The 'Gentleman' music video - PSY savages misogyny in Korea and the West.
Last edited Fri Apr 19, 2013, 07:20 AM - Edit history (60)
If you haven't heard of the The 'Gentleman' music video (by Korean rapper PSY- Park Jae-sang), you will soon enough I guess: It is the fastest climbing video in YouTube history. I don't know what Americans will make of it, juvenile humour probably, but it is going to shock South Korea.
Gentleman is the follow up to' Gangnam Style' with it's famous horse dance. Gangnam is actually an exceedingly elite suburb in Seoul. The suggestion of the ostentatiously wealthy riding on the backs of ordinary people did not go down well with some influential Koreans. The new video was screened live, beyond the reach of TV censors, and judging by what I've been reading, it's likely to offend just about everybody.
(Update - The Government TV station has now banned the video for promoting 'vandalism' - PSY kicks a traffic cone in the opening scene. Pravda would be proud!)
Sexism and Patriarchy in Korea
Politeness and proper action are very important in traditional Confucian culture. The ancient Chinese-derived belief system prescribes everyone a station in life, with obligations that they must adhere to in order to be morally virtuous. And women, not surprisingly, fall rather low on the totem pole. Girls are to be the property of their parents until marriage, and after marriage they are expected to be obedient wives to their husbands. Arranged marriages were the norm in Korea until only a few decades ago, and many young Koreans still don’t really feel free to choose their own partner. Parental influence and control still has lots of sway. Simply put, Korean kids don’t have much freedom – and things are twice as hard for girls.
Speaking of marriage, under Korean law, men still have almost all the legal power. If a Korean women divorces her husband she will find herself homeless, since all the property is always in the husband’s name. She will have no assets, since the husband owns everything. She will be destitute, and if she has kids she could also easily lose all custody rights to her children, since the father is considered more important. Men control the whole ball of wax, and the whole thing is rigged to keep women dependant and submissive …
All this places women near the bottom of society. Korean women are raised to accept as inevitable many things that Western women would find appalling. Domineering husbands, insulting boyfriends, overbearing bosses, you name it. Workplace sexual harassment lawsuits are unheard of in patriarchal Korea, and there are lots of stories about groping and sexual-advance-making executives, especially during the mandatory after-work heavy drinking sessions with the office crew (hwaesik in Korean). Women who are not considered attractive will have a terrible time in life, since they will be openly discriminated against and told that they are not pretty enough during job interviews. None of this is illegal or frowned up in Korea. And if that is what flies in the workplace, then imagine what life is like here in the private sphere …
I personally have seen domineering Korean guys pushing their girlfriends around in pretty rough ways. And many, many Western men living in Korea have stories about watching in horror as a Korean guy beats up his girlfriend in public - while bystanders watch and do nothing. There are also lots of related stories about foreign men trying to intervene in such situations, and then finding themselves arrested and blamed for the whole incident.
'Gentleman' targets more than sexism in Korea. Gangsta culture gets rapped and maybe pole dancing won't be viewed in quite the same way again.
OK - the video is in four parts. First the ruling 'old grey men' of Korea's chaebols are reduced to carrying around PSY's expensive shopping bags. Gangsters no more, but they're still pervs.
Next the video moves onto the main course - absolutely obnoxious and totally juvenile behaviour towards women: PSY 'handles' sleeping sunbathers, undoes a bikini top, cups a fart in his hand for a woman studying in a library, pushes a cup of coffee into a girls face and finally pulls the chair away from a lady he has invited to sit down. The waiter joins in 'the fun'.
Not a way to treat a lady? No - Indeed. PSY's character is as a total jerk. He Kicks away a soccer ball from kids and holds up an elevator while Yoo Jae-Seok (a renowned comedian) is suffering nausea or diahoorea. 'Proper and Polite'? Not exactly. PYS's boorish pranks are particularly offensive to Confucian norms. How can he behave like that?. Good question. But the flip side is the expectation of obedient submission to authority, bosses, husbands and even boyfriends. How 'Polite' is sexual harassment at work, abuse at drunken parties, or even physical 'discipline' meted out by husbands and boyfriends in public places? If the irony is lost on us, you can bet it won't be for Korean audiences. Men are such Gentlemen! How superior we are in the west
'Hey bitch, I'll make you sweat. Get down on that pole.'
The third serving is PSY as a pathetic middle aged man trying to show off at the Gym. He struts off to dinner, Ga In in tow. But OMG she kicks his chair away. How rude. OK, let's try getting nasty with some infantile sexualization of food.
Then finally, we are off to the (mandatory!?) after-work party. Mow The preceding juvenilia gets closer to home: Beer sprayed everywhere, animal antics, drunken slobber and a humiliated woman (Ga In) all to 'Hip Hop Style' lyrics, "gonna make you sweat/ gonna make you wet", ending with PSY being catapulted into an indoor pool. In the epilog, PSY's 'executive' humps a telegraph pole.
The lyrics (in Korean) carry a punch: Girl you are sleek, neat, beautiful and I don't know if you know, it'll be a problem if you're confused .. but we like to party and you're it. Literally!
AND so does the dancing: the hip dance from Abracadabra, which everyone knows, (in Korea at least) with some extras. Money-money fingers synched with "Mother Father", some 'effeminate' waving and crotch pointing. The steely smirk Ga In wears throughout the dancing says it all really. This is not K-Sugar-Pop. It's a strong brew with a hard kick.
Prank
Party
(Korean) Reaction video:
PS. The quadrillion edits? I find writing very difficult (can't you tell) and make errors upon errors. And I'm adding and tweaking stuff constantly at the moment, trying to keep my mind of things like Ricin. Cheers
= new reply since forum marked as read
Culture than Korean Culture I can't really say whether its really accurate or not. My only exposure to Korean culture was a grand mother who could not speak English, and who only spoke some Japanese, when I was growing up.
As for photo-fit Korean girls ... SNSD:Girls Generation all look pretty thin to me..
But then if you will notice, the most popular stars are "YOUNG" girls and guys. The girls are model thin and all the guys seem to be either
what they call "Flower" guys.. or feminine, or really macho guys who are all buffed up.
You don't really see this much in Japanese pop, though they do use a lot of very young girls. A good example was Mini Moni from a few years back.
The problem I had with them is that, Mika, who was born in Hawaii was always dressed and treated differently in the group because she was a foreigner. They always had her in Red-White-and Blue, stars and stripes, and despite she was clearly of Japanese heritage, she was pushed visually as a foreigner.
Most all Japanese girl groups have heavy security and are not allowed to be seen with guys even in their private lives. Its like they have to maintain a image of purity. One must never do things that would shame the entire group. One of the girls, was caught smoking and was suspended a year. Eventually she was assigned to do a duet group with her best friend from Mini Moni. Again she was caught smoking and given a year off. During that time she got pregnant, and it was all over the press, so she was suspended. The one left, decided she would quit singing as well, in protest over her friend.
Japanese groups have very short life spans. In the business they call it "Graduation" when a group quits. It was very difficult to see some of your favorite bands graduate. Most of them were still high school students, and their parents told them show business was a waste of their time and they had no future in it. These kids listened many times to their parents and quit. My favorite singer, ended up doing a cooking show for NHK TV network in Tokyo. She had great talent, but got tired of being told she couldn't sing or dance.
There was, I remember, a story about a Japanese Girl group member who shaved her head in shame after it was revealed she had a boyfriend. Pure fantasy can have sharp limits as well as a use by date