction). Yet this tendency doesn’t guarantee that Finn always makes choices that are, from our perspective as the audience, morally “right,” because his moral calculus exists alongside his survival calculus. Throughout the film, we see how these two forces alternate between harmony and tension.
Finn’s decision to defect from the First Order and rescue Poe is a key example of harmony between Finn’s impulses towards survival and morality. It’s a morally significant choice in Finn’s mind (and again, to us as the audience) because “it’s the right thing to do,” but it’s also absolutely vital for Finn’s own physical (and spiritual) wellbeing. Poe recognizes immediately that this is really a co-rescue (”you need a pilot!”), a team effort with mutual benefit, and for this reason, he trusts Finn and cooperates.
On the other hand, Finn’s second “defection,” from Rey and Han and Chewie at Maz’s place, exposes the possibility for tension between Finn’s survival needs - escaping the First Order - and his moral needs - the relationship he has established with Rey. Indeed, his speech to her contains two moral choices: first, coming clean about his identity and effectively betraying the trust they had built so quickly; and second, leaving Rey in order to pursue his own self-interest. I think it’s fair to argue that this second choice is actually ambiguous because Finn doesn’t necessarily understand how deeply his departure hurts Rey, and he does ask her to come with him (his intent isn’t specifically to abandon her). As he leaves, then, I think Finn senses that he has hurt Rey, but his need to survive has, for the moment, overridden his moral impulse towards care and compassion.
Finn’s choice to go back to Starkiller Base to rescue Rey is the precise inversion of his choice to leave her. Seeing the devastating consequence - Rey being carried off by Kylo Ren to further harm - of his previous choice to prioritize his survival over his relationship with Rey, Finn is determined once again to do “the right thing” for Rey. On its own, this choice is again morally gray, because it endangers the Resistance and requires Finn to lie. Yet Finn needs to right the wrong of abandoning Rey. His compassion overrides his self-preservation, and he goes back into the darkness to steady his own inner light.
If the Star Wars movies’ true center is the temptations faced by its heroes and its villains, then Finn’s temptation matters tremendously to how we understand TFA. Unlike Luke, Kylo, and Rey, Finn doesn’t get to make a choice about fighting or killing people (or not): instead, he’s tempted by a path that puts his own survival first. He’s enticed, perhaps, by a vague vision of himself retreating to the highlands, watering his crops, raising a family, unburdened by the forces of war that have shaped the galaxy around him. But I think he knows in his gut that such a life would be empty without Rey and the others he’s come to care for who are so deeply involved in this war. Charging back into the heart of the conflict to save Rey, in direct opposition to his survival calculus, is Finn’s redemption for having left her.
And so I think Finn and Rey’s embrace is a beautifully symbolic interaction on many levels, but it’s especially important for both of them because Finn’s coming back affirms the primacy and depth of their bond. Finn’s choice to return for Rey restores her trust in him, her belief that he values her; for Finn, Rey’s embrace is both joyful and relieving, because she doesn’t blame him or despise him for having left in the first place. And for both of them, as well as for us, it demonstrates Finn’s moral growth and his emerging clarity about what it means to be an upright person in his world.
tycho / awake james hersey / coming over (filous remix) royal pirates / run away on an on / it’s not over clazziquai project / still i’m by your side atlas genius / molecules shankar ehsaan loy / mitwa owl city / if my heart was a house w&jas / speed up henry / 1-4-3 (acoustic) shafqat amanat ali & sunidhi chauhan / bin tere civil twilight / love was all that mattered mitis / endeavors
sailing alone around the room // a playlist to keep you moving when you are your only cheerleader
featuring glen check / humming urban stereo / clazziquai / from the airport / love x stereo / lunafly / dear cloud / nell
and more
If you're still following Bangtan these days, I'd love to hear your take on "Hormone War" from their most recent album. An entire song dedicated to the male gaze makes me super uncomfortable, and the idea that it'll be perceived to be OK by the average BTS stan makes me even more uncomfortable. :/ but I love those boys.
Hi anon! Thanks for your message. I do follow BTS out of the corner of my eye, but to be honest, I haven’t found their last few releases to be very compelling.
Hormone War follows up on Boy in Luv (featuring the members using physical intimidation to “woo” a girl) and Danger (which consists of veiled threats against the object of the speaker’s affections) to suggest that girls and women exist to please men. “Women are the best gift,” the members repeat in the chorus. “Please wear high heels,” Jungkook begs, and JHope rattles off the body parts he prefers to look at. If it’s not already clear enough that women are objects in BTS’s view, Jungkook offers this: “Women are equations, men do them.” (How’s that for a wordplay? Yikesss!) The title “Hormone War,” along with Suga’s verse, suggests that the way the members (and men generally) look at women is biological: it’s chemical, it’s programmed, it can’t be helped. This is a particularly dangerous but pervasive narrative that takes us down the slippery slope to “Her skirt was too short. I couldn’t stop myself.” (Not to mention, of course, the aggressive heteronormativity in the coda: “We’re men because of women.”) Just to be clear: Men can and should choose to view women as human beings, with hopes and needs and memories and beliefs and skills - not as things on which to enact sexual fantasies. "Hormones" are an excuse for the way that men are socialized to view women as sexual objects only.
Lizzie argues convincingly that Hormone War, along with Boy in Luv and Danger, attempts to stake out space within the kpop-hiphop nexus, establishing BTS as exuding a uniquely Korean masculinity. By embodying an aggressive and carefree brand of masculinity, the group satisfies the standards of masculinity in Korean hiphop and attempts to overcome the perception of idol rappers as weak or unskilled (see the B-Free controversy for more). In a personal conversation, Lexi argued that this brand of masculinity is cross-fertilized with the members’ beliefs about black American masculinity, which they have formed through exposure to American hiphop music. At the same time, the music video sees the members themselves become objects for female heterosexual desire (witness V grabbing Jimin’s behind in the first chorus).
It looks to me like BTS’s strategy for negotiating the kpop-hiphop nexus is to try to do both - to meet the standards of both kpop and hiphop. The result is not only problematic - it comes across as lacking self-definition. On his episode of 4 Things, leader Rap Monster discussed his struggle to negotiate his own individual identity; he concludes that he cannot meet the demands of both his idol identity and his underground MC identity and says simply, “I’m me.” This conclusion has not been reflected in BTS’s work - instead of creating something new and unique, outside the bounds of both kpop and hiphop, the group has played the middle. In the process, they’ve regressed toward the mean: they’re no different from the multitudes of other boy groups that have tried on the “aggressive masculinity” concept this year (including Topp Dogg, LC9, CClown, Got7 to a degree, and others).
What I personally would like to see from BTS - what I had anticipated from them, based on N.O - and what I believe would set them apart as leaders in both kpop and mainstream khiphop - would be an attempt to make music that would start real conversations about real issues they and their fans are facing. For example, N.O allowed BTS to display masculinity in ways that did not contribute to a harmful narrative about women, but more importantly, N.O provided audiences with language with which to talk about the difficulties of the education system and the tensions between adults and young people. Had BTS used Hormone War in a similar way - e.g., to challenge the objectification of women and the idea that such objectification is natural/biological - that would be leadership. I believe that the members of BTS have the lyrical and intellectual skills to move in this direction. For that reason, I’ll continue to watch them… out of the corner of my eye.
(One well-branded alternative masculinity is that of Infinite, outlined by Jessica. Not to say my preferred brand doesn’t have its own problems, but I lean toward the More Love More Hugs variety. :) )
heart rate up - a selection of favorite tracks for pounding the pavement
featuring VIXX, 9Muses, Lunafly, B1A4, Crayon Pop, and many more
Do you have a playlist of B1A4 must-see performances? Because I haven't really watched a vid/MV for over a year, and even though I've listened to the albums, I don't know what their performances are like for the newer songs. I need to cram for the concert! Thanks! ^_^
:)))))) Why yes, I can help you with that. (Some of these might be repeats for you, OD, but I thought I’d share in case others are curious too.)
The tl;dr is just to watch Picnic Live from start to finish. Awesome arrangements of their best tracks, intimate setting, talk sessions, earnest interactions with fans, and also 100% live vocals and band. If you want to know this group as both musicians and individuals, this is your ticket.
But I know when you finish that, you’ll be eager to see what else they can do, so here’s a bunch of links.
If you want even more Bipo, please check out The B1A4 Archive, where you can find (nearly) complete resources on Lonely and Solo Day eras as well as all of the group’s variety shows with English subs. Enjoy!
funk factor: Break out your bellbottoms and platform shoes, it's funky kpop~
Hi there! There has been quite a debate over Hyomin's "Nice Body" and I'm more inclined to dislike for the messages I get from it. But some people argue that it's possibly a parody of Korean sexist double standards and the male gaze, and others say it's encouraging responsible weight management (both of which I disagree with although maybe there could be some truth to them?). Where do you stand here amid all this mess? :)
Hi, anon! Thanks for your message! I think before I answer your question I should be very clear that (as always) my perspective is decidedly Western, and my thoughts are addressed to the Western audience members who are discussing this video.
It’s very difficult to tell what the intention of this video is. Here’s what I observe: Hyomin wears a fat suit and appears to be consuming a mountain of donuts in between bouts of hula-hooping and staring at a blonde Barbie doll. She has a dream that her body is transformed into a thin body; her life becomes colorful, she wins the attention of men, she is confident and happy, she spends her time posing prettily against motorcycles and in pools. She wakes up, is disappointed to find herself unchanged, and continues hula-hooping. Fatness is a prop that stands in for ugliness, laziness, gluttony, uncleanliness, and lack of self-discipline, while thinness represents worth. It’s a shallow kind of worth, though - Thin Hyomin doesn’t actually do very much.
The lyrics suggest the following messages:
Given that the video and lyrics are so blatant in their message - that only a select few bodies are worthy of love (“love” here seems to be reduced to meaning sexual attention) - I can see why people might suspect it’s a satire. If it is, though, it’s poorly done. There are no visual cues in the video that suggest just how absurd that message is. In addition, if it were a satire, I’d expect to hear Hyomin discuss that in interviews. Instead, she talks about her own efforts to get “the perfect body,” so that she could win acclaim as a performer. She’s playing the game according to the rules. I don’t blame her for that, but it’s certainly no satire if she’s not calling attention to the absurdity of the rules themselves.
What I’d like for audiences to reflect on - especially those who saw no problem with the song and video - are these things:
My final thought is this: Nice Body is a distractor. It makes transparent all of the stuff in our media (Western media, but I think it’s true for Korean media too) that tells our young women there’s a certain way they need to look to be acceptable to men, and looking this way should be their priority. As an educator, I find that pop culture works like Nice Body make my job harder because they are massively distracting from the kinds of healthy development I am trying to foster in my students. When we have girls passing out at school from hunger or overexercising, or girls being bullied because of their looks, or girls just being stressed about their weight, we have girls who are less able to focus on learning, less able to take on increasing responsibility and independence, and less able to do their best at what they love, whether that’s academics, sports, the arts, you name it. The opportunity cost of the obsession with appearance can be significant, particularly when we factor in eating disorders and other types of mental illness that are linked to some of these toxic messages in the media.
I think something similar can be said of Hyomin - here we are talking about Nice Body when we could be talking about the song she herself wrote, Overcome, which has a much more positive message. Unfortunately, unless things change in the kpop fandom, Hyomin will probably be remembered more for dancing with a tape measure than for writing a deeply personal song about her own journey. That’s too bad.
