This post is a long time coming, and probably has been in the making since Super Junior first started promoting in China.

Hallyuism at this stage in the game is all about the money. Korea is a place where trends catch on in a millisecond, and people have caught onto the fact that K-pop can make money, and a lot of money at that. So I get it: it’s a cultural product worthy of pride, and it’s an important national export.

The thing that drives me nuts is the extent to which the people exporting their pop and their business in pop have so little consideration for the cultures and countries that they want to export to. I’m not going to call the kettle black, because I understand that I, as an American, come from a country that is notorious for disregarding the cultures and sensibilities of other countries when it comes to forcing our media and culture onto others.

But I obviously have a horse in this particular race, which is why I feel the need to call K-pop out on this. I work and deal with K-pop, and as a non-Korean observer of K-pop, seeing things happen in K-pop that affect me on some level trigger certain reflexes and emotions. At a moment when K-pop is being so highly self-lauded and whose output is being so aggressively marketed outside of Korea, it disgusts me that it will on the one hand pay so much lip service to the markets and countries it’s trying to pursue, and then on the other hand exploit the shit out of it while maintaining fake deference.

And this rant will be primarily about inklings of things I hated when I watched Super Junior M promote, and now stirring me once again with Exo.

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I thought in jest about writing a series called “Questionable K-Drama Male Behavior towards Females,” but I think I’m actually going to do it, and episode 13 of Spy Myung-wol is a good place to start.

Spoilers for the latest episodes, so read with discretion.

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These couple of episodes have been interesting because it gives me new things to think about. I’m not really clocked into what’s happening in the overarching political storyline, nor am I really invested in the romance between Seon-joon and Yoon-hee, but I think the side characters are shaping up to be more interesting than I thought they’d be.

First is the relationship between Yong-ha and Jae-shin, and then second is the relationship between Cho-sun and Yoon-hee. (The girl who plays Cho-sun was also in Bad Guy as the girl who jumped to her death, which I completely did not even realize until a second ago.)

Lots of gender/sexuality ramble after the jump. Yay!

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I’ve been trying to craft this post for a while, because ever since learning about Far East Movement, I’ve been thinking about them and what they represent in the music industry and what they represent to me as artists.

I’ll start with an admission of guilt. I truly support FM and all their endeavors and I just want to sit and enjoy a piece of Asian American history as they become the first all Asian American act to sit pretty on the top of so many charts, but I’m still not completely won over by their songs. I guess I should look at it from another perspective. I think the guys are great performers, great speakers, and great producers, but I think they’re mediocre lyricists. They’re meant to be performers and they’re meant to be music makers, but I think as writers their lyrics need a little bit of work.

I think FM is the most dynamic group I’ve ever seen perform live and I’ve seen them perform a few times now. Visually they are such a trip and their aesthetic is something I dig so damn much, and I can say as an Asian American — who’s really critical of Asian pop, Asian pop in America, and Asian/Asian American representation in American media — that I almost want to say I feel so blessed that there is finally somebody like me out there who is mainstream and who is succeeding and who are considered “cool.”

Maybe I’m being extra hard on them because I am Asian American and America has gone for so long without a mainstream Asian American music act that when we do finally have someone in that crowd, I want them to be perfect, and I realize this is not fair to FM as a group, because they have gone above and beyond, and why do they need to be perfect, when there are so many popular acts out there who haven’t done half as much as they have, and haven’t worked a fourth of how hard they’ve worked?

It’s like when I, as an Asian American, almost feel shame or embarrassment when I see fellow Asian Americans commit crimes or do bad things, because we’re taught that we have to uphold the model minority status, and not only that, but I feel like for a person of color, every time another one of “us” does something bad, we have to make sure to distance ourselves from them in case all the other Americans think that “all” of us are like “that,” because there’s such an easy tendency to think that all Chinese people are Communists, or all Muslims are terrorists, or all Koreans are descendants of Kim Jong-il.

When the Virginia Tech shooting happening, I’m pretty sure the Korean American community collectively went, “Well, oh, fuck.” When I read the news about Dharun Ravi and Molly Wei’s involvement in Tyler Clementi’s death, I was like, “Mother of shit! Why’d you both have to be Asian?!” Whenever I read the International section in the New York Times and I come across yet another piece on how the Chinese government is being “oppressive” or how there are a trajillion more “bootlegs” being imported from their country, I just smack myself in the face. When yet another terrorist caught happens to be Muslim, I sigh.

So all of this in turn makes me really strict with Asian Americans and the actions they take, and the products they put out. Which is completely unfair, because it’s not anybody’s responsibility, as anybody of color, to have to be responsible of their actions on behalf of an entire race in this country. Yet, that’s what happens. Repeatedly. History teaches us nothing. You, as a POC, do one thing really bad in the eyes of America, and you and other people of your race are also stuck with that for a while. And this has to change. I don’t think I’m selfless enough to be a straight on activist for these kinds of issues, and I admit this flaw, but I can change the way I evaluate the Asian Americans I see in my pop.

So I think about it again — why does Far East need to be good at this, this, this, this, this, and ALL of this in order to be good? They ARE good. They’ve been doing this for a long time, they’re some of the most humble artists I have ever met, listened to, watched. They deserve this as artists. The Asian American community deserves to have them repping us.

I don’t have much to say about the album yet because I plan on listening to it when I get my copy. And I end by saying that if you have, at any point, listened to FM and liked them and the work they’ve done, please go out and support these guys. Their album “Free Wired” was released October 12, and it’s available on Amazon for 9 buckaroos. 9 bucks! You can’t even get a meal and a drink at Chipotle’s for nine dollars. Go go go!

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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