Several of Korea's hottest musical acts are coming under fire for sexually charged performances. And they're essentially being told, hey, knock off the sexy!
In particular, the groups Girl's Day, AOA, and Rainbow Blaxxx (a sub-unit of the group Rainbow) are being singled out by the Korean media and commenters online for being "too sexy."
Here, on Korean morning show Morning Wide (via tipster Sang), you can see the brain waves of two young men being monitored as they watch a Kpop videos with sexy dances.
According to the show, the brain waves for the men's mental focus go down while watching the videos. That doesn't sound very scientific as I'm sure these videos might make some viewers more focused. The show, however, said it would prefer these groups to compete with music, not provocative moves. Fair enough!
According to Korea site Money Today (also via Sang), the groups have to alter their outfits and performances to comply with self-imposed guidelines Korean television broadcasters are setting.
In short, those guidelines appear to be not laying on the stage or the ground, not appearing to touch oneself, and not unzipping or unbuttoning any clothing. You know, don't do stuff like this:
Kpop is big business! It certainly seems like the sex factor has been ramping up of late, doing its best to bulldoze the cute factor. Guess it's working, because these groups' latest videos are racking up as many as two million views on YouTube.
Below, you can see how groups like Girl's Day are trying to navigate these guidelines.
So, here is the Girl's Day video for their song "Something," which was released in early January.
And here, the group is performing the song, with its original dance, soon after its release.
And here is the dance again after the previous televised performance. Notice the changes in both the costume and the dance.
And again. The original dance is far less sexualized, and there's an even more slightly subdued costume.
Ha! you say. Have you seen what American popstars get up to? To that, the only reply is that these aren't American popstars, and they operate in a different cultural construct. So, what might be tres passe in the West, doesn't look to be in South Korea, where watchdog groups have been vocal about pop music aimed at the country's youth.
걸그룹 '섹시 안무' 대폭 수정…누리꾼 반응은? [MT Thanks, Sang!]
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