(G)I-DLE’s “Queencard” and “Nxde” – The Language of Homage

on June 12, 2023June 23, 2023 By francesca_ohop 1 Comment

NOTE: The music videos discussed in this video are rated for ages 12+ and 15+. As such, this article is for readers 15+. Reader discretion is advised.

You know it’s an interesting day when you notice a White Chicks homage in a K-Pop video.

I am, of course, talking about the (G)I-DLE video for “퀸카 (Queencard)”. A quick YouTube search shows that I was not the only person who noticed that the dance scene in the first chorus was, indeed, a familiar sight. It has become somewhat of a meme that this scene is in “Queencard”.

However, as a filmmaker, I can’t help but wonder what this homage means. I mean, White Chicks is a very specific choice – a movie where two black men pretend to be rich white socialite women? You don’t pay homage to a movie that is both as iconic and as controversial as that without having some sort of purpose behind it.

Y2K: An Immortal Era of Chick Flicks

When my partner showed me “Queencard”, she pointed out that the thesis of the video appears to be that western beauty standards still penetrate Korean culture – specifically Korean pop culture. I am very much inclined to agree. Almost, if not all, of the extras are white, black, or otherwise not Korean. The dyed hair and contact lenses that the members of (G)I-DLE are, consequently, an indicator of the unnatural situation. The Y2K fashion is an indicator of the teen movies that a lot of American Millennials and Zoomers grew up with.

What’s important to remember is that there is a little more to a White Chicks homage. The movie revolves around the tense friendship dynamics and rivalries of women, from the outside perspective of men. The female characters actively tear each other down, but they actively build each other up in equal measure. The male leads learn as much from the female leads as the female leads do from them. While there are no major male characters in “Queencard”, the implication of the reference seems to be that women have the capacity for both when it comes to their relationships.

That said, there is another element at play here – camp.

K-Pop and Camp: A match made in heaven

Camp is, in essence, a commitment to the ridiculous, whether you know it or not. White Chicks is a camp classic, for example, because while it’s very much a comedy, everybody in the cast and crew are firmly committed to the ridiculous. Even though everyone is over the top, you accept that these people are real because everyone involved in the production is truly living in their role. If you want examples from K-Pop, Super Junior’s movie Attack on the Pin-Up Boys is a perfectly done camp film, and the K-Drama The Uncanny Counter flirts with camp often.

Camp is a common (but often overlooked) element of K-Pop. It is a device to communicate elements of the story or message when other methods are not sufficient. And “Queencard” uses camp masterfully, in that the shock factor at some of the over the top elements allows you to think about what they mean. Why are all the doctors dancing around Soyeon before her surgery? Because the standards she is subjected to are, unfortunately, ubiquitous. Why are all the cars crashing in the presence of Minnie or Soyeon? Because that is what these characters think they want. Why is it implied that Miyeon is replacing Minnie between shots? Because it’s unfortunately very easy to only think about yourself.

Why use these homages?

So, this got me thinking. How does (G)I-DLE use the language of film homages? There are other homages in this video, including nods to Mean Girls and Ariana Grande’s “Break Up With Your GF”. My brother even said that the pool scene may be a reference to the 2008 movie Wild Child. There are more homages in (G)I-DLE’s companion music video “Allergy” as well. This YouTube short does an excellent job showing them in context. At a glance, all of the movies and music videos referenced are all about the complicated relationships between girls – how they break each other down and build each other up in equal measure. As such, we can assume the thesis of “Queencard” is that women are complicated, and that the only thing you can do in the end is be yourself.

But this isn’t the only MV by (G)I-DLE that uses the language of homage.

Let’s get into it.

Let’s discuss (G)I-DLE’s video, “Nxde”. This video is filled with homages. The notable ones are the ones stated at the end, Marilyn Monroe and Banksy. However, they are not the only ones, not by a long shot. The cartoon woman is clearly emulating the style of Jessica Rabbit from Who Framed Roger Rabbit? Soyeon’s costumes very clearly reference iconic outfits by Madonna and Lady Gaga, and a lot of the black-and-white camera shots are reminiscent of Madonna’s music video for “Vogue”. The use of can-can dancers, as well as the shots of Miyeon in her dressing room looking at herself in a mirror, as well as the final shot of the shredded picture that passes by several other scenes, are all direct references to Baz Lurhmann’s Moulin Rouge.

Okay, so what does all this mean?

Homage #1 – Satine

Nicole Kidman as Satine in *Moulin Rouge!*

Let’s start with Moulin Rouge. The character Miyeon is dressed as is Satine, a can-can dancer by night and courtesan also by night. She is a character that all of the other characters, male and female, reduce to a sex symbol. She wants to be an actress more than anything, but being a courtesan is the best she can do right now. Satine’s lover, the struggling writer Christian, completely believes her when she lies and says that she is not in love with him in order to save the Moulin Rouge club.

Her boss, Zidler, continuously puts Satine in positions where her only recourse is to sleep with men. The Duke, Zidler’s investor, fully expects Satine to sleep with him, and even tries to assault her at one point. However, in spite of all of this, Satine is a very intelligent, calculated woman who never acts impulsively and always measures her words and decisions very carefully – something everyone in the film takes for granted.

It’s also worth mentioning that when we meet Satine for the first time, she’s directly paying homage to both Marilyn Monroe and Madonna through a cover of both “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” and “Material Girl”. More on both of them later.

Homage #2 – Jessica Rabbit

Jessica Rabbit in the film *Who Framed Roger Rabbit?*

Now, what about Who Framed Roger Rabbit? Well, Jessica Rabbit is, much like the women on this list, reduced to a sex symbol. And this is by design – in Jessica Rabbit’s world, as a “toon” herself (a living cartoon) she is a minority. Moreover, she is a minority who is working in a club as a singer, particularly one who is meant to use her sexuality to make money. Jessica is photographed doing “patty cake” with another man, such that her husband, the titular Roger Rabbit, takes to mean she is being unfaithful.

However, the truth is Jessica was threatened into posing for those pictures – or, more accurately, her husband was threatened, and she was acting in his interests, irrespective of her own. She is aware of her sex appeal, but her relationship with her husband matters more to her. Furthermore, all the toons – the minorities of this film – are in active danger of death via acetone. Jessica’s not exactly in a privileged position, even when perceived as such. A reference to her, is, in essence, channeling a woman who lacks privilege even when she is perceived as having such.

Homage #3 and #4 – Madonna and Lady Gaga

A portrait of Madonna for her song “Vogue”

Moving on to Lady Gaga and Madonna. Lady Gaga and Madonna are both musical artists and fashion icons. Madonna paid homage to Marilyn Monroe, and Lady Gaga paid homage to Madonna. (There was also apparently a feud between Gaga and Madonna, but that’s a different story that I don’t feel qualified to speak on.)

Both Lady Gaga and Madonna broke boundaries while being artists in their own right. Both of them are women who have unapologetically expressed their sexuality.

And, most importantly, they are women who were demonized for expressing their sexuality.

Homage #5 – Banksy

Then, we get Banksy. Banksy is a British street artist who has never shown their face. They have created some truly generation-defining art pieces. One of those iconic pieces is “Love is in the Bin,” and it is iconic for a very specific reason. As soon as it was sold at auction – for no less than £1,042,000 – the frame turned out to be a shredder, and half of the painting was ripped to shreds.

The auction house managed to stop the painting from completely shredding itself, much to Banksy’s dismay. The elusive Banksy stated their intent was to completely destroy the painting. Shredding an art piece – specifically one that was worth a million GBP – is either a genius business move (turning a piece into a once-in-a-lifetime moment) or a statement on the nature of capitalism, if not some combination of the two.

It’s also worth mentioning that Bansky is completely anonymous. The public doesn’t know their identity. Only a handful of people have ever met them. To use the language of homage in this way is to pay homage to an artist without a body.

Homage #6 – Marilyn Monroe

(G)I-DLE’s Minnie paying homage to Marilyn Monroe

A Deep Dive Into The Representation of an icon

Lastly, Marilyn.

Oh, Marilyn.

“Nxde” came out around the same time as the 2022 movie Blonde. In fact, it came out within weeks of Blonde’s international release. While many people saw it as a biography, Blonde was based on a very fictional account of Marilyn Monroe’s life.

According to YouTube channel Be Kind Rewind: “It’s close enough to reality to seem correct,” but “it’s detached enough to be reductive.” The director, Andrew Dominik stated he wanted to harness the “collective memory” of Marilyn Monroe. He even said that it doesn’t matter if people take the movie as gospel truth.

The Real Marilyn

In the words of Be Kind Rewind:

“Yes, Blonde is not a factual account. It’s about the myth of Marilyn Monroe, it’s about the image. But can we really divorce blonde from her real life iconography? I’m not so sure. In my view, simply labeling something a fictionalized account doesn’t mean that story is excused from broader questions about legacy and veracity.”
Be Kind Rewind. “So I Watched Blonde…” YouTube, 24 Oct. 2022, youtu.be/VwFkhLBes4o.

Marilyn Monroe was an incredible woman. Not just an actress. An incredible woman. An incredible person. She was a hardworking actress who had a huge hand in the development of her persona. Not only that, she had an insane range to her acting. Monroe took a number of classes to improve her acting and comedy skills, and channeled the likes of actresses like Mae West. She parodied her own status as a sex symbol, according to one of her biographers. Marilyn Monroe also converted to Judaism, and found her Jewish faith to be an important part of her identity.

The Facsimile of Marilyn

Dominik claims to be enamored with Monroe’s mental health makes a mockery of her suffering. In Dominik’s words:

“It’s about a person who is going to be killing themself. So it’s trying to examine the reasons why they did that. It’s not looking at her lasting legacy. I mean, she’s not even terribly concerned with any of that stuff. If you look at Marilyn Monroe, she’s got everything that society tells us is desirable. She’s famous. She’s beautiful. She’s rich. If you look at the Instagram version of her life, she’s got it all. And she killed herself. Now, to me, that’s the most important thing. It’s not the rest. It’s not the moments of strength. OK, she wrested control away from the men at the studio, because, you know, women are just as powerful as men. But that’s really looking at it through a lens that’s not so interesting to me. I’m more interested in how she feels, I’m interested in what her emotional life was like.”
BFI. “Andrew Dominik on Blonde.” BFI, 27 Sept. 2022, http://www.bfi.org.uk

I will not mince words. This take on this real woman’s life is abhorrent.

It’s worth mentioning again that Dominik did not write the source material. Joyce Carol Oates, the author of the novel Blonde, is to blame as well for this interpretation of Monroe. Oates believes (or appears to) that Marilyn Monroe was only a tragic figure, solely defined by her pain. She presents Monroe, through her novel, as someone who is effectively incapable of joy. In Be Kind Rewind’s words, Monroe becomes an “avatar for suffering” through the depiction within Blonde.

The fact that both Oates and Dominik took advantage of a human being’s story for this monstrosity angers me to no end.

more than a symbol: Channeling Marilyn Monroe

Soyeon directly pays homage to Marilyn Monroe in her lyrics:

Twisted Lorelei that don’t need no man
A bookworm obsessed with philosophy, a self-made woman
Very flabbergasted by this sassy story
The audience booed and shouted
“You tricked me you’re a liar”
Genius English Translations – (G)I-Dle – Nxde (English Translation).” Genius, 2023, genius.com

Soyeon paying homage to Madonna and Marilyn Monroe.

As stated above, Marilyn was both aware and involved in the presentation of her image. However, she was not responsible for men only wanting this from her. She was an intelligent self-made woman, but people thought that she couldn’t be more than a dumb blonde. The idea that she had agency over her body and femininity, but was also a victim of the oppression of her industry, is not as much of a contradiction as Oates and Dominik wanted to believe. Ergo, “Very flabbergasted by this sassy story” is a direct reference to Marilyn’s life.

It’s also worth mentioning that “sassy” can have multiple connotations in the lyrics of “Nxde”. The phrase in use is “싸가지없는”, which could also mean “rude” (to put it mildly.) However, “sassy” is the official translation, so it seems that Soyeon, (G)I-DLE, and CUBE Entertainment want this to have an ambiguous connotation. It could mean sassy in reference to a woman who’s unapologetic and trendsetting, or it could mean sassy in reference to a woman who is rude or vulgar. This ambiguity doesn’t just invoke Marilyn’s complex identity, but also invokes all of the other figures on this list.

The final screen of “Nxde” reads as follows:

THIS VIDEO IS INSPIRED BY MARILYN & BANKSY.

THANK YOU AND LOVE YOU.

(G)I-DLE

Soyeon, Minnie, Miyeon, Yuqi, and Shuhua all knew exactly what they were doing when they channeled Marilyn and Banksy, as well as everyone else. They were communicating a very specific, very urgent message.

“Our bodies are not for you.”

Final Thoughts

I’m a very femme-presenting person. I enjoy the process of putting on a full face of makeup. My closet has more dresses than can reasonably fit in it. I like taking care of my hair. I even prefer walking in heels to sneakers – you can blame my high arches for that one though. I love who I am, whether I’m wearing mascara or not.

That said, there have been periods of my life where I have actively downplayed these aspects of myself in order to get through life and seem “tough.” Particularly in my grade school film classes, where I would sometimes be the only girl, I would want to seem like a different person than I was. I didn’t want to be “like other girls” – though, in retrospect, I don’t think I even knew what other girls were really like.

When (G)I-DLE releases songs like “Queencard” and “Nxde”, I get a profound feeling of hope. Soyeon, Minnie, Miyeon, Shuhua, and Yuqi are carrying on the legacy of the powerful women who came before them, who they pay homage to.

And I know, for a fact, that they will inspire girls to do the same.

The Vincenzo Villain Saga: Part II

on November 15, 2022June 20, 2023 By francesca_ohop 1 Comment

NOTE: This is Part 2 of a series on Studio Dragon’s Vincenzo. This article series has heavy spoilers for the entirety of the show, so please proceed with caution.

The series will be as follows:

1) Introduction + Acting

2) Writing – YOU ARE HERE

3) Other Character Interactions

4) Scene Analysis #1

5) Scene Analysis #2 + Conclusion

For those of you who haven’t watched the show, this is the last warning. I will be spoiling the entirety of Vincenzo in this character analysis.

Pronto? Andiamo.

PART II: The Writing

NOTE: I had to get screenshots from YouTube videos, so please support the following YouTube creators: “Hell is empty and all the devils are here” and sophie야.

The Mystery – 1, 2, 3, 4

When they revealed Jang Hanseok to us, the audience, at the end of Episode 4, I was surprised. However, what surprised me more was how much sense the reveal made. Beyond Ok Taecyeon’s acting, the writing of the show – but especially in the first four episodes – is absolutely stellar. Hanseok’s identity is presented in the early episodes of the show is a mystery to be solved by the leads – possibly the main mystery of the show. However, Vincenzo isn’t a mystery show. It’s more of a race – each episode presents new challenges, and whoever beats the other to the punch effectively wins.

In the case of Hanseok’s identity reveal, it actually shows how much of a leg up Hanseok has on Vincenzo – he’s literally ten episodes ahead of him. He has enough time to get a grip on Vincenzo’s process and take him by surprise – which is, of course exactly what he loves. In Hanseok’s mind, surprise is a form of power.

Hanseok having a head start on Vincenzo means that by the time Vincenzo does find out about him (in Episode 11) Hanseok has already mentally prepared to deal with a mafia consigliere. Whether or not Hanseok is actually physically prepared, though, is immaterial. He generally leaves it to the people around him to take care of business. It’s not about being literally prepared, but psychologically prepared. And he is very, very prepared to deal with a mobster.

It’s important to note that the show actually seeds the Junwoo/Hanseok reveal very early on, so that it doesn’t come out of nowhere. Hanseok carefully sizes up Vincenzo upon meeting him, and asks him his name without butchering it, showing a degree of competence. He compliments Chayoung’s watch, which is relevant to a later reveal about his heinous actions. And, of course, there’s Hanseok and Chayoung’s first meeting with Han Seo – which we’ll get to in the next article.

Charismaniacs

There are two words that describe Jang Hanseok better than all others: Magnificent Bastard.

The Magnificent Bastard is a trope referring to a character – usually a villain – who is supremely intelligent, charmingly charismatic, and steadfastly driven towards a specific aim. To quote the description on TV Tropes:

They are brilliant and utterly devious, a smooth operator. They are also savvy and do not fall for obvious traps; bringing them down is no easy feat.
They have a goal, and they’re not going to stop until they’ve completed it. Even when the goal is suicidally over-ambitious, they succeed with style.
They are charismatic, often charming, their personality is like a physical force. While they exist on the darker end of the moral spectrum, they never take disgusting actions that undermine their magnificence, leaving them diabolical but in a way the audience can’t help but enjoy. And they are definitively not cowards. Ever.

Overly Sarcastic Productions on YouTube expounded upon this definition, explaining that a Magnificent Bastard (or “Charismaniac”, as it were) cannot be impulsive. They can be petty, but they have to be calculated. Because if the character loses control regularly, or has none to begin with, it implies that the character is acting entirely on a whim and is less intelligent than they let on. Therefore, they can’t be a Charismaniac.

The Core – “God enjoys making people suffer.”

If this were a test, Jang Hanseok would pass with flying colors. Hanseok is the epitome of the Magnificent Bastard. He has a goal that he will accomplish no matter what, no matter who he steps on. He’s unnervingly charming – the moment he’s on screen, you can’t look away. And I have never – never – seen a character as convincingly sadistic as him. But what cements him as a true Magnificent Bastard is his intelligence – nearly every moment on he is on screen, he’s calculating the correct play. No matter the hand dealt to him, he knows how to maximize his advantage.

Jang Hanseok is the definition of a Charismaniac.

And his goal is power.

Hanseok spends the majority of his time in the show leveraging his power as the secret owner of Babel and accumulating power via as many other means as he can. He started by removing familial threats – killing his father and abusing his brother Han Seo – to consolidate power in the most intimate social circle he had. Fortuitously for Hanseok, this social circle was the center of Babel leadership. Once Hanseok had his brother under his thumb and his father six feet under, Babel was effectively his.

Junwoo – The world’s most terrifying himbo

Let’s focus on Hanseok’s alter ego, Junwoo. “Junwoo” appears to be a manchild, an archetypical himbo. He has a number of juvenile-coded personality traits, like getting overemotional, fumbling when he’s doing simple tasks like parking his scooter, and trying to impress people. He’s presented to the audience as a comic relief character. Then, at the end of Episode Four, the showrunners pull the rug out completely from under us.

There is one scene that sells us on “Junwoo” being a comic relief character, thereby making the Hanseok reveal that much more insane. In Episode 2, Junwoo is cleaning up in Han Seunghyuk’s office when he overhears Seunghyuk talking about the demolition team coming to Geumga Plaza. He’s slightly more subdued than we’ve seen him before, but he still opens his mouth in shock when he realizes what’s being said. Since he is not being observed, he’s not as over the top as he could be. However, because he’s still in the office with Seunghyuk, he is still technically in character as Junwoo. We catch a glimpse of the real Hanseok here – actively calculating the correct move, not showing his hand to the characters but subtly cluing us in that there’s more to this character than meets the eye.

The way Hanseok is written after the reveal also has to be internally consistent for this story to work – and it is. I talked about this more in the previous article on Ok Taecyeon’s acting, but the traits that make Junwoo endearing are the traits that make Hanseok terrifying. Both personas are relaxed at best, lackadaisical at worst. But those lackadaisical traits that make Junwoo seem like a youthful, sweet soul are the exact same traits that indicate Hanseok’s complete and utter lack of fear or self-preservation.

His apathy is our fear.

Revisiting the importance of casting

Part of the reason this works is casting. Casting a K-Pop idol, particularly a K-Pop idol who has done a lot of comedy, was an incredible misdirection on the part of the production. K-Pop comes with its own associations, one of which is aegyo. To paraphrase, the term aegyo is basically just “acting cute,” but generally refers to a series of gestures like finger hearts that can often be construed as childish. So when we see Ok Taecyeon, a famous K-Pop idol, behaving in a stereotypically “cute” manner connects the audience with this concept of aegyo. So when “Junwoo” does a complete 180 and becomes Hanseok, we are floored because it subverts our understanding of the behaviors expected of an idol.

However, Ok Taecyeon wouldn’t be able to act the role as well as he did if it weren’t for the way Hanseok is written.

Acting out the role of the dense-but-kindhearted Junwoo, thereby putting himself in the place of an intern, is the ultimate power play. “Junwoo,” being a law intern, is privy to all of the strategies that the lawyers for Babel are putting together. He can see exactly which knife is sharpest, and which one cuts deepest.

But there’s more to the decision to be a lowly intern. “Junwoo” is practically invisible in the eyes of Wusang Law. He’s an intern, assigned to do menial tasks like paperwork and picking up after the partners. Based on his position and his overall childlike demeanor, they never think anything of him. They barely talk to him.

And whenever he is not talking, Hanseok is listening.

The bluff of the century

Hanseok holds all the cards without anyone knowing. People trust him because they think he’s a dense intern. But he’s always observing and taking in information – information that he is very good at using against people. As an example: Hanseok got kicked in the back by Han Seunghyuk (the managing partner at Wusang and Chayoung’s former boss) while masquerading as Junwoo. After revealing himself as Hanseok, he kicks the table while looking at Seunghyuk – which immediately sets Seunghyuk off. And, since Hanseok knows Seunghyuk is a habitual butt-kisser who hates making powerful people upset, leveraging the fact that Seunghyuk had kicked a powerful person in the back when that person was perceived as powerless pushes Seunghyuk into a corner that he can’t escape from.

Junwoo’s modus operandi is incredibly effective.

Character flaws

One of the hardest lessons to learn in scriptwriting is that characters need to be flawed. Sometimes, the writer will get so invested in a character that the narrative as a whole will treat a singular character as the most important human being alive. Even if they’re the villain, they’ll seem to know absolutely everything, and get away with absolutely everything without much more than a handwave.

Vincenzo, luckily, doesn’t have this problem. Every character feels like a person. And that’s because they all have flaws. Vincenzo Cassano avoids letting people get close as guilt for everything he’s done, and his self-isolation is a driving force in his character arc. Hong Chayoung puts the assignment above her own feelings, which is great for taking down Babel and Wusang, but also means she has to compromise her own morals to do so.

However, it’s important to note that neither of these character flaws are inherently negative traits. Vincenzo’s private nature is part of what leads him to be so good at getting the job done – he is very good at bluffing and not showing his hand. Chayoung’s pragmatism lets her think of outside-the-box solutions (or, frankly, out-of-pocket solutions) that are almost always successful. These character traits are not flaws because they make them bad people – in fact, they’re generally good qualities. They become flaws when put in the wrong circumstances.

And Jang Hanseok’s drive for power, while being what makes him most compelling, is his character flaw. But, it’s not for the reason you think.

hanseok’s Fatal Flaw

Greed – and being singularly focused on it – would theoretically beget the flaw of being blind to anything else. However, Hanseok is a calculated individual. Hanseok is not emotionally adept in the way Vincenzo and Chayoung are, but he is adept at figuring out exactly what makes people afraid. Han Seunghyuk is afraid of offending authority – Hanseok leverages that. Choi Myeonghee is afraid of endangering herself – Hanseok leverages that too. Han Seo is afraid of Hanseok himself – and yet again, Hanseok leverages that.

What makes Hanseok’s greed his flaw is not blindness to anything else.

No. It’s the circumstance.

How can you leverage fear on someone who has nothing to lose?

In the case of Hanseok, the only way to make him feel fear is to make him as powerless as his own victims. While power is what drives Hanseok as a character, it is also the source of his fear.

The language of fear

Hanseok talks about a nightmare he had in Episode 12, in which he is being buried in an unmarked grave, dying in obscurity, without anyone knowing who he is. On the surface, this reads like a fear of dying without fame, but in context, this is a dream of dying without power. Hanseok has, up until this point, gained power by selectively revealing himself – his true self, his sadistic self – to a few people with a lot of who he can manipulate for influence. Han Seo obviously knows who he is by default, but he reveals himself to Myeonghee and Seunghyuk with intent.

Hanseok confiding his fears in Myeonghee.

There is a correlation for Hanseok between power and the security of his identity. In the same scene, Myeonghee tells him that his greatest weakness, in fact, is his anonymity. If people don’t know who he is, they don’t know he has power. This comment is what prompts the decision to reveal himself to the Babel board.

The board

When Hanseok reveals himself to the Babel board, he doesn’t reveal his sadism outright. Rather, he triggers Han Seo and the chief prosecutor by revealing his sadism to them specifically. To Han Seo, he lets him know that the pain of being shot was excruciating. To the chief prosecutor, all he has to say is “It’s ME!” and that’s enough to scare him. The triggering of these memories strikes fear into onlookers, as their normally relaxed colleagues are acting like they just saw their worst fears come to life – because, in fact, they did.

(Left) Hanseok approaching the chief prosecutor to scare him. (Right) Hanseok saying “It’s ME!”

Hansoek’s revealing of his identity is, theoretically, a way to control his circumstance and turn his flaw into his asset. However, his both figurative and literal bloodlust is what leads him to make mistakes. He assumes that everyone who fears him is loyal to him because of fear.

But, as Vincenzo reveals again and again, there’s always something or someone scarier than you.

The Psychology of Hanseok

As with any character who is purportedly insane, we do have to ask the question about the nature of Hanseok’s mental state.

In Episode 15, we learn that Hanseok has a psychopathy diagnosis. I, as a rule, don’t like the word “psychopath”. Technically speaking, there is no true diagnosis of a psychopath. What a psychopath is Hanseok does give the impression of being narcissistic, but since they just gave him a general categorization of “psychopath” we can’t fully analyze his narcissism as an actual disorder, merely a personality trait.

There is a very real concern about ascribing a character with a mental disorder, because it can perpetuate stigma against people with such disorders – especially if the person writing them isn’t writing from a place of copious research or personal experience. Neurodivergent people are not inherently violent, just as neurotypical people are not inherently violent.

The sadism of hanseok

The only saving grace with Hanseok’s character in the psychological diagnosis is that he actually has to have someone explain to him things that “normal people” understand more innately. Specifically, Choi Myeonghee has to explain to him that yes, normal people do care about their families. His actual confusion at the concept (and the way Myeonghee handles it by explaining) is one thing I can say is probably him having some sort of personality disorder, though we don’t definitively know what disorder he has. He clearly doesn’t care about “normal” people the same way he does about power.

I do think that the show does a good job of establishing Hanseok’s sadism as separate from his disorder. His disorder isn’t revealed until episode fifteen, after we’ve gotten to know him as a person and a villain. At that point, the framing is such that this isn’t the reason for his sadism – or even really an explanation for his behavior – but instead a new piece of backstory we have to understand as a part of him. So he’s not a sadist because of his disorder, but because that’s who he is. It narrowly – narrowly – avoids the pitfall of most “psycho stalker” movies, wherein the character’s diagnosis is a scapegoat for fundamental problems with the story logic.

Hanseok sees people as toys, regardless of what diagnosis he might have.

(Left) A young Hanseok examining the watch of one of his victims. (Right) An adult Hanseok wearing the watch of presumably the same victim.

A Toy Playing God

I find it interesting that a lot of people ship Hanseok and Chayoung. To me, that relationship always seemed like cold manipulation on his part. Hanseok never sees people as more than pawns. It’s part of his goal of being a God on Earth. To assume Hanseok sees Chayoung as anything but a tool implies he has more emotional acuity than stated. Furthermore, when he confesses his love to her in the second to last episode, it’s a fairly flat confession. He literally is holding her hostage in the scene.

And then he shoots her.

This scene doesn’t read as someone who is genuinely in love. In the localized version he describes himself as “madly in love” with Chayoung, but he does so without emotion. These aren’t the actions of someone who actually cares about a person. This is someone who thinks this may win over another person. It reads at someone who, backed into a corner, is saying what he calculated as the appropriate response. Actually, it’s the response he thinks will get him the right reaction – loyalty.

Notably, Chayoung is completely at odds with Hanseok. Chayoung has no respect for Hanseok, though he demands it of her. Regardless of his status or potential power, she doesn’t care about how he might see her. That’s on brand for her, considering how she’s willing to make a fool of herself for her own satisfaction. Hanseok, on the other hand, focuses way too much on his on image. Chayoung’s joke about his new hairstyle looking like an idol’s is more than a joke about Ok Taecyeon’s other job. She’s actively criticizing his emphasis on trying to seem approachable.

Vincenzo and Hanseok – more different than YOU’d think

But what about Vincenzo? He’s always talking about the suits and the mafia. He’s focusing on his image too, right?

Well, not quite.

Unlike Hanseok, Vincenzo is honest to a fault. He can pull off a plan where he has to play a character – we all love the Episode 8 seduction. However, when he’s himself, he can barely stop himself from saying he’s in the mafia in polite company. Vincenzo wears the suits because he was practically born to wear them. Vincenzo doesn’t care if he’s approachable, and frankly he doesn’t care if you respect him. He always gives the most honest answer he feels he can. He doesn’t even really care if people find out he’s in the mafia – he taunts people with this.

Vincenzo also allows himself to play the fool when he has to. In Episode 15 he plays a shaman that channels the spirit of an antagonist’s dead brother, among others. This is the last thing Vincenzo wants to do – he wanted Chayoung to play the shaman. But, he gives it 1000%, as always. His shaman persona Yeo Rim is melodramatic, sassy, and wearing a white poppy in his hair. When “channeling” the spirit of the man’s dead brother, Vincenzo/Yeo Rim not only shivers and whimpers in his trance, but stands up and drags the man across the floor.

Vincenzo being an absolute icon as the shaman Yeo Rim.

Not exactly the move of a dignified mafia member, but by God does it work.

Acknowledging counterarguments

The counterargument to this being unique to Vincenzo’s character is that Hanseok performs as the foolish Junwoo, up until he can’t anymore. He even tries to fool Chayoung after the reveal. Theoretically this would mean Hanseok is as comfortable as Vincenzo in putting on a charade for others.

However, there’s no way this is true. If we are to believe that Hanseok’s greatest fear is dying powerless and in obscurity, then this betrays an intense insecurity on his part. As we’ve seen time and time again, he has to be in control of every interaction. He has to be liked or respected by others. When Hanseok playing Junwoo, he’s using that role as a means to get the respect of others by subverting his own likeability. However, once he stops playing Junwoo, Hanseok preoccupies himself with his image and his respectability, as well as hiding his own illegal acts.

Wrapping up part II

Once we understand Hanseok as an insecure character, the name of his company begins to make sense. Babel. The tower of Babel – the tower of mortals who fancied themselves as powerful as God. It might as well have had an Icarus Division, if they wanted to make it clearer. Hanseok wants nothing more than to be a god, playing with people like they’re toys, building towers out of Legos and knocking them down as he pleases.

But it’s the man Hanseok fancies as a mortal who is able to play him.

Hanseok is the toy.

Vincenzo is the god.

Part 3 Arriving Soon

Hwasa’s “Maria” – A Brief Intensive on Shot Composition

on August 5, 2020June 20, 2023 By francesca_ohop

I’ve been a big fan of MAMAMOO’s since 2016, so you can bet I’ve been playing Hwasa’s “Maria” nonstop virtually since it came out. Judging from the fact that the video got 12 million views in less than three weeks, I’m not the only one. The song is an absolute bop, with powerful lyrics and a great melody. Hwasa’s voice and the Latin beat add a dimension of acoustic authenticity to the synthetic sounds within the song.

But as good as the song is, the video itself hearkens to something deep within me. The lyrics of the song are exemplified by visual cues and dynamic scenes. The colors strike a balance between green and red, warm and cold, vibrant and muted. It’s an elegant affair, yet it has elements of grit. There’s fluorescents and fire for lighting, flickering, even palpating. And, of course, the iconography – the dinner scene, the funeral, the crown, the asylum, the scissors. It’s truly a masterwork.

There’s one specific thing about the video I want to review for how brilliant it is, and it’s the shot composition. The framing of the shots themselves is part of why the video works so well. I will break it down into three categories: Dynamic Shots, Negative Space, and Set Design.

DYNAMIC SHOTS

This is an easy one to discuss: there is not a single moment in the video with static framing. The camera is never on a tripod. Shots that would normally be on a tripod are done via handheld. The movement may be slow, but it is always – always – moving. This injects energy into every scene, because you always feel like you’re moving alongside Hwasa. Whether or not the camera is pointed at her, you experience everything with her.

In a music video, this is especially important, because the idol is in fact the star of the whole thing. We have to feel engaged with her personally, or else we lose interest once the song is over. But keeping the camera alongside an interesting subject keeps the viewer on their toes and eager to continue watching.

NEGATIVE SPACE

According to Lights Film School, negative space controls the color palette of a shot, simplifies the shot, adds depth, and isolates the audience’s attention. The negative space in “Maria” accomplishes exactly that. Looking at the iconic shot with the lighters, the background is pitch black, minus a soft light on Hwasa’s face. Then, hands carrying lighters enter the shot, giving color and illumination via the power of editing.

What makes the shot work is the negative space in the background. You could divide the shot in half – the top half empty and the bottom half filled. Hwasa’s face is framed by negative space on either side. The hands all point upwards towards her face, driving the focus towards her. Her hair, eye makeup, and lips are red, while the rest of the shot is gold and black, making sure she’s the focus of your attention.

Negative space isn’t always an expanse, though. It’s emptiness, and that can be on a stage as well. And the sets are sparsely populated. Hwasa often stands isolated, with nothing behind her. The asylum set is particularly empty most of the time, and the white, glossy tiles give a feeling of sterility. When offset by naturalistic imagery like rose petals and flames, it establishes a range of emotions that Hwasa is trying to get you to experience.

However, there is also a lack of negative space in many scenes. A lot of shots have monitors or other actors, filling the space. Other shots are extremely close to Hwasa, putting her in claustrophobic framing. This parallels the lyrics about dealing with adversity and loneliness, even in (and especially in) her position as an idol.

Set design

By far, the most important part of the shot composition is the set design. The set design is what drives the attention towards Hwasa – no matter the scenario, it can’t overwhelm her. In this music video, however, the set design accomplishes the tremendous feat of highlighting Hwasa while still being unique on its own.

Let’s talk about shapes

While I could go on and on about the asylum and all its monitors, or the beautiful funeral scene with flowers and chairs surrounding Hwasa, or the dinner scene with inedible objects as food, let’s take a different approach. I want to talk geometry. I can hear you scream at me from beyond the screen, “But math isn’t art!” And I am here to tell you no: math and science make up the building blocks of art and life. From Da Vinci’s “Vitruvian Man” explaining the proportions of the human body in geometric terms, to Fibonacci’s “Golden spiral” representing the logarithmic spirals we find in the natural world, to even the patterns you might find in feathers on a wing or leaves on a tree.

The sets in Hwasa’s video are emblematic of various geometric design principles. According to Debbie O’Connor of White River Design in Australia, squares, triangles, and circles give off very specific emotions. To paraphrase, squares represent stability, triangles represent aggression and metaphysical direction, and circles represent unity and harmony. Any of these qualities can be positive or negative. Stability can be monotony, aggression can be power, unity can be homogeneity. Shapes accomplish powerful things as principles of design.

A world without rectangles

In “Maria,” most of the sets are not rectangular. Instead, they are either a very sharp triangle or a circle/oval. There are two prominent sets: an asylum and a triangular bathroom. The circle loops all attention towards Hwasa via the curves in the walls and her placement on screen. The triangle creates leading lines that directly point towards Hwasa, making her the center of attention always. Even the hallway set resembles an abstract polygon.

Round and round we go

Circles, while generally associated with positive qualities, can be put in a negative context. In Westworld Season 2, Episode 4 director Lisa Joy put a character in a circular room filled with spherical objects to show the central character’s monotonous life and spiral into insanity. In “Maria”, we see the same effect as in Westworld. The circle room is an asylum setting – sterile and pure. The mission of the “Maria” is to show how Hwasa deals with adversity and loneliness. Through the circular design elements, we feel that, regardless of whether or not people accompany her.

By contrast, the round set with the Mediterranean archways is palatial, with a chandelier. The set is regal, just as we are meant to view idols as royalty. (Note the crown of nails that appears throughout the video.) It also has a cathedral-like quality (again, note the crown of nails, which might as well be a crown of thorns.) Through these two sets, we can see the different design principles of circles at play.

The Math of Fear Triangles

The triangular bathroom, meanwhile, is also palatial; however, because of the sharp angles, it’s not serene, it’s unnerving. Hwasa’s hair is matted from the bathtub. Her makeup is smudged. She’s wearing plastic gloves in a bathtub, or more specifically, an area you’d assume she’d be more vulnerable in. The liquid in the tub is unnatural shade of white. The tile is dirty, and the painted paneling mixed with the wallpaper is borderline chaotic. She’s surrounded by velvet rope, like at a theater, closing her off from the others. The press as depicted in this music video blaspheme an otherwise private display.

The combination of these elements perfectly showcases the mission of the video. Hwasa lays her psyche bare for us. She wants us to feel the intense emotions that come with her fame: the chaos, the loneliness, the beauty, the pain.

That is, until the end.

The picture of stability

There is only one shot in the entire music video that has a rectangular composition. Where the set pieces form a rectangular frame. Where the composition indicates stability, strength, and comfort.

It’s the shot where her bandmates from MAMAMOO come to comfort her.

While “Maria” deals with heavy concepts, it doesn’t end in sadness or misery, but in joy. It ends in a serene composition. Her friends stand in a brightly lit environment. It communicates to us that in spite of the trials that Hwasa faces, she’s surrounded by people who love her. It doesn’t erase the burdens, but it provides reprieve.

When making a movie or analyzing a movie, you have to keep in mind how pieces play into a greater whole. If there is a theme central to a story, every shot should enhance that theme, whether to exemplify or subvert it. “Maria” accomplishes this in every possible way. The whole of Hwasa’s work is, needless to say, positively breathtaking. The rawness, the vulnerability, and the creativity – these are the pieces that make up the future of K-Pop.

K-Pop is Art – let’s take it seriously. What drives K-Pop videos?

on May 30, 2020June 20, 2023 By francesca_ohop 2 Comments

When I was fourteen, K-Pop was starting to pop up in western reaction videos. Random YouTubers would either post on their own channels or congregate with bigger names like the Fine Bros., where they would react to videos such as “Fantastic Baby” and “I Got a Boy”. One of the things I noticed repeatedly through these reactions is how much the reactors would poke fun at K-Pop videos. People would look at the brightly colored hair and hear the English choruses mixed in with the Korean and laugh because the phrase “Fantastic Baby” seemed like a stupid non-sequitur compared to everything else going on. There was no attempt to engage with what drives K-Pop videos.

Obviously, being a fourteen year old, I thought the videos were hilarious as well. Nevertheless, when I finally took my deep dive into K-Pop during high school, I began to actually look at the videos more closely. I noticed the burning cars in “Fantastic Baby” and remembered that one of the members, Daesung, had been in a car accident where someone had died, and had taken a break from singing for almost a year out of guilt. He was chained to a wall, like a prisoner. That got me wondering what was going on in the video as a whole, and I started looking into it more closely. I found very few analyses that covered it in any detail, and the lack of information actually became one of the reasons I started this blog.

4Minute’s “Whatcha Doin’ Today”

Fast forward about seven years later. I’m complying with the stay-at-home order and working on some personal projects. I tend to listen to music while I work because it keeps my brain from wandering too far. In this case, I was listening to a lot of 4minute, and I stumbled across their song “Whatcha Doin’ Today” and started listening to it.

I didn’t know what on earth was going on.

Sohyun was cleaning a carpet, Gayoon was playing with the Disney Channel wand, Jihyun made men make out with magic candy and has their heads inflate like balloons, Jiyoon was sitting on a toilet with her pants around her ankles, and HyunA was…being HyunA I guess. (Ironically she may be the least weird in the whole video.) Everyone’s wearing shiny dresses and bows, up to childish antics or over-sexualized antics, and partying like it’s the end of the world. And there’s no clear story to any of these scenes, so it’s really unclear what’s going on at any point. For all we know this is a day in the life of 4minute. Honestly, I doubt any of us would be surprised.

Screenshots from 4minute’s “Whatcha Doin Today”

I wasn’t going to write the video off, though. It was weird, but K-Pop usually uses weirdness as a thematic device to communicate something. Even the most bizarre images are done with very specific intent.

What’s 4 minute doing today?

After way too many viewings, I can infer that “Whatcha Doin’ Today” is a satire of assumed masculinity and femininity. It’s not necessarily making a statement on whether or not those traits are bad or good. Rather, it’s exaggerating those stereotypes, both among the female characters (the members and their backup dancers) and the male characters (also backup dancers.)

The various members of 4minute are not dressed conservatively, but their outfits are comparatively everyday. They also act as the dominant characters, picking on men and being attended to by women. The backup dancers, regardless of gender, are objects of attraction, dressed homogeneously and being teased by them. In short, the video is satire about the ways we objectify both sexes.

As for the various weird images, like school hallways with lockers and bathrooms and parties, these are actually very literal interpretations of the lyrics. Gayoon asks for an Americano and some guy comes out from under a table to present her with one. Sohyun talks about being at school and doing housecleaning, with those lines directly corresponding to her locations. The bathroom isn’t explicitly mentioned but Jiyoon’s corresponding rap verse correlates with the choreography: when she says that people watch boring shows on TV and laugh, all the backup dancers turn towards her. The images of people partying usually correspond with someone announcing a party or saying “have fun!”

However, because of the language barrier between Korea and the west, a lot of that is lost when people aren’t motivated to turn on subtitles. What is directly connected to the song seems irrelevant because people can’t actually tell what is or isn’t connected.

What qualifies as “Weird”?

This train of thought got me thinking more broadly about what we in America qualify as weird when it comes to K-Pop, and why we’re so ready to write K-Pop off as bizarre without trying to understand it. And why the answer seems to be obvious – culture barriers between the east and west – I’m more interested in understanding the specifics of what we classify as weird.

My focus with this blog is filmmaking, so what are the filmmaking techniques specific to K-Pop that people in America actively avoid understanding?

Lighthearted kPop videos

The big feature of K-Pop is that it’s very rare that a K-Pop music video gives you all the information at face value. Even if you have the lyrics to go off of, usually the videos get meta with their symbolism. Often production design is what is a conduit to symbolism. Details about the world communicate things to the audience. Even narrative-based videos will often have some sort of a reversal at the end that changes how you view the whole MV.

For the sake of this analysis, we’re not going to talk about videos that are intentionally dark or serious. We’re going to keep it on the happier end of the spectrum, because lighthearted music videos tend to have the most “weirdness” potential. Furthermore, serious videos tend to be more overt about when they’re making a statement (regardless of what culture or genre the video is from). Consumer-friendly music videos have room to be discreet.

Within K-Pop there are four general categories for videos that sit on the lighthearted end of the spectrum. These are Coolness-Driven, Narrative-Driven, Performance-Driven, and Statement-Driven. These categories are not mutually exclusive, as something narrative-driven can also put a strong emphasis on making a point, coolness-driven videos can have a strong emphasis on the dance. With that in mind, let’s get into the various categories:

Coolness-Driven K-Pop Videos

Screenshot from Orange Caramel’s “My Copycat”

The number one category that drives western scrutiny of how “weird” K-Pop can be is the Coolness-Driven (CD) category. CD videos basically center around how cool the artists in question are. G-Dragon’s videos circa 2012, “Crayon” especially, are usually in this category. It’s largely about spectacle, but generally there to drive the point that this singer is just so cool.

G-Dragon’s “Crayon”

Looking back at “Crayon”, G-Dragon is wearing a hat that says GIYONGCHY. GIYONGCHY is a pun on his given name (Kwon Jiyong) his stage name (G-Dragon) and the fashion brand Givenchy. That is some SERIOUS pun game with the only purpose of making G-Dragon seem like the coolest person around. Not only can he afford Givenchy, he’s so rich he can probably own his own fashion house. This of course assumes that you associate wealth with coolness. The two are not mutually inclusive, in my opinion, but it works in “Crayon.”

What drives the CD category is a lot of aesthetic shots that are seemingly unrelated to anything happening in the story, assuming there even is a story. In girl group videos, this is usually in the form of sexy, expensive outfits. In men, it’s…well, it’s about the same. But CD videos heavily emphasize the members, so that you can both see yourselves in them and and see them as especially cool. The dance, which is always a primary feature of K-Pop as a genre, is more secondary in this category. It’s more about holding up the singers as a desirable ideal, wherein the dance functions primarily to achieve that.

Scrutinizing “Coolness”

Western audiences tend to conflate this attempt at establishing coolness as showy or tactless. In some cases they’re right. The flashy visuals can be dialed up to an extreme that doesn’t sit well. But that’s not K-Pop’s fault, that’s the artist’s fault. G-Dragon went too far with “MichiGo” (don’t look it up, trust me) being extremely flashy and provocative to the point of being creepy. But that’s not a reason to write off K-Pop as a whole. It’s an extreme example. There are plenty of instances where western media artists do the same thing.

So why is K-Pop exposed to more scrutiny than other genres?

Examples of CD videos include: AOA’s “Miniskirt”, NU’EST’s “Action”, Blackpink’s “Boombayah”, miss A’s “Hush”

Narrative-Driven K-Pop Videos

Screenshot from Girls’ Generation’s “I Got A Boy”

Narrative-Driven (ND) videos are videos where a story features centrally. The story acts as a vehicle for us to get to know the members of a band. The story can be extremely simple, like a bunch of nerdy girls learning how to be sexy to win a contest (T-ARA’s “So Crazy”) or falling in love with a girl but being so shy that you panic every time she approaches you. (Seventeen’s “Nice”) Sometimes the story is vague, but the setting is prominent. Therefore, you get a sense of a story, even with a few moments of action. (TWICE’s “Like OOH-AHH”, EXID’s “L.I.E”) But even when the story is simple or implicit, the video is incomplete without it.

C-Clown’s “Far Away…Young Love”

On the other hand, there are videos where the story is a major part of the experience. The best example I can think of is C-Clown’s “Far Away… Young Love”. The video is at first glance very serious, but quickly becomes anything but, which is why I count it as a lighthearted example. There are two versions of the video, one with the other members of C-Clown and one with just Kangjun. The solo version, however, is the one we’re talking about. I honestly don’t want to spoil it for people, so please watch it. I beg of you. (Also, it has the same baseline as the Gerudo overworld theme from Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Seriously.)

The point is, everything in the video is played up for comedy. However because we spend so much time with Kangjun and get to know his character in this video, we get the sense that we know him. (Even though we don’t really. Please beware the dangers of parasocial relationships.) ND K-Pop videos are enable us to have a very direct relationship with the singers in them. We see how the members react to the various changes in their environment, what relationships form, and most importantly, what actions they take, if any, to change their situation.

Cinematic Universes

Sometimes this actually trickles into expanded universe territory, as narratives will form across videos and you learn about the members as if they were characters in a TV show. BTS is the example everyone thinks of, and they did establish the connected universe as a viable option for K-Pop. But I want to bring up VIXX’s “Conception” series, which had an implicit narrative explored through different aesthetics. LOONA, which has the LOONAVERSE, is also worth mentioning. I honestly don’t know much about the LOONAVERSE, but the wiki has a very good breakdown.

Is K-Pop really that confusing?

The story delivery is what confuses people in America…for some reason. Some people may say this is because a K-Pop draws on Korean cultural norms that are “unknown” to western audiences. However, I honestly can’t think of too many examples of that being the case. Maybe some references are unique to K-Pop, but overarching storytelling techniques should stand on their own.

It may come down to a difference in storytelling technique. Again, K-Pop largely relies on “meta” details to communicate something to the audience. But I also don’t think that’s sufficient. I have watched many movies where nothing happened, and my colleagues would zero in on a detail that was more vague and “meta” than anything in K-Pop. I don’t think meta narratives are the problem.

There are also issues that plague music videos in general. People mistaken melodrama for a lack of quality, or see an implied story as incomplete rather than implied. It’s worth noting, though, that many western artists make videos that are over-the-top, melodramatic, and lack background detail, but get millions if not billions of views.

Food for thought.

Examples of ND videos include: EXID’s “I Love You”, MAMAMOO’s “gogobebe”, SHINee’s “Married to the Music”, Super Junior’s “Black Suit”

Performance-Driven K-Pop Videos

Performance-Driven (PD) K-Pop is when the dance is more at the forefront than the members themselves. This isn’t as big a thing now, but it was really big in the early 2010s. SM Entertainment nailed these videos with bands like f(x) and EXO, with “Electric Shock” and “Overdose” respectively. miss A and T-ARA, while not from SM Entertainment, also nailed dances with such titles as miss A’s “Bad Girl Good Girl” and T-ARA’s “Sexy Love”. It has made a bit of a resurgence with bands like Momoland and Stray Kids, where the dance is the most primary part of their videos in many cases.

This can actually be a very positive thing for a band, because PD videos focus almost entirely on the members’ talents. It also makes departures from this format that much more noteworthy, such as f(x)’s “Red Light” and “4 Walls”. Since most K-Pop bands put a strong emphasis on dance, so picking it up feels second nature. That said, I wouldn’t say dance is universal to every K-Pop group. BIGBANG’s videos generally lack choreography, focusing almost entirely on the vocal performances. (Arguably, these could indeed count as PD videos because the vocal performances feature so prominently.) That said, I’d argue that this is the most uniquely K-Pop category, as dance and other modes of onstage performance are so important to the genre as a whole.

Performance or “Weirdness”?

The “weirdness” factor comes in when you consider that western videos don’t really emphasize performance in the same way. Whereas most K-Pop idols are strong all-around talents, western artists tend to focus on one category or another. Just because you’re a specialized singer does not mean you have to be a specialized dancer, and vice versa. It’s also my impression that westerners think idols who don’t perform on instruments are somehow not artists, just performers…as if not playing a guitar or the drums devalues the agonizing amount of time and training required to get the dance right. Art comes in many forms, all of which deserve recognition.

Examples of PD videos include: Red Velvet’s “Red Flavor”, GFRIEND’s “Glass Bead”, Pentagon’s “Shine”, 2NE1’s “Fire”

Statement-Driven K-Pop Videos

This last category is the hardest to pin down, but it’s the most effective. Sometimes, K-Pop videos try to make statements about other forms of media. A lot of these tend to be serious, but, as stated earlier, we’re explicitly talking about lighthearted videos that align more closely with “Fantastic Baby” and “Whatcha Doin’ Today”.

The driving aspect of Statement-Driven (SD) K-Pop videos is an underlying theme that transcends the video. Often, this is communicated through the various filmmaking choices. This is intentionally vague on my part, precisely because there are so many ways this can be implemented. The thing that separates this from other categories, despite the overlap, is that the other categories can exist without an SD component. SD, meanwhile, has to rely heavily on the other categories in order to subvert them. You can’t get on a soap box and scream your thoughts at people unless you’re in Washington Square Park. In spite of potential coolness-factor, narrative, or performance, the statement aspect will supersede the other categories.

EXID’s “Ah Yeah”

Let’s look at EXID’s “Ah Yeah”. There is a narrative aspect and a performance aspect, in that there is a pretty clear concept and implicit story, along with dance breaks and recognizable dance moves. But rather than being connected by a setting or an explicit group dynamic, they’re connected by the central theme. The theme in this case is sexualization and censorship. You think the girls were censored for lewd content, as implied. However, it turns out they’re doing fairly innocent things. Even so, through most of the video, the girls’ hips are censored when they’re dancing. The only guy in the video is plagued by Hani, who’s playfully seductive, and LE, who’s angry and violent. The video is making a statement about the autonomy of women, particularly from a consumerist standpoint.

Orange Caramel’s “Catallena”

Orange Caramel’s “Catallena” has a similar theme. The three members of Orange Caramel play cuts of fish. Specifically, they are fish that were once free in the ocean, then get put in a grocery store, then are repeatedly discounted because no one wants them. They get made into simple nigiri sushi and are neglected. Eventually, some human girls (also played by the members) eat them and have what effectively amounts to a religious experience. This video is completely over the top, with repeated cutaways to mermaids, a mean octopus lady, and CGI tears.

It’s worth noting that KBS thought the “Catallena” music video “disregarded human life”. But…did it? Consider “Catallena” as a metaphor for the commodification of women – of people – in entertainment. Being taken out of their natural habitat, put on display for people to buy into, eventually cheapened and cut down into something easily consumable – it’s pretty clear what the intent is. I’d argue that it’s notably effective because the images sit with you for a long time. When you sit for a while and consider what it might mean, it clicks internally.

SHINee’s “View”

Let’s look at an example of a male group, specifically SHINee. Their music video “View” takes at least two viewings to really understand because, like most K-Pop, it really hides it’s story in the details. Most of the video surrounds the members hanging out with a group of girls who seduce them in some cases and just generally play around with them in all cases. They sneak into people’s pools, rob a bodega (I guess?) and go clubbing. However, if you watch the video closely at the beginning, there’s one detail that flies by.

The girls kidnapped them.

With that in mind the video takes on a very weird message. It’s clear that the members are more or less okay with their kidnapping, which is really weird. (DON’T KIDNAP YOUR IDOLS. PLEASE.) They never make any attempt to escape. In fact, they avoid being recognized. It’s fairly clear from the opening scene that they’re idols in this universe as well. There are a lot of weird details. Pictures of the members on the walls of an abandoned building. Various moments where people try to record them on their phones. Members sprinting past cars.

So what gives?

Well it’s simple.

The members don’t want to be found.

The Horrifying Realization of “View”

The girls function symbolically in this story, hence why we barely see their faces. They represent a reality the idols are no longer a part of, and the desire the members have to go back to that reality. They’re up to fun shenanigans and avoiding responsibility. It shows what a world devoid of idol pressure would be like for them. It shows exactly how liberating that would be. Since the death of Jonghyun came two and a half years later, posthumous context makes this reading that much more heartbreaking.

And yet, in this video, the song is lighthearted. The activities are fun. The members are happy. The cuts are so quick, you can easily miss things if you just turn your head to ask your mom for a sandwich. But the video and song are lighthearted and serene, and more than anything, it’s memorable. Even if you don’t get the story, it will sit with you just because you remember it well.

Symbolism Summarized

The reason people write off these kinds of K-Pop videos so frequently is because symbols can fly way over your head if you’re not looking actively for them. And that’s not a bad thing. If you keep going back to a video, you have a better chance of finding the subtleties on your own. Yet many western audiences laugh or “aww” at the videos, because they don’t want to find subtleties. It doesn’t matter if “Ah Yeah” is about censorship, “Catallena” is about commodification, and “View” is about escapism.

Some people just don’t care.

Examples of SD videos include: BTS’s “Dope”, ITZY’s “ICY”, Stray Kids’ “MIROH”, MAMAMOO’s “Hip”

Final Thoughts

In film school, a teacher told us to watch a video for the first time to enjoy it but the second time to understand it and analyze it. There’s nothing wrong with watching a K-Pop video purely for the enjoyment of it. But enjoying something consumer-friendly doesn’t make it bad. Marvel movies are mainstream but those can be amazing. TV shows that are high in melodrama are beloved by many. We watch America’s Got Talent and revel in seeing talented singers and dancers, so why is it bad when someone listens to a band where all members are more than competent at both?

K-Pop is an art form. It’s a medium. It provides unique challenges but unique opportunities. But it’s not just consumer-friendly, it’s consumer-challenging. The best videos are the ones where they sit with you. Maybe it’s because they’re flashy like “Catallena” or you want to learn the dance to “Shine” by Pentagon or maybe you just think G-Dragon looks really good in hats. But the more they sit with you, the more they challenge you to think about them. However “weird” they may be, don’t write them off because they were funny that one time you watched at a friend’s house.

Music videos are art.

K-Pop is art.

And art is beautiful.

K-Pop and Sci-Fi – A Complete Deconstruction

on February 5, 2020June 20, 2023 By francesca_ohop

TRIGGER WARNING: THIS ARTICLE DISCUSSES THEMES OF DEPRESSION AND SUICIDE.

Science fiction and K-Pop have a long and storied history. From the likes of Lee Jung Hyun’s “Wa” to the stylings of bands like BIGBANG in the early 2010s, science fiction has been both a stylistic and a symbolic element in many music videos. This stems from a number of cultural and social contexts that, while prevalent in other countries, are particularly prominent in South Korea. But, what’s fascinating about K-Pop is how varied the aesthetics of the sci-fi are, while still retaining many of the same themes.

For cultural context, it’s pretty easy to see the correlation between dystopian sci-fi and South Korea’s relationship with it’s northern neighbor. Dystopian themes in fiction often are reactionary towards events that are occurring in a certain time period. And South Korea’s been in a dire political situation for over 60 years. Even before that, Korea hasn’t known peace, having to deal with Japanese imperialism long before the conflict with the North. It’s no wonder that there’s always been a large amount of K-Pop videos that deal with dystopia – while I don’t read everything as explicit political commentary about the relationship between the North and South, I do think that it’s stemming from a very real place in the cultural psyche.

Now is when I state the obligatory: this is not a political essay. I have no intent of telling you what you should and shouldn’t believe. Capitalism versus socialism versus libertarianism, that’s not the issue I am putting at stake here. What I am trying to say is that there are certain aspects of the world that contribute to why K-Pop is the way it is, and what its music videos communicate in context. I know many film critics like to bring anything and everything back to politics, but as an artist that has never been my angle. I do think, however, science fiction has inherently political connotations, and therefore I desire to put it in context.

However, there are more layers to K-Pop’s use of sci fi. One is the cultural context of suicide and depression in the country – Korea has the 10th highest overall suicide rate in the world, according to the World Health Organization. Depression is not well treated, and age discrimination (as well as socio-economic discrimination) largely contribute to this.

As a result, you get visual representations of this stress in media. In K-Pop, what we see are normal people placed into highly emotional and stressful situations. Often times, they succumb to whatever situation they’re in. Science fiction, much like horror, takes that to a natural extreme, wherein the circumstance often leads to demise of some sort.

Lastly, there is a particular irony that arises from science fiction used in an idol setting. I have found in my six years of listening to K-Pop that the genre is incredibly self-aware, in spite of its treatment towards idols. The institution knows that it puts these people – often young kids, through horrible processes in order to create an easily accessible product. However, it does so by intimately incorporating us, the fans, into their lives – something which other sects of the music industry haven’t figured out yet. While this does give idols a connection with their fans, which I view as inherently positive, it does put the idols in a perilous position of feeling like their own actions aren’t really their own.

Art imitates life at the best of times. K-Pop, especially in the last ten years, has given us a lens into the lives of idols, both in a positive and negative way. Sci-fi in K-Pop largely orients us in the negative aspects of their lives, but at its best, it orients us in both, and shows us the discrepancy between the two. We get both the elation of glamour and the fear of failure, all in one. When most of the world separates the two, showing elegance as a byproduct of capitalist oppression, K-Pop uses it to communicate something else – the issue of fame.

While K-Pop’s use of sci-fi tends to blend these elements in certain ways, it’s not necessary for videos to use all three at any given time. Let’s look at an example: Brown Eyed Girls’ “Sixth Sense”. This is one of my favorite K-Pop videos, in part because of nostalgia. This was one of the first K-Pop videos I ever saw, when I was fifteen. Brown Eyed Girls was one of the first groups I ever “stanned”. While I do not consider myself a true stan of any group anymore, I have a special place in my heart for Brown Eyed Girls. If I ever met Ga-In in person, I would probably die on the spot from a heart attack, my life’s purpose complete.

Anywho, “Sixth Sense” combines the elements of politics and the idol industry without including the themes of depression and anxiety, at least not overtly. The video mainly revolves around a protest, where an authoritarian regime is gearing up to attack unarmed protesters. These unarmed protesters, in true K-Pop fashion, protest through dance. Peppered through the video are vignettes with each of the four members. Ga-In is sitting in a chair, wearing a military jacket and having her wrists bound. Narsha is in a pen of some sort, surrounded by cameras and lights, walking around on all fours. Jea Kim is lying in a pool, being rained on, also with tied wrists. And Miryo is chained in front of some microphones.

Immediately we get a sense of some sort of mythos that we don’t know the details of. Judging from the visual context, all four of them are prisoners of this regime. Judging from the fact that the military force is entirely male, the overarching theme is exploitation of women. However, the mass synchronicity of this military is very visually reminiscent of videos of North Korean soldiers. The clothing is also fairly contemporary; the only thing that seems particularly futuristic is Miryo’s red coat and thats only because it’s leather. Narsha’s character is particularly interesting because she’s hyper-sexualized, yet visibly torn between enjoying the attention that results from that and joining the protest.

There’s also Miryo’s role as being the spokesperson and rapper. Rap is often where the anger and resentment in a song comes out, but also is one of the most easily accessible modes of musical storytelling. As the rap speeds up, so too does her discontent increase, until she rips out of her chains. I compare this imagery to idol culture because of the shackles. She’s forced to speak for this regime, not the revolution – that’s for the dance part. She’s speaking for the people who oppress her. You can draw a parallel between her and an idol put onstage by a record company that doesn’t care about them. (I am not making any accusations towards any company in particular, I am dressing a systemic issue.)

“Sixth Sense” is an excellent video for its use of politics and its commentary on idol culture. But let’s go in the opposite direction – something with very few political connotations, but one that covers anxiety, depression, and tragedy.

VIXX’s “Error”, when it came out, got me so hyped I started pacing around the room to calm down. But I couldn’t help it. My teenage heart was freaking out. The visuals were so powerful, the story was so communicative, and the music – my god, the music. VIXX never fails to deliver on the vocals.

The story is Frankenstein meets Romeo and Juliet. Hongbin, the visual of the band – and one of several members who are professional actors – is some sort of robot tech. He has a girlfriend (played by Heo Youngji from girl group Kara) who dies from some untreatable illness. In his grief, he…well, it’s unclear. I think he turned himself into a robot and removed his heart so that he could cope. The bit that’s not clear to me is if he was a robot in the first place, I have always assumed not.

Anyway, after surgically removing his grief, Hongbin decides to rebuild his girlfriend as a robot, since that’s clearly his area of expertise. He creates the body but there’s malfunction, so he fixes her dispassionately. His expressions fascinate me in these scenes because there’s clear internal struggle, but his reactions are incredibly subdued. When he looks at Youngji, he doesn’t look at her with desire or sadness, simply determination and wonder. It isn’t until he gives Youngji her memories back he actually emotes, and even then it’s subdued.

Eventually, some suited authorities find Hongbin and Youngji and see that Youngji was an illegally created robot, so they plan to take her away, presumably to either reprogram or decommission her. Hongbin pushes the suits away and runs to the building chamber, where he and Youngji share a look of resignation. He kisses her on the forehead, and they walk towards the operating table, to which my teenaged brain practically screamed “OH MY GOD THEY’RE GOING TO DIE.”

And they do. The machine above them dismantles them as Hongbin cries silently. Youngji closes her eyes right as the machine goes to deliver the final blow, but Hongbin just sits and watches. All that’s left is a heart, which sputters and dies. I don’t really know whose heart it is, but I don’t think it matters.

Grief plays a huge role in the video, particularly the stage of Bargaining, whereby the person grieving decides “maybe if I do XYZ I’ll be happy and the pain will go away.” I have found, at least in my personal journey with mental illness, that Bargaining has played a huge role, because I and people I know have avoided getting help because they think it’s a sign of weakness. While making a robot of your dead girlfriend and giving it her memories isn’t exactly orthodox, I do think that the sentiment holds. There is no magic to make depression or grief go away, only ways to cope with it.

Obviously, Hongbin’s character does not cope with this loss, and ends up dying with Youngji. But there is a note of happiness in his resignation, because he got to spend a few more minutes with Youngji and come to terms with her death. He had to realize that she was not really alive, and that they both had to stop this charade. But the tragedy is: in accepting Youngji’s death, he dies too. It’s easy to experience a loss and think that the world will end because of this loss. He doesn’t even give himself a chance to start over. That’s heartbreaking.

This story couldn’t really work in fantasy. Yes you could have an Orpheus and Eurydice style resurrection, where one mistake sends the loved one back into the abyss. You could also have something like the Resurrection Stone in Harry Potter, where even though you bring back the dead, they don’t really belong in our world anymore. However, both of these have external consequences, wherein the universe is somehow thrown out of balance for your actions.

The reason “Error” is powerful is because you have a completely internalized struggle externalized through science fiction. Yes, the authorities do get involved. However, the authorities are not the ones who see the emotional core of his actions, nor do they necessarily hold him accountable. They just want the body back. In this way, the authorities are not the governing body of justice, it’s only Hongbin who experiences the consequences of his own actions. He’s the one who gives up his humanity. He’s the one who creates the metal body. And he’s the one who ultimately suffers. The only person thrown out of balance is himself.

Science fiction and horror allow for the externalization of the internal, something most genres don’t get to depict in the same way. Science fiction works best when it’s the creations of humans that turn against them, whether systematic like in “Sixth Sense” or literal like in “Error”. This is humans creating a situation because of some sort of need, that they then must experience the consequences of. Horror too works best when it’s based on internal struggles. Look no further than the works of Junji Ito for that – while the manga artist creates fantastical situations, the more terrifying elements are what occur when humans get involved in such circumstances. It’s the humans that tend to be more terrifying.

I’d like to look at one more example for thematic understanding of sci-fi in K-Pop: BIGBANG’s “Monster”. As I’ve said before, I generally avoid talking about BIGBANG on my blog because of Burning Sun. However, there’s no way I can’t talk about this video in this context.

BIGBANG’s “Monster”, like “Sixth Sense”, doesn’t have an explicit story – it’s mostly just the five members of BIGBANG trying to escape a science facility. They are, evidently, the world’s most glamorous experiments. They are adorned with bizarre costumes that look almost humorous in how extra they are, however when shadows creep into the frame, we see their eyes and faces morph. Sometimes their eyes glow. Sometimes they have cuts across them. Sometimes they have black tattoos. At one point, Daesung’s eyes are glowing gold, but his reflection has the black markings appearing all over. They transform in a number of overt and subtle ways.

What makes the video so poignant, however, is the ending. When G-Dragon finally escapes, there’s nothing outside. Just ash. A city is on the horizon, but with the ash falling like snow, how can we even be sure there are people there? Visually this, to me, is indicative of a sensitivity in South Korea to aerial warfare and its consequences – the idea that everything you know and love can be wiped out in a second.

In terms of where the themes of depression come up, “Monster” is lyrically a song about someone who undergoes a transformation that makes them seemingly unrecognizable to their loved ones. When applied to this setting it means that they have undergone so many experiments that their loved ones don’t see them in the same way. This is hits me hard because mental illness causes such an intense transformation, without the person realizing. During the time when the struggling person can’t put their finger on what’s wrong – that’s when the most damage is done.

Simply replace experiments with training, and you get an extremely dark self portrait. And yes, I say self – G-Dragon was one of the writers of the song. It also explains the elaborate outfits and “hidden self” imagery – we view idols in a public forum and put pressure on them to reach a personality ideal they can never reach.

I go into more detail in my article on Twice’s “Likey”, but my personal belief is that we need to stop treating idols as objects and more as people. “Monster” is a video that visualizes the struggle these idols go through in a very interesting way, by depicting the singers as prisoners. It’s a great storytelling technique, but it could easily fall under the radar under the VFX and fun costumes.

That’s the risk K-Pop idols run when they make a science fiction themed video. It’s easy to get caught up in how glamorous something is and miss the emotion behind it. And the emotion is very, very real. It is possible to watch these videos and enjoy them on that surface level. I certainly do enjoy that. But when you put a video in context, it makes me appreciate it that much more. And that’s what I’m here to do, help you appreciate K-Pop for what it is: a beautiful yet terrifying niche genre of filmmaking.

The Neverland Project – Episode 2 Breakdown

on January 15, 2020January 15, 2020 By francesca_ohop

Please click here for the previous installment.

A new episode of Neverland is up! Without further ado, let’s dive into it!

This is the first time the opening sequence is showing in an episode – if you’d like to read my deep dive on the choices I made during the OP, please click here. We also get the title of this new episode: “City of Glass.”

This is a literary reference, though not to The Mortal Instruments book. Rather, it is a reference to City of Glass by Paul Auster, a mystery with heavy psychological undertones. Without getting into spoiler territory, the novel’s main themes are the perception of reality, child abuse, and language. I highly recommend reading the graphic novel version, which has been of huge influence to me as a visual artist and to how I have approached this remaster.

The connection with Neverland and City of Glass may seem superficial at first, but I wanted to communicate a similar disassociation from reality. The thing about music videos – particularly those in K-Pop – is the backstory is often told through bits and pieces, largely symbolic ones. The graphic novel version of City of Glass also uses highly symbolic elements to immerse you in a world inherently disassociated from reality. And, as you’ll see in this episode, a disassociation is beginning.

The first scene is from “Stigma”, the “Wings” teaser for V. V gets arrested (again) for vandalism, and is getting interviewed by cops. I didn’t do a whole lot of editing here because I genuinely really like the sequence as it stands; however, I did incorporate elements from later in the teaser, because I plan on using the rest of the teaser at a later point. The scene depicts V’s (presumed) father abusing him and his sister, using V getting beaten by an unseen figure to communicate this.

The line “I don’t have any.” is in response to the cop asking V about his parents.

The video then cuts into “I Need U” (the original version). V is sitting around, takes a walk, takes out his anger on a water bottle, then goes back to his house. Upon seeing his (presumed) father beat the sister, V goes and kills him. I made sure that the music ramped up intensity, and the diegetic sound design fades away as the stabbing continues. It cuts back to “Stigma” right at the end of the sequence, and V asks the cop if he can make one last call. Full disclosure, whether or not the sequence with the cop is in reality or not is entirely up to you. While I have my own intent with the scene, I structured the scene such that it can be interpreted either way.

We then cut away to Namjoon in the “Reflection” teaser. Namjoon tattoos a bird on himself (gotta admire those fine motor skills) then burns the drawing he was basing it off of and drinks the ashes.

He then passes out and the colors get more intense. I played with the sound design a bit here because I wanted to communicate a feeling of suffocation and, as said earlier, disassociation. Interspersed are clips from “Blood Sweat and Tears” that depict V jumping off a balcony.

When Namjoon finally comes to, he hears a phone ring and tries to get into a phone booth. Try as he may, he can’t get in. If the call is coming from V, this means he can’t reach one of the people he cares about so deeply.

The final sequence is back to Jin in the black and white room. Weird things start to happen, like the distortion of the world around him. He goes to open the window, and instead there is a mirror – and his reflection is in color. When he turns away from the reflection, he turns to color as well, and walks to the door. Once again, I want the absence of color to communicate something.

These are some of the most fun, and yet most difficult effects to do, because I have to layer different images one on top of the other to get the desired look.

Jin eventually walks down the hall and sees the same painting that Namjoon was tattooing. We see a number of flash forwards to events that will occur later in the series. He walks towards them, presumably to find something or someone, then we see on the floor of the black and white room – which is now in color – he has six photos, each representing another member of the group.

V is trapped in memories of something he did. Namjoon is removing himself from reality to the point where he can’t reach those he loves. And Jin can’t seem to fit into the black and white room. All three of them are trying to disassociate from their own actions, at some grave consequence. This is something I intend to play with further, but I think this is a good way to wrap up this analysis. The next episode will be up February 1st, 2020, and we will get more with all the members as opposed to vignettes.

But for now, I think we can leave this here. I welcome any constructive criticism, and I hope that you all enjoy the new episodes in the coming weeks!

The Neverland Project – Episode 1 Breakdown

on January 1, 2020January 1, 2020 By francesca_ohop 1 Comment

CLICK HERE FOR THE PREVIOUS INSTALLMENT

To bring in the new year (and new decade!) I have brought to you the first episode of the Neverland Project. With it, I am giving a breakdown of the seven minute episode, so that without giving too many spoilers for my intent for the rest of the fan project, I can show you my own creative choices and what they might mean for future episodes.

BTS’s story as portrayed in these music videos centers around several themes – mental illness, abuse, youth, and death. While the first two are prevalent in the rest of Neverland, it’s the last two – youth and death – that are central to this episode. The title Neverland – which I pulled from a tag embedded in some of their promotional posts for “Most Beautiful Moment in Life Part 2” – is evocative of both. Neverland, as it originates from Peter Pan, is an island in the sky where children don’t grow up if they choose not to. Keep this in mind.

We start with lines from the end of The Ones that Walk Away from Omelas by Ursula K. LeGuin. This short story is once again about a paradise hiding something extremely dark, without spoiling anything. It’s something that is repeatedly referenced by BTS in Spring Day, and fits thematically with the rest of the work. But the lines are also about moving on from something tragic – in a way, accepting your grief.

I didn’t edit much of the first bit with the clips from Prologue. I honestly love this scene for how it establishes character relationships with little to no dialogue, as well as introducing the motif of the photograph. The gas station setting will also be relevant in later episodes.

The montage is taken directly from the original movie I made back in 2014, comprised of clips from “I Need U” and “Prologue”. It shows every character and the motifs of trains, water, and drugs. There is a film grain filter over it to establish this as a flashback. I also introduce color as a technique – note that Jin stays in grayscale, even when the rest of the world begins to turn to color when he finally looks at the photograph.

Next is V and Namjoon running from cops. I had to mix the audio myself, since this came directly from the “Run” video. I used “Dope” as the soundtrack, because V’s lines immediately flow into Jin’s, but then the scene cuts off. Plus, that’s a song about working hard and not caring what people think – very indicative of where this story begins, and not where it ends.

I always felt that “Begin” as a teaser was very ambiguous, and I wished to use many of the images from it. But in the original Neverland, I simply dropped the trailer in with minimal editing. But I hold myself to a higher standard than that now! I am a twenty-one year old film student, I want to show off!

So, I edited the clip – rearranging the clips so that it was an actual dream. The colors are also more vibrant and intense than in the original. I don’t know if this is what was intended by the band or the producers, but alas, I am acting as an editor to tell a story I think works. This is not a knock on the original. I simply wanted to give my own take.

The last sequence was most difficult. Everything starts grayscale, with the apple in red. When Jin focuses his camera, the flower alone enters color, and then as the candle blows out, the color returns, mostly. It’s still muted in areas.

There’s also a dream sequence, using clips from Spring Day, where everything seems to be happy but again, nothing really is.

Note that when Jin enters the room, in the last seconds of the video, he steps out of the color and into a grayscale room.

This may not be as long of a breakdown as the ones for later episodes, but I hope it shows you how proud I am of this project. The next episode will be up on January 15th, 2020 – with that, there will be more details about my process. But for now, I hope you like this episode, and that it’s able to interest you.

Stray Kids’ “Miroh” – Elevating in Effect

on December 29, 2019March 22, 2020 By francesca_ohop

Before the first episode of Neverland goes up, I want to talk about another band that I’m very passionate about. They’re a band I saw live almost by accident at KCON NY 2018, and I’ve been effectively in love with since. They’ve got an edgy style, they’re not afraid to push boundaries, they’re talented dancers and singers, and – importantly for me – they write their own music.

I am of course talking about the JYP boy group Stray Kids. I honestly didn’t know them barely at all before I saw them (I was there to see Super Junior) but I quickly grew fond of them. They have a great spirit and are all about positivity – things I generally need in life. K-Pop is hard to love when you know the idol industry can be so taxing. To see a band so full of life – largely because of their own work – makes me really excited to be a fan in general.

Fans that keep up with Stray Kids probably expected my first Stray Kids article to be about “Levanter” since that’s been doing really well at the music shows and is their most recent release. And I do plan on talking about that – however, my heart is set on “Miroh” as of late. And can you blame me? It’s a great pop beat with a good hook, gets your heart racing, has great choreography and never has a dull moment. It’s a great song to jam out to. The lyrics also hit hard – “It’s not hard in this rough jungle” is very indicative of where new K-Pop is heading.

I actually want to talk about the VFX of the video – because that’s what caught my film student eye when I first watched this video. It was surprisingly not too fake looking or ostentatious, but is prevalent throughout the video. There’s also a variety of filters and camera effects that give the feeling of a cohesive time and place, a world that you want to experience more of.

Color is the basis of all film effects, and there is much to be said in way of color for “Miroh”. The entire film is very cool toned, with occasional warm lights to balance it out. Most of the video is blue and red, even the clothes falling along those lines. The backup dancers wear black and the boys begin to adopt black as a clothing color later in the video, along with neon green. However, since so much of the video is in the cooler palette, I’d say the dominant color palette of the video is the cool tones, with light and dark blue being the two dominant colors and red being an accent.

The color pushes the story to us. The story is admittedly a bit vague, but it’s the standard dystopian story with a Stray Kids twist – oppressive force appears, seems to be in control, dancing boys come in and save everybody. This has a number of symbolic meanings, largely pertaining to the idol industry but also to the way kids are treated in any environment where people enjoy ignoring them. Since the message of the song is pushing through adversity, the oppressive force of men in lavish suits is representative of such adversity. This is a theme that’s come up in K-Pop videos as early as Brown Eyed Girls’ “Sixth Sense” in 2011.

Blues invoke generally calm, peaceful, and melancholy emotions in us – so red as an accent stands out as a color indicative of passion. The combination of the two perfectly underscores the themes of the video. Most dystopian K-Pop videos either go the route of green undertones to look more cinematic or white overtones to look more sparse. Stray Kids does neither – they have their own spin on the visuals, which automatically sets their video apart from the norm.

The first instance of VFX we get is around 15 seconds in, and it’s a transition. We go from some security footage to I.N standing in front of the security televisions, but this is done through glitch effects that are centered around I.N himself, so it feels like they are moving with him.

The next (major) effect we get is Felix’s glitches. It starts with him speaking the lyrics to the song while the backup dancers run towards the oppressors. As the beat ramps up, it cuts between different clips of him talking, but saying all the same words, giving the feeling of being choppy. Then, the background turns into pieces of code and stock footage of the city they’re in, all animated to the tempo.

The lighting in this image is slightly different than when Felix started talking. This makes me think they had him doing these lines on set and in a studio with a green screen in the back, and tried to replicate the lighting indoors. So his face has much more intense diffused, probably because the light was closer to his face.

Of course there is the title card that says “Miroh” and the giant lion balloon. The balloon in particular shows up throughout the video as a repeated symbol of power. The thing is, in this video, it doesn’t show up in too many shots, and in those shots, it tends to be one of the only effects there. Digital VFX work best when you rely mostly on practical effects, (trigger warning: gore) and then use digital for certain elements that won’t carry otherwise. Everything that the boys interact with firsthand is a real set piece, so digital VFX like the balloon make the video even more powerful.

In terms of practical effects, there aren’t too many to speak of here, since the video generally relies on the band members and their dancing. But there are a few we can talk about, notably around 2:50 in the video. The setting goes from day to night, and while the backdrop is definitely digitized (very well, I might add) the lights on the band members change, so that it actually looks like a transition to night. This is a very simple and powerful effect that really works to establish a change in time. Building on this, there are also flood lights in the back that toggle in and out during dances, which also separate these scenes from the day sequences where we actually see the oppressors.

There are some other effects throughout the video. Bang Chan’s face and hands are stabilized as he physically moves in a circle, so it feels more like the world around him is spinning. There are also transitions that glitch across or bubble outwards, giving a sense of motion. The thing is if the video didn’t have these transitions, the video would still be great. A good effect means that the video could work without it, and these transitions generally elevate the video, they do not distract from it.

I want to come back to the backgrounds being digital for a brief second. We see the boys on rooftops a lot. These backdrops generally don’t change, beyond moving with the camera angle (the day night shift is an exception.) However, the backdrops are far enough away that we don’t have them in sharp focus, which I think is beneficial to the video. If they were in sharp focus we’d actually be able to see that they weren’t real (just look at any Transformers movie that tries to go into hyperrealism with its effects.) Plus, the dramatic camera shots give a feeling of believably to these images.

The last effect I want to talk about is the noise filter over everything. The entire MV has a noise filter over it, which makes it feel like the movie was shot on film and not digital. This is extremely important to the video as a whole. It flattens all of the effects, and gives us the feeling that everything is part of one environment. The issue with shooting on digital is you have perfect images, and adding effects to the background, while easier, can look fake. Having a noise filter over it makes it grittier and more real.

“Miroh” is a beautiful video. Stray Kids doesn’t cease to disappoint on even the smallest things. The scope of this video is very small but it feels so much bigger – and that’s what you want from a music video, the feeling that something is bigger without forcing it. “Miroh” does this perfectly, in great part because Stray Kids themselves have the skills to carry a video without the extra stuff. The effects just bring out everything good about them. Good filmmaking is best at its most minimal, but when you have special effects and they work, nothing can beat that.

The Neverland Project – Opening Sequence Breakdown

on December 16, 2019December 31, 2019 By francesca_ohop 3 Comments

At long last. Here we are.

Here is the opening sequence and breakdown for The Neverland Project, my fan project based on BTS’s music videos from “I Need U” through “Spring Day”. As someone who is seeking to educate through my blog, I think I would be doing a disservice if I didn’t give a rundown of techniques used on a project of my own. I will avoid spoilers as much I can for the actual project, but I may leave some hints scattered in – so keep an eye out!

Before I start, I want to say I’m not trying to “solve” the mysteries of these videos, or speculate as to what the originals are about. As far as I’m concerned, BTS made the videos with their ideas, and have even made comics in their universe and such. That is all unrelated to what I’m doing. I am telling my own narrative through this method. I’m using the members and their acting, and the various images, putting my own spin on them. Thus, I’m not really taking anything as “canon” or “not canon”, but creating a work that you, as viewers, can analyze and derive meaning from on your own.

I wanted to create an anime-style opening for Neverland, for a number of reasons. One was probably ego, since I wanted to flaunt my editing skills. But can you blame me? The other was a desire to use a lot of clips that I didn’t think fit in the actual narrative storyline. I particularly wanted to use BTS’s Wings Tour teaser, because I loved the experimental shots and general symbolism. I also have wanted to – even long after I stopped listening to BTS regularly – make a video using “Boy Meets Evil”, because I think it’s a song that climbs so beautifully. It ramps up tension extremely well. So, I figured, why not make an opening sequence? I’m doing an episodic structure anyway.

The theme went through a number of iterations, because I couldn’t settle on the order of images and the colors. I also had way too much going on in way of commissions, schoolwork, and another project I’ve been working on that’s completely unrelated to K-Pop. So I figured that a teaser video could expand upon my concept while I work on finishing the rest of it. The work itself is half done, with the first episode needing a bit of fine tuning before its release.

So now that we have a bit of context for the production of this piece, let’s get into it!

The opening shot is from BTS’s “Spring Day” – it is a train entering a tunnel. Tonally speaking, I think this is the perfect shot for Neverland. I feel like the themes I play off of from BTS’s work include anxiety taking away the figurative light from the lives of young people. So, since both come up frequently in the work, and both are in this image, this is the perfect opener.

Then, I have V climbing up the tower. (Prologue) This will be a scene in a later episode. Notice that this is all in black and white – color is a motif I use frequently in all of my work. It communicates emotion and personality well. But the absence thereof also says something.

We see V look at the camera. (Wings) Things become color for a split second, before we move into Namjoon walking through the train. (Spring Day) When he opens the train back door, it’s the Omelas motel.

Interspersed with this is Jin staring up the stairwell. (Spring Day) He’s in full color, the rest is in black and white. As he pulls his hands up to frame the screen, the world becomes color, and when he puts them down, he himself becomes black and white. Once again, this is my way of playing with color to indicate certain plot points or themes.

This next sequence revolves entirely around V. It cuts between two shots – the first is V growing wings. (Wings) The second is him standing on top of the tower from earlier. (Prologue) Below the wing shots, I’ve added color images from “Stigma”, which show a confrontation with cops. This will come into play early in the story, so log these images. Also log the absinthe imagery (Blood Sweat and Tears) and Namjoon standing in the train. (Spring Day)

The incidental sequences with J-Hope, Jungkook, and Jimin are all crucially important to the story. I won’t say how, but note that J-Hope is in full psychedelic color, while Jimin and Jungkook are in gray with elements of color around them.

Another grayscale scene – just Jin watching his friends through the camera. (Prologue) It cuts to a full-color shot of fireworks. (Reflection) Things become very montage-heavy after this. I heavily edited and layered many of these images, but note that the elements of color start to get bolder and more experimental – and we amp up to full color as the music progresses. I did this to increase tension, since viewers will acclimate to one way the motif is being used, and this acts as a change of pace.

Note the rest of the images used throughout the opening. J-Hope is pulling at the walls in a padded room. (Mama) V falls on the ground, beaten by an unseen force. (Stigma) All of the boys have a pillow fight. (Run) Distorted retro images of Jin and other experimental elements flicker across the screen. (Epilogue) Jimin submerges his head in water. (I Need U) Jungkook runs towards the motel. (Spring Day) Suga is surrounded by fire. (Epilogue) Jin’s face cracks open as if he’s made of glass. (Wings)

All of these images will become important scenes later on. I don’t mean that each one will be game changing, pivotal etc. But, these images will have much more clarity in the future.

In the final moments of the opening, I have BTS walking through a field. (Spring Day) Yes this image has appeared already, and I probably will use this image at some point in the Neverland episodes. But I also added V smiling at the camera, with his wings wide, and Jin’s face cracking again. (Wings)

I should note that V is not a malevolent figure in this story, but as you will come to see, his actions do affect the story significantly. So, who is the protagonist? Is it him? Jin? Or one of the other members?

This concludes the breakdown of my edits for the Neverland opening. I welcome any constructive criticism – anything can help me to improve my work. I started this project because it posed a challenge – creating a story from a bunch of connected films that take on wildly different filmmaking styles is no small task. It’s even more difficult to communicate a feeling through these constantly shifting pieces. So this has been an adventure for me. There will be more episodes coming soon, starting January 1st and generally releasing every few weeks.

Hope you all enjoy it!

Twice’s “Likey” – How to Be a Good K-Pop Fan

on December 3, 2019March 22, 2020 By francesca_ohop

This is a long time coming. I’ve been promising this article for a while, as a part of my Cinnamon Bubblegum series. But, with recent developments in the K-Pop industry, I think it’s pertinent that I talk about this video now.

Of course, I’m referring to the deaths of Sulli from f(x) and Goo Hara from KARA. A lot of people are saying that this is casting a light on the pressure K-Pop idols undergo. However, I think that the pressure of idols is common knowledge. The concern for me is how often K-Pop fans are willing to ignore these pressures, in order to be consumers. I think personally, that it is possible to be a healthy consumer of K-Pop. So, that is what I am going to do. I am going to use Twice’s “Likey” to explain to you how to be a healthy consumer of K-Pop.

UNDERSTANDING LIKEY

While “Likey” a solid pop song and extremely catchy, the heart of it is in the lyrics. The song is about social media and how it becomes difficult to draw a line at the high you get from likes online, and how you take care of yourself and your mental health.

For instance, take these lyrics:

BB크림 파파파
립스틱을 맘맘마
카메라에 담아볼까 예쁘게
Put on BB cream, pat pat pat
Put on lipstick, mam mam ma
Shall I make a pretty pose for the camera?

For those of you who don’t know, BB Cream is a type of makeup. It’s a combination of moisturizer and foundation. It’s extremely prevalent in Korea and other Asian countries, but is also common in American makeup.

Basically, the song talks at length about how getting dolled up to look pretty is difficult, but we do it anyway for the sake of our internet audiences. It’s very similar to the point made in the video for Sunmi’s “Noir”, though “Likey” is far more subtle about getting the point to come across.

The thing about “Likey” and Twice’s other music videos is that they don’t necessarily show the point of the video overtly. A lot of the messaging, while powerful, is toned down and made subtle. This is both a good and bad thing. On the one hand, I want to see more overt conversation happening, but at the same time, the subtlety is key to its success. You won’t notice the message the first time around, but you’ll notice it the second time. It means that the more you watch it, the more you’ll be able to get out of it.

This is absolutely a valid approach to filmmaking of any kind. For example, take Train to Busan, the 2016 Korean zombie movie. It’s a movie about zombies, sure, but there is a prevailing amount of class imagery. The main character himself is a successful businessman, accused by characters of being a “leech” – even his own daughter says this about him. Every person who he or his daughter take the time to help, however, ends up helping them in the long term. An old woman, a homeless man, a middle class man and his pregnant wife, some high school students – all are disenfranchised in some capacity by Korean societal classism and attitudes on age and gender. In the end, it’s the people on the train who submit to these ideals on their culture that become the horror of the film, not the zombies.

Comparing a Twice video to a zombie movie is probably a strange comparison, but Korean films and music videos make use of subtlety beautifully. “Likey” is no different. In the video, you see Twice performing everyday tasks, but recording them on handheld cameras. The visuals are even “filtered” at times, which takes the girls from moderately made up and undersaturated to an oversaturated world where they’re in different outfits and playing around. Hearts appear throughout, much like an Instagram post. The album is even named “Twicetagram”.

This is a good way of communicating the ideas of the video because if you like the song and peppy visuals on the surface, you will be more interested in what’s happening underneath. Once again, this is like Train to Busan. If you like zombie movies or thrillers, you will probably enjoy this movie, and if you watch it again – because it’s Train to Busan and you love it – you will see all of the subtle hints at the real message. It’s brilliantly done for this reason. Twice’s videos all tap into this same propensity for subtlety, and because of that, they’re brilliant.

STEPS TO BEING A HEALTHY CONSUMER OF KPOP

For this next part, I’m going to be pulling elements from this video, and presenting different steps for being a good K-Pop stan.

1) LIKE, BUT REALLY, COMMENT

I already mentioned the proliferation of cameras in the video, as well as filters and social media imagery. But one moment stands out to me. The moment where Momo is sitting in a chair while everyone does her hair and smiles around her. She looks visibly uneasy. She doesn’t want to sit in this seat, but she does. This is also the part with the “BB Cream pat pat pat” lyric. She’s posing for a camera but doesn’t want to be there.

There’s a lot of hate towards K-Pop idols on the internet. Some of it is from anti-fans who hate K-Pop in general, sometimes it’s fans trying to start fan wars. Sulli from f(x) was an advocate against this behavior and ultimately, the hate against her likely contributed to her death.

We don’t really think about how the idols feel about this, and it makes sense why. Trainees often have their internet access restricted, so they don’t see the things people say about them online until a great number of people already swing one way or another. Then, they tend to refine their online appearance, the same way normal people do. They tend not to get involved in fan wars because they don’t want to antagonize people. It’s a lose-lose situation, unfortunately. If they respond, they get hate from the people hating on them. If they don’t, then they run the risk of seeming detached, and people turn against them.

So, what can we do? Well, the support on social media helps. But likes only get you so far. It’s a very superficial way of telling someone you appreciate them. Especially on Instagram, where many idols congregate – there is no dislike button or anything, so your only choices are liking or commenting to tell a singer how you feel about them. As a result, there’s a number of people in the comments that do nothing but hate on these people. The things that will catch each idol’s eye more are the comments, since that’s where people are saying how they feel, and if there is too much hate in those comments, they will start to believe the hatred.

Instead of liking a post, comment on it. Words are a far less superficial form of validation and while there is a parasocial nature to any interaction with a celebrity, the fact of the matter is it’s a good way to show that you care. It might take a little longer, and a little more effort, but when they see how much love they’re getting in place of the hate, it does something positive. It shows them that they do matter to us, collectively.

2) SPEND RESPONSIBLY

There’s a lot of consumerism in this video. Jeongyeon ogles clothes she sees in a store window, store sign imagery is rampant – even the outfits push an air of consumerism. They often look too polished for the environments these girls are in. It feels off-putting, overtly glamorous, likely on purpose.

K-Pop is ultimately an industry, which makes money off of digital sales, concert tickets, and merchandise. I’m not knocking it for that – I’m in the film industry, which makes its money off of production, movie tickets, and merchandise. I do not claim superiority over the idol industry in any way. But what film production has taught me is that I should be careful about which creators and filmmakers I should support.

I strongly dislike Stanley Kubrick’s films in great part because he as a filmmaker was a terrible person. It took me forever to watch The Shining, and when I did, it left a sour taste in my mouth anyway because I knew he was abusive to the lead female actor. The one Kubrick movie I do like, Full Metal Jacket, still leaves a sour taste because he would shoot a single shot thirty times. In his mind, the first twenty-nine times, it wasn’t perfect, but he wouldn’t give any criticism to his actors to improve it.

In my book, a director who manipulates everything to the point of being his definition of perfection to the point of mistreating his actors is not a director, but a dictator. That said, despite my misgivings, I have to acknowledge the contributions he made to filmmaking. I won’t sit on my high horse about it and negate such contributions. But I’d rather watch something like Baby Driver than sit through A Clockwork Orange.

Apply the same principle to K-Pop. Some record companies are known for mistreating their singers; some are less severe. Some idols are cruel or arrogant; some are not. I don’t believe in cancel culture, but what I do believe is thinking about why you’re spending money on something. Merch is fun and all, but I don’t know if I necessarily would’ve bought any of SeungRi’s music if I knew Burning Sun would happen.

I absolutely am willing to spend money on Twice because I think their message is incredibly positive. Songs like “Feel Special” are incredibly important in an industry that has long since relied on songs that don’t have as much dimension, and are meant to make you feel good on the surface. I feel the same about Twice as I do about ITZY and Stray Kids. So, I’ve gladly bought their music.

If you truly admire your favorite bands, no matter what record company they are from, then you should absolutely spend money on them if you want. Support the idols you most believe in, but also hold them accountable. If something doesn’t sit right with you, focus your attention somewhere more positive. Because fueling a fire of negativity won’t do any good.

3) PERSPECTIVE

It intrigues me that “Likey” depicts these K-Pop idols doing normal activities – getting ice cream, dancing in a school gym, and riding a skateboard. These singers would likely get mobbed in public if they did any of these things. But that’s the point of the video. These girls are human beings. They eat ice cream, they go to school, they do all sorts of activities we do.

There’s a lot of discussion online about whether or not K-Pop fans support an industry that is exploitative of “woke” culture when it historically treats women and minorities badly. I personally think the debate lacks perspective on both sides. On the one hand, some K-Pop fans would like to assume everything is okay and that there are no issues. On the other hand, shamelessly bashing the industry is not going to get us anywhere. Many people exist in the middle of this debate, thinking that yes the industry needs to be fixed, but that doesn’t mean we should stop listening to it. However, many of those fans tend to be quiet during these debates on the internet.

I personally exist somewhere in the middle, but I think my opinion can best be expressed this way: “Idols are people too.” To take any establishment, be it a company or industry, and say that it’s all bad because of the policies or people in power – that removes any level of nuance from the debate. More harmfully, this takes empathy away from the people directly affected – in this case, the idols. When we rope the entire industry together and say that it’s all terrible and we should steer clear of it however we can, we forget that there are people caught in this system.

Imagine that every act you did was suddenly televised. What would it do to your psyche? We all think we want success, but when we get it, we always wish we could go back. But that doesn’t make you any less of a person. I think the issue with the current debate over K-Pop is we assume that the K-Pop idols are a part of the industry and that’s where their own agency and thoughts end. Much of the debate is “The industry is bad, therefore all idols are fake,” and “My favorite idols aren’t fake, therefore the industry isn’t bad.” The issue is not black and white.

What we need to do, collectively, as fans, is this: we need to remember these idols are human beings before anything else. The industry can be cruel but we can’t forget that there are humans caught in it. We can hate on bands or companies until we’re blue in the face, but in doing so, we forget to have perspective. We can’t allow ourselves to do that.

TAKEAWAYS

The industry is rapidly changing, always, every day. New bands keep appearing, new record companies, new songs. Every time I go to bookstores in Koreatown, I see a new album for a younger group that I haven’t even listened to once. But the principles I’ve addressed here will likely not change. The fact that social media affects the psyche, the fact that we should spend on the singers we truly believe in, and the fact that these are people with real feelings we should be empathetic towards – these are all important things we need to keep in mind in the future.

Jonghyun, Sulli, and Hara were not the first. They will probably not be the last. But it’s on us to prevent what happened to them from happening again. Where you put your likes, your comments, your money, and your love – it matters, in the end. Your voice matters as much as their music.

Let’s get to work now.