Politics and ... b-boy?

38th Parallel. DMZ. and b-boy? When do politics and popular culture collide? Think about it in the American context. Look at Angela Jolie. Brad Pitt. Bono. Though they might have made the switch to actually being more ambassadors (especially in the case of Bono), Pitt and Jolie are still a part of the Hollywood industry. And though they are figures to raise awareness, politics plays a role.

And the reason why they got known for doing work in other countries is because they were already well-known. People who do great work in other countries are often nameless or faceless because they are not well-known. Not to say that what Jolie or Pitt or Bono did was not great work, I respect them for taking their celebrity status and doing something meaningful with it, but I am getting off topic.
Let's look at another example in American culture. Look at the Obama campaign. If you haven't seen it already, check out the clip below. Is that not a merge of politics and popular culture?

So what place does this have in popular culture and b-boy? If you look at the video, you can see b-boys dressed up as North Korean and South Korean soldiers. What are they trying to say in this video? Are they trying to say anything at all?

This isn't the only example in Kpop culture. There are Kpop stars who are cultural ambassadors, ambassadors of food, culture, airports, political things (there was a claim that a Kpop song was used for border propaganda). Obviously, even on a non-political level (some I mentioned) celebrities are used for things like CFs and company promotions. So is it surprising or unreasonable for politics to dive into this sector as well? And what happens, like in the b-boy video, where the popular culture adds elements of politics. Was it just a satire and a parody and that's it? No more further analysis necessary? What about when an idol group requests not to wear a certain article of clothing or a celebrity talks about a political issue and netizens react? There is a current variety show going on with a idol group T-ara where they work for a Korean government official (I don't know all the details because I've only seen one episode). What about outside of Korea? Korean celebrities are representatives of Korea? Or are they not? Like in Rain's case, is he a representative of "Asian-ness"? What about Kim Yuna? Does politics and popular culture converge?

Colbert Report

Just a little throwback, Stephen Colbert and his "arch-nemesis" Rain. If you watch the link, perhaps you will think it is funny, perhaps you will think it is offensive, perhaps you won't think anything of it. This is the thing about Stephen Colbert (and his counter-part John Stewart), the show uses offensive humor, sometimes intentionally political incorrect humor. it is important to recognize for both the Colbert Report and John Stewart Show, the type of people they cater to, in other words, who is their audience? Those who watch John Stewart are more politically aware than people who watch CNN. Why? Because to understand the comedy and satire you have to know what is going on in the news. Also, Stephen Colbert does not only "attack" (pending how you look at it) Rain just once; he amusingly continues to bring up his arch-nemesis  as Rain continues to earn awards, accolades, ect. If you actually go to the posted link, you can see other clips where Colbert brings up Rain randomly when it comes to Speed Racer, MTV Movie Awards, ect. The second clip is a reaction from a Korean news source, though there is no subtitles, hopefully you can get the main jist as Colbert speaks (obviously in English). Was this offensive? Or did it bring more awareness to Rain (and perhaps Kpop)? Is all exposure good exposure? Do you think that Colbert was making fun of Rain in an offensive way?

Is myspace private? Social networking woes....

How much do you personalize your own facebook or (if you have one still) myspace settings? Do you add anyone to be your friend, or let people see your wall or comments?

I'm sure you can see where this is leading. More and more, as time goes on, people tell us to protect our information on the web. The Internet is a public sphere, whether right or wrong. This means, YOU need to change the settings to make your profile private.

What's the worst that could happen? An invasion of privacy? This officer had to provide his password for his job. Students risk college admission  . These are huge things. Employment, educational opportunity, even issues of relationship status and what about age discrimination, race discrimination, sexual orientation discrimination, religion discrimination. All because of a social networking site?

How about a group of netizens finding a comment to a friend, made in a different transition of your life, and causing a kpop national uproar? You are just blowing off some steam, and you thought it was just an innocent comment to a friend about how you are doing in another country. at the age of 18, roughly a senior in high school. When I was a senior in high school, myspace was increasingly popular, xanga was a dying medium but still existed, ect. These are personal thoughts and comments, that you assume that your friends will only read, but ... other people can surely access them.

Is it wrong? Should social networking be automatically private? There were issues in the past about Myspace and child predators. Obviously, Jay Park's example is one of a larger scale. There was issues of nationalism (Korean pride, and also keeping in mind that Jay was a Kpop idol in Korea, where he shot to stardom), cultural differences, interpretation errors/potential exaggerations (translation from English to Korean; potential sarcasm), identity issues (for Jay being a Korean American adjusting to life in Korea, his own dealing with being neither a Korean nor an American, the hard life of a trainee, ect). Stardom -> just like you can shoot to stardom, you can also be dropped.

Also, what role did 2pm play in all of this? Should they have supported Jaebeom and all left JYP together? What would have been a practical solution? Netizens were angry at 2pm (or 1:59pm, depending on your stance). No one thought that 2pm could last after a controversy like this. Is it fair for the members to take the hit for a fellow group member (their leader, for that matter) when they themselves also trained for years to debut in the music industry? They were grouped together by JYP Entertainment, keep that in mind. Of course, they are friends and now "brothers" and one group, ect, but their years of training... done by one controversy, and one that didn't involve them?

There were other hidden elements involved in this issue that are also not discussed, that I obviously don't know about. Even now his role in 2pm is largely taboo for the members, JYP, ect.

Anyway, I digressed from the whole myspace and privacy, but just bringing it back to 2pm. Was it just a huge misunderstanding? An overreaction? They should have just let it go? Had he not gone back to Seattle, would the tension died down enough that he would still be okay to be a part of 2pm?

Chinese SM entertainment

I think I mentioned this before commenting back to someone in the past, but I wanted to expand.
As we learned today, there is intentional expansion into different countries to expand the market. Kpop industry is a money-making market industry. So where does language play in all of this? Lee Soo Man (SM) is aiming to expand into China, then having a group to focus on the Chinese market is a strategy to tap that market. For example, Super Junior is a 13 member group that is broken into sub groups. Super Junior M (M is short for Mandarin) is a specifically focused on the Chinese market. SM intentionally put members with Mandarin-speaking (actual Chinese members) to make sure language was not a barrier. Even more, the group sings in Mandarin, and they release albums in Mandarin. In other words, this subgroup focuses solely on the Chinese market. Choi Siwon, one of the group members, has been in Chinese movies. Both Choi Siwon and Donghae were in Taiwanese drama Glamorous Challenge.

Here is a clip of their most recent MV.

Is this furthering the Hallyu wave? The majority of the idol stars in this group are Korean, yes. But is it furthering the Hallyu wave? The idol stars are appearing in Chinese movies, Taiwanese dramas, singing in Chinese, appealing to the Chinese audience intentionally. How much Koreanness is there? Interestingly, some of the members of this Super Junior subgroup are some of the popular group members in South Korea as well. 

Even more, Chinese member Han Geng was the group leader... until he decided to leave SM entertainment because of "slave contracts". This was a marketing ploy of SM, as mentioned the group focused on Chin. I am interested to see how successful Super Junior M is without Han Geng there, though now it will be different because their Mandarin-speaking ability is, I assume, greatly improved (and they are also promoting Henry a lot more, who also speaks Mandarin). Below is a clip of them on a Chinese variety show, the main speaker for the group is Han Geng. Now, Han Geng is back in China trying to make it as a solo artist. 

How do you see this marketing ploy also in the group f(x)? Interestingly, from what I can see, the group does a lot of CF commercials, even though they haven't come out with any new songs for a while. Although it is difficult to know their popularity (musically they are not as popular, but they are on CF commercials and advertisements consistently, more recently without Amber). Like Super Junior M (when they had a leader), Victoria is the leader of f(x). Victoria, like Han Geng is Chinese. (If you look at the post before, with the CF commercial of the backpack, that is Victoria.) Though they are still focusing on Korea, I assume that SM is going to take them into Chinese promotions again, seeing that they have two members who have Mandarin-speaking ability (the other being Amber). 

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CF example of language

I know we talked about language in variety shows in the past, and I actually saw this CF commercial a long time ago, but it struck me again and so I decided to post on it this time. Hopefully the link works. The person in the video is Victoria, leader of SM entertainment Kpop group f(x). Victoria is Chinese.  Note as she starts the commercial saying "umma", which means mom in Korean before speaking in (sorry if this is wrong) Mandarin. Do you think this is how she really talks to her mom on the phone? Also, even at the end she says "bye bye" adding an English language factor. You can even note the way that she acts really cutesy while she is on the phone, despite the fact that she is trying to be upset. 

Why do you think the advertisement had her speak in her native language? And even look at some of the comments, noting that it was nice to hear her "speak Chinese for once". Even though Victoria is Chinese, she rarely speaks Mandarin on television or CFs. I am actually unaware if this advertisement was used in China or not, but if it didn't, what does this mean?