Writer Blythe Hunter is a fan of K-pop; but as a woman, it makes her feel...'clunky.' She spoke with pop culture professor mhc727 to find out why
The sinking feeling had been building for months, but it came to a head while I was watching a live show of K-pop girl group Twice performing “Likey.” It was late, I was eating a bag of chips and lying on my stomach in bed, staring at my smudged laptop screen with dead eyes—watching the nine young members skipping around the stage in their mini-skirts, singing about lipstick, BB cream and being pretty.
Most people who don’t know much about K-pop think of it as factory-made, mechanical and soulless, which isn’t really accurate. The term “K-pop” is usually assigned to literally any Korean music, including R&B, ballads and even rock. It’s not a genre. That said, despite the variation, there’s definitely a mainstream version of it that leans toward meticulously polished production and presentation.
My relationship with East Asia is…complicated Being a Chinese adoptee raised by a white mom, my connection to East Asia is different than those of other East Asians who were born here in North America, or who moved here at a young age with their birth families. The issues that almost certainly led to my adoption make it only natural for me to both resent China and long to be part of it.
Being “strong” or stubborn as a woman can lead people to treat you with less care or sympathy than if you were more traditionally feminine or delicate. Because of that, there was something about the softness with which K-pop girl groups existed that drew me in.
It took a long time to realize that I didn’t need to feel guilty about any of the changes in my behaviour or how I presented myself. It wasn’t as if the idols or other East Asian women I saw were hyperfeminine from birth. They were conditioned and influenced by media and the society around them, and so was I, albeit second-hand.
In the video, the members lure a white pizza delivery boy to their creepy mansion and chase him around, wielding crossbows, guns and axes. An ending shot of his uniform in a trophy case implies they kill him . I loved it—they were still girly, but there were undertones of more independent sexuality and power, and it was a change in pace to see a bunch of young East Asian women, usually the ones being fetishized by non-East Asian straight men, luring an unsuspecting white guy to his demise.
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