Gender Roles In S-Korean Pop Music
I mentioned in a previously that I’ve been reading an interesting blog. The Grand Narrative is a blog on Korean Sociology through gender, advertising and popular culture. I came across this blog through music. A friend of mine. One of the better dj’s here in Iceland. A guy who’s both mixed better and produced some of the sweetest sounds I’ve heard in my life. Once said that "music is a universal language". There’s a lot of truth in that. So at some point some months ago. I was on YouTube looking for stuff to watch and listen to. Because YouTube isn’t just for great videos, it’s also a great source of music you can’t find anywhere else. I don’t know if you’ve noticed this. But if you register on YouTube, it will recommend stuff for you to watch. For some reason, on this particular day it recommended that I watch some South Korean music.
At that point in time I knew nothing about S-Korean music at all. My main musical taste is electronic dance music. House and techno and that sort of stuff is the soundtrack of my life and S-Korea isn’t exactly famous for producing it. As it turned out this was a promotion by one of the largest music publishers in S-Korea. A firm called SM-Entertainment which was promoting their most popular act Girls Generation. You might be familiar with the concept of girls groups. But this was taking it to a whole new level. Here they had 9 girls in a single group. The song wasn’t bad, but didn’t strike me as all that great, even if the girls where easy on the eyes and I sort of watched the video and thought to myself. “Interesting to see the girl group concept in an Asian version”. What surprised me a bit afterwards, was the fact that the song stuck in my head. If you’re interested here’s the video to the song.
This was my first introduction to the Korean music marketing machine. I have have an interest in music related things and one of the things I can appreciate is a well written pop song. There’s a formula behind it. It’s the length of the old time 7 inch single. Somewhere around 3-4 minutes long. It contains a hook that for some reason sticks in your head. This song did. So that got me interested in discovering more S-Korean pop music. Which turned out to be an adventure in discovering a thriving music industry that is apparently quite successful in Asia and starting to get more attention further afield. Something that is known as the Korean wave. From an Icelandic viewpoint. The pop stuff looked quite similar to many of the pop groups being promoted here. What I didn’t know. Until I started reading the Grand Narrative. Was that S-Korean society is quite different from ours. For one thing it’s based on the Confucian societal ideal. Which is quite different from ours. There’s also a disparity in the status of the sexes. Something we here find a bit strange. But the one similarity I found striking. There’s a strong streak in S-Korean society about keeping it homogenous. A feeling of cultural identity that apparently leads people there to respond to foreigners comments and criticism of S-Korean society by saying that they don’t understand what’s special about S-Korea. Which reminds me of our viewpoint. That Iceland is in some way unique. In my view there’s actually a very strong streak of xenophobia and racism here. A sense that seems to be shared by a large part of the Icelandic population. That evil foreigners are plotting to exploit us. Which to me seems somewhat farfetched. So with that in mind, what made S-Korean popular music interesting is that it didn’t seem that different from what I’d seen before from artist in N-America or Europe.
It wasn’t until I started reading The Grand Narrative that I realized that actually there’s quite a bit more to it. As I mentioned before the status of the genders is quite different from what we take for granted here. The rise of the Korean girls groups, of which there are now quite a few popular examples. Might actually be a reflection of a change in the gender roles within Korean society. That these gender roles would be best described as traditional might be an understatement. For example the wage disparity between men and women in S-Korea is the highest in all of the OECD countries and on average women in S-Korea only earn 60% of what men do. That there are quite strict societal norms concerning the relations between the sexes, which result in women being ill informed about family planning and women having to suffer all sorts of inequalities in the workplace. That S-Korea has one of the lowest birthrates around and that due to the emphasis on outward appearance it’s common for most of these pop group members to have undergone some sort of plastic surgery. That while some of these groups use strong sexual under (and over) tones in their visual imagery, this is not a subject that Korean males feel comfortable about discussing. The author of The Grand Narrative has speculated on what level those involved in these pop groups are actually aware of how their image is being used for marketing purposes. Because, and I find this interesting, there’s a fine line between empowerment and exploitation when it comes to pop groups. It seems like these groups may represent the vanguard of a growing female empowerment in S-Korea. But it could just as well be argued that the women who form these groups are simply being exploited. This would get far to long if I get into that discussion and The Grand Narrative does a far better analysis. So if you find this interesting I would head over there and read more.
At that point in time I knew nothing about S-Korean music at all. My main musical taste is electronic dance music. House and techno and that sort of stuff is the soundtrack of my life and S-Korea isn’t exactly famous for producing it. As it turned out this was a promotion by one of the largest music publishers in S-Korea. A firm called SM-Entertainment which was promoting their most popular act Girls Generation. You might be familiar with the concept of girls groups. But this was taking it to a whole new level. Here they had 9 girls in a single group. The song wasn’t bad, but didn’t strike me as all that great, even if the girls where easy on the eyes and I sort of watched the video and thought to myself. “Interesting to see the girl group concept in an Asian version”. What surprised me a bit afterwards, was the fact that the song stuck in my head. If you’re interested here’s the video to the song.
This was my first introduction to the Korean music marketing machine. I have have an interest in music related things and one of the things I can appreciate is a well written pop song. There’s a formula behind it. It’s the length of the old time 7 inch single. Somewhere around 3-4 minutes long. It contains a hook that for some reason sticks in your head. This song did. So that got me interested in discovering more S-Korean pop music. Which turned out to be an adventure in discovering a thriving music industry that is apparently quite successful in Asia and starting to get more attention further afield. Something that is known as the Korean wave. From an Icelandic viewpoint. The pop stuff looked quite similar to many of the pop groups being promoted here. What I didn’t know. Until I started reading the Grand Narrative. Was that S-Korean society is quite different from ours. For one thing it’s based on the Confucian societal ideal. Which is quite different from ours. There’s also a disparity in the status of the sexes. Something we here find a bit strange. But the one similarity I found striking. There’s a strong streak in S-Korean society about keeping it homogenous. A feeling of cultural identity that apparently leads people there to respond to foreigners comments and criticism of S-Korean society by saying that they don’t understand what’s special about S-Korea. Which reminds me of our viewpoint. That Iceland is in some way unique. In my view there’s actually a very strong streak of xenophobia and racism here. A sense that seems to be shared by a large part of the Icelandic population. That evil foreigners are plotting to exploit us. Which to me seems somewhat farfetched. So with that in mind, what made S-Korean popular music interesting is that it didn’t seem that different from what I’d seen before from artist in N-America or Europe.
It wasn’t until I started reading The Grand Narrative that I realized that actually there’s quite a bit more to it. As I mentioned before the status of the genders is quite different from what we take for granted here. The rise of the Korean girls groups, of which there are now quite a few popular examples. Might actually be a reflection of a change in the gender roles within Korean society. That these gender roles would be best described as traditional might be an understatement. For example the wage disparity between men and women in S-Korea is the highest in all of the OECD countries and on average women in S-Korea only earn 60% of what men do. That there are quite strict societal norms concerning the relations between the sexes, which result in women being ill informed about family planning and women having to suffer all sorts of inequalities in the workplace. That S-Korea has one of the lowest birthrates around and that due to the emphasis on outward appearance it’s common for most of these pop group members to have undergone some sort of plastic surgery. That while some of these groups use strong sexual under (and over) tones in their visual imagery, this is not a subject that Korean males feel comfortable about discussing. The author of The Grand Narrative has speculated on what level those involved in these pop groups are actually aware of how their image is being used for marketing purposes. Because, and I find this interesting, there’s a fine line between empowerment and exploitation when it comes to pop groups. It seems like these groups may represent the vanguard of a growing female empowerment in S-Korea. But it could just as well be argued that the women who form these groups are simply being exploited. This would get far to long if I get into that discussion and The Grand Narrative does a far better analysis. So if you find this interesting I would head over there and read more.
Ummæli