evacuatewithstyle » asian pop culture

Drama styling tips #4: Bad Guy

Amy — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 07:00:54 +0000

I’m all about the styling of Han Ga-in’s Moon Jae-in in this one.

The guys are standard suits and chaebol-wear, and everyone looks sharp, but it’s nothing to write home about. Moon Jae-in, on the other hand, I love. I’m not that interested in how the Hong family daughters are dressed because it looks like typical expensive-women wear, and that bores me.

The one winning thing about a good majority of Jae-in’s outfits is that her shoes give her rather girly get-ups a sharper, harder edge. She almost always wear badass biker boots, either with stacked heels or no heels at all. Everything else about her outfits are extremely girly — pastel blouses, slouchy button-downs — but once you look down at her shoes, the feeling completely changes.

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Post tags: Bad Guy/나쁜남자, Korean dramas, styling

Whatever kind of face

Amy — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 18:22:38 +0000

Here is a detailed explanation of what happened.

I wasn’t going to write about this, but I’ve been reading a lot of discussion in response to the incident, and I just wanted to get into some of the points that have been coming up repeatedly.

Point 1: I don’t understand why this is offensive because I wasn’t taught about this in school, and you can’t expect everyone to know about why this is offensive because Blackface is an American thing.

Blackface does its roots in the US. It has (hopefully) been ingrained into the American consciousness that painting yourself to look Black (or Asian, or Native American, or Hispanic) is offensive.

But, just because this is a unique to American history doesn’t mean that anyone outside of America or anyone who does not know American history should be exempt from understanding why this is offensive.

The very fact that someone has the luxury of painting some makeup on his/her face in order to be a person of another race, and then gets to perform/entertain/amuse an audience, and then has the luxury to take that face color off means that it is a thing of privilege, appropriation, and disregard for another person’s condition.

Someone else’s race and identity can be used at your disposal without you having to suffer any of the real consequences that are associated with having that skin color. That is not okay. Understanding this does not require a nuanced understanding of American history. These offenses exist independently of the circumstances that gave rise to them, so saying that you’re not aware of how something is offensive because you were never taught about it in school does not fly.

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Post tags: Kikwang, Korean pop, race/ethnicity

A dissection on SHINee: the timeline

Amy — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 05:00:08 +0000

Like I don’t write enough posts on SHINee. This post made possible by “Lucifer,” which I’m still ambivalent about. A timeline briefly going through all their promotional singles.

LUCIFER

I feel like Lucifer is an intensely sped-up remix version of Juliette. I don’t like songs that sound like shouting (ie: DBSK’s “Are You a Good Girl?”) and the chorus is somewhat headache inducing. Not only that, but the song is really repetitive, and I mean pop songs are meant to be repetitive in order to be catchy, but the repetitive parts in this song go on for so long. There’s somewhat a bridge, but I’m not really feeling it, so the song by itself is definitely not a favorite.

Now for the choreo. SHINee’s one true strength is that they are all great with choreography, and they almost always get great choreography. I really want to know who choreographed this because they just look like they’re doing non-stylish hip thrusts repeatedly. But I can’t fully judge the choreography yet because MVs are always edited in and around choreography with other set pieces, so it’s harder to tell, and Music Bank cameramen don’t seem to have any idea how to film things because they kept focusing on Minho half the performance and I missed out on all their dancing.

In addition, after watching their comeback perf, I will say that I grossly underestimated how much of a nightmare “Lucifer” is for Jonghyun and Onew to sing. Like I seriously teetered on the edge of my seat in fear that Jonghyun will pop multiple blood vessels in his forehead/neck when he was belting out notes and I think Onew was sweating the Atlantic Ocean out of his forehead trying to get all of his. Those two are the motherfuckin’ BOSS when it comes to singing, but it can’t possibly be good for their vocal cords to have to hit all those notes perfectly so many times a week for such a long time.

The one thing I really, really love about SHINee’s live performances is Jonghyun. I love watching him sing and perform because he’s so passionate and aggressive with his singing and he has so much attitude that it’s just really attractive in a performer. So I’ll stick around for Jonghyun if nothing else.

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Post tags: Korean pop, SHINee, SM Entertainment

Kind of perverse

Amy — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 01:31:45 +0000

There’s a new SBS variety show called “Heroes” with an all-female cast (minus the MCs) — IU, Kara’s Nicole, After School’s Gahee, Shin Bong-sun, Lee Ga-eun, Yoo In-ah, T-ara’s Ji-yeon, BEG’s Narsha, Seo In-young, No Sa-yeon, Hong Soo-ah, Finkl’s Lee Jin.

The episode begins with the cast members arriving one by one to a remote location, inside a warehouse, where there are two tables set up. One table is labeled “popular team,” and the other is labeled “unpopular team.” As the members arrive one by one, they’re supposed to decide which table to sit at.

This is the awkward and stupid part: the sunbaes in the industry obviously feel like they belong at the popular table, and the eldest unnies who are also the most senior in experience feel even more of a reason to sit at the popular table. This leaves: jokes about Shin Bong-sun, and jokes about the younger members.

Seniority is a big deal in Asian culture, and I understand that. Women like Noh Sa-yeon and Lee Jin have been in the industry for forever, and do have a lot of work experience that people, say, IU don’t have. But the problem I have with Asia’s sense of seniority is that somehow it trumps everything (both seniority in age and in experience). Look, things in the industry are a lot different now than they were ten years ago. I know that the elder sunbaes have had to pay their dues many times over to be where they are, but it’s so embarrassing to watch them single out newbies like they o b v i o u s l y do not know anything or they can’t possibly be knowledgeable of this, this, or that.

So you get the younger girls being embarrassed to admit their popularity for fear of appearing haughty — because we know that it’s double whammy to be both haughty and a haughty female — when I’m sure audiences know someone like IU is sure as hell more relevant now than Lee Jin.

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Am I going to have to lay down some whoop ass?

Amy — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 06:13:33 +0000

To preface, I love this couple. I have a bit of a Victoria weakness, but hey Nichkhun’s amusin’.

This episode, was not. It’s like watching an episode of a bad K-drama where you’re just hitting yourself in the head because the second female lead is doing stuff that only a second female lead would do to pursue a crush on a male lead — stay up all night to make food, follow-up on a promise meticulously …

This is now becoming one of those unfortunate stories where the girl is a little bit too much into the guy and talks about it happily with her girlfriends and then the guy’s like whaaaatevaaaazzzzz yo, I don’t need to do shit and I’ll still charm your panties off!! I hope Vic lays the smackdown and makes Khun work for it a little bit more.

I think the couple has a lot of chemistry and I hope it exists outside the show, but Vic is more believable than Khun, only because Khun is a helluva sweet talker and I’m glad Vic doesn’t fall for that shit so easily. (Though I wish she’d lighten up in thinking that this was actually a real relationship…)

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Post tags: 2PM, f(x), Korean pop, We Got Married

If you are currently a male residing in the SM fam

Amy — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 04:18:59 +0000

You will at one point in your career jump ferociously in front of negative space.

And I mean ferocious. Like wind-meets-water-meets-fire-melding-five-elements-of-earth-defy-gravity-become-an-Olympic-gymnast ferocious.

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Just another reason to stan

Amy — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 23:35:49 +0000

I watched MBLAQ cover “Mirotic” today, and let’s just not even talk about it because it was not obviously meant to be better than the original, but it just reminded me of the video above, which is a compilation of the high note that Changmin hits in that song, for a good number of live performances they’ve done of the song.

I know, it’s ridiculous. If you watch the video, you will most likely be subjecting yourself to a massive headache afterward, but you will also understand why I. Love. DBSK. They are the only group I will ever stan this hard for.

God! Why couldn’t they all sue together. I will probably never see another live performance of “Mirotic” again :(

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Hmm.

Amy — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 04:33:34 +0000

Lee Min-ho gave an interview on MBC Section TV, he said,

I have an older sister and I don’t really like it when she wears short skirts. Even with any girls that have some sort of relation with me, even though they are my friends, I nag at them if they wear short skirts.

This quote bothers me and it adds itself onto a list of reasons why even though I like Lee Min-ho as an actor, I’ve always been kinda iffy with him. (During his BOF days, he was asked about his ideal type, and he said he replied with women with “really white/light skin.”)

Anyway, I think what he said about short skirts isn’t really an opinion that only he holds, so maybe it’s not fair that I hold it against him personally, but since he’s a famous actor and someone a ton of people like/admire, it’s relevant.

Just this more general statement of a man (sometimes a woman) projecting dislike over what he deems is appropriate attire is an issue. Other than the obvious fact that it really isn’t his body or his personal clothing choice, it gives off the idea that a woman wearing clothing a certain way is an invitation for something to happen. Like if she wears a short skirt, if she gets raped, well it’s her fault for wearing something sexually suggestive. Or if she wears a shirt showing a lot of cleavage and she gets thrown perverted remarks, she was asking for it.

This sort of stuff places all the responsibility of maintaining abstinence on the victim, and none of it on the attacker. It’s so completely ingrained into our culture that women are doing themselves some kind of disservice if they wear something suggesting promiscuity, but it’s entirely unfair because why do women have to go through several lengths to tamper down an image just so that nothing happens? How about the men just keep to themselves?

At the end of the day, you can argue that this is just Lee Min-ho’s preference and that he isn’t being offensive or discriminatory, but this type of opinion, voiced by a famous and well-liked actor, just perpetuates this stigma against women dressing a certain way because it’s an invitation for attack. I’m not saying I’m a fan of breasts hanging out of shirts or shorts that don’t cover anything, but it’s ridiculous how many things girls have to do in order to “feel safe” in an environment.

Some posts of relevance regarding news on a condom introduced pre-World Cup that was meant to “prevent” rape (but by doing so, placed the responsibility of preventing rape on the women, not the rapists. Ergo, if a woman was raped, she wasn’t doing enough to prevent it.):
- Rape-aXe Condom Distributed During World Cup
- Penis-Shredding Condom Can’t Actually Prevent Rape

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I don’t even know who I should blame

Amy — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 04:26:11 +0000

Man, I’m so over the Kpop music scene. Everyone tries so hard to out-do each other, but everyone for some reason, ends up looking like the everyone else anyway. How about we just concentrate on making good music, good videos, and good dances and call it a day? Instead of forcing these ridiculous concepts and images and blah blah blah and then getting accused of plagiarism left and right?

SHINee is not usually a group I pick on for this sort of stuff because I really enjoy their music and their efforts as artists, but SM is slowly turning them into gimmicky little marketing ploys and it drives me up the wall.

…Enjoy these?

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Song of the day

Amy — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 16:07:15 +0000

Taeyang – Break Down

Easily, with no competition, my favorite track off the album. This song is my jam for the summer. I wish he promoted this song instead of “I Need a Girl” :(

“Solar” as a whole was really underwhelming and too simplistic. I didn’t dislike anything, but it was a lot of “meh’s” and shrugging. Nowhere near how good his “HOT” album was, unfortunately.

The second half of the album was much better than the first, though listening to Move may be the only time I listened to a fellow Asian rap in English and gotten goosebumps out of undying embarrassment. It was greasy, cheesy, and so disgustingly unoriginal. I felt dirty listening to it.

Favorite song: Break Down
Songs I really like: Superstar, 니가 잠든 후에
Songs I didn’t used to like, but because of how boring the album is, I ended up liking: Wedding Dress, Where U At
The rest: Meh.

I’m not complaining though, I’ve been waiting for this album and some new material from Taeyang, and I got it. Like I said before, I don’t hate anything, a lot of these songs just aren’t as compelling as I expected them to be.

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