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koganbotWriting has its own versions of Auto-tune and plastic surgery: they're called "rewriting" and "editing" (incl. in-the-head and unconscious editing, before your own or another person's hand even starts reworking the prose).
Okay, those aren't great analogies and I'm not going to push them. Just, I have a gut-level aversion to the idea of someone undergoing plastic surgery (not counting to repair injuries and to compensate for gross disfigurement), but "gut-level aversion" is not the same thing as an idea or an argument. And, you know, we do alter ourselves in the way we face the world — words and demeanor. So why especially recoil when the altering is done by knife? Anyway, I'm not of the age or gender or profession to suffer negative consequences from refusing plastic surgery. Whereas I've read (though what I read was unsourced) that some K-pop contracts give agencies the right to force female trainees to "alter [their] look or image if necessary," presumably with a scalpel.
Here're Brown Eyed Girls, pushing back at the antis:
I'm not dead sure how to interpret this. Plastic surgery is here, it's real, we've probably done it ourselves, deal with it. There's aggression in the skit, but not necessarily a clear target, or a clear reason for the laughter. The issue causes discomfort; you milk the discomfort for comedy. This YouTube comment probably comes close:
Not to overinterpret, but I can't imagine that Grimes is not uneasy with the K-pop she loves, and that lining faces into quadrants and smearing them with blood isn't a reference to plastic surgery (and to the more general practice of transforming yourself for an audience). Also, whether or not this is relevant to her feelings about K-pop, in her Spin interview she described the harsh regimen her dad subjected her to:
It'd be interesting if a North American indie performer could take off from something like the Brown Eyed Girls, do it in her own way, with her own values and critical sense, and do it as well even while doing it as something very different. I wouldn't bet on this, though. Indie culture doesn't have it in itself. And this is what it'd have to match (more Brown Eyed Girls):
h/t Mat
Okay, those aren't great analogies and I'm not going to push them. Just, I have a gut-level aversion to the idea of someone undergoing plastic surgery (not counting to repair injuries and to compensate for gross disfigurement), but "gut-level aversion" is not the same thing as an idea or an argument. And, you know, we do alter ourselves in the way we face the world — words and demeanor. So why especially recoil when the altering is done by knife? Anyway, I'm not of the age or gender or profession to suffer negative consequences from refusing plastic surgery. Whereas I've read (though what I read was unsourced) that some K-pop contracts give agencies the right to force female trainees to "alter [their] look or image if necessary," presumably with a scalpel.
Here're Brown Eyed Girls, pushing back at the antis:
I'm not dead sure how to interpret this. Plastic surgery is here, it's real, we've probably done it ourselves, deal with it. There's aggression in the skit, but not necessarily a clear target, or a clear reason for the laughter. The issue causes discomfort; you milk the discomfort for comedy. This YouTube comment probably comes close:
This is just awesome and right on the spot. I can't [get] with men (society in general) who hate 'ugly' girls but criticize those who do plastic surgery or even put on make up! Not everybody naturally fits beauty standards, so fuck you.Now to Grimes, whose "Vanessa" is the only track of hers so far where the distance in the alien freak singing has really whomped me with feeling, rather than seeming merely distant. She's an avowed fan of K-pop, and the reason I watched the "Vanessa" video in the first place was that James Brooks in Pitchfork mentioned that she cites K-pop imagery as an influence on it.
Not to overinterpret, but I can't imagine that Grimes is not uneasy with the K-pop she loves, and that lining faces into quadrants and smearing them with blood isn't a reference to plastic surgery (and to the more general practice of transforming yourself for an audience). Also, whether or not this is relevant to her feelings about K-pop, in her Spin interview she described the harsh regimen her dad subjected her to:
Very strict. I spent my teenage years running away from one house to the other house because it was so intense. Not just religious stuff. My dad was super-strict about food. I had to eat these weird protein shakes and he'd make us go on runs in the morning. I had to do ballet for a really long time. It was always working out and being serious about lots of things, really intensely. By the time I hit puberty, I kind of went insane.She told Interview that the ballet training lasted eleven years. The parallel I'm drawing is to what K-pop trainees voluntarily subject themselves to: constant workouts, endless dancing, lessons in English and Japanese, little sleep. The thing is, there's a payoff: the performing is really good. And, unfortunate though this is, my thought watching Grimes and her friends in "Vanessa" was, "they don't dance nearly as well as the Koreans."
It'd be interesting if a North American indie performer could take off from something like the Brown Eyed Girls, do it in her own way, with her own values and critical sense, and do it as well even while doing it as something very different. I wouldn't bet on this, though. Indie culture doesn't have it in itself. And this is what it'd have to match (more Brown Eyed Girls):
h/t Mat
no subject
Date: 2012-12-21 04:17 pm (UTC)Anyway, my guess is that actually you can make a viable-looking video on a pittance these days; the technology is actually there and accessible. (But I don't know this; I should ask Dave.) So give Hwang Su-a a good script and idea and she probably could make an effective vid on a pittance.
Googling for what else Hwang Su-a has directed. Probably 우리 집에 왜 왔니, a movie from 2009, assuming this is the same Hwang Su-a. She definitely did Infinite's "Before The Dawn" and IU's "Good Day."
The reason I mention punk rock is that it is one of the progenitors of indie, even if indie has wandered off to a comfortable embrace of lowered expectations.
no subject
Date: 2012-12-21 06:00 pm (UTC)Here's Kim Eana prank calling BEG:
At 5.35 Ga-In talks about why she's more than a lyricist. I've mentioned this before but without any real proof when we've touched on the creative brains behind BEG like arbitrarygrey above. Ga-In repeats in another interview I read today after googling that Eana is 'more of a boss than our boss'. I feel her and Hwang, with composer Lee Min-soo and Loen's Cho Youngcheol form the central committee on the artistic direction of their artists and have a lot of freedom to do so. They seem to be of one mind. Earlier in that clip Eana talks about going with Hwang to a hotel to throw ideas aruond.
Here's producer Cho and Kim Eana after casting a vote this week.
After the result was out mr Cho wrote on twitter "I don't know if we should wallow in frustration, console eachother or blame ourselves. This night I don't know anything".
no subject
Date: 2012-12-21 06:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-21 07:00 pm (UTC)What do you think of Hwang Su-a overall? I love "Abracadabra." Did she do "Sixth Sense," which I thought was a mess? Did she do Ga-In's "Irreversible," which is a masterpiece?
no subject
Date: 2012-12-21 07:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-21 09:23 pm (UTC)"Irreversible" - yes
"The Grasshopper Song" - yes
Some googling leads me to believe she's directed most Infinite videos - I didn't know that.
To make things less confusing Loen's artist management or whatever you want to call the thing that hosts artists and releases music is now 'Loen Tree'.
no subject
Date: 2012-12-23 12:21 pm (UTC)I'm amazed at the ability of YouTube commenters to collectively decipher the plots of deliberately cryptic K-pop videos. The commenters almost always succeed. This for "Before The Dawn" seems right:
Looks like she used a motif (broad, grassy space enclosed by prison walls) that also made its way into "Sixth Sense." Her mise-en-scène seems to have Hamlet on the mind (HAMLET: Denmark's a prison. ROSENCRANTZ: Then is the world one. HAMLET: A goodly one; in which there are many confines, wards and dungeons, Denmark being one o' the worst.)
(But YouTube commenters don't come up with much interesting for "Be Mine": "The girl is suffering pain conflicted by her boyfriend/lover, and the bullets and everything symbolize the pain she experiences." The noir still seems unrelated to the song to me.)
no subject
Date: 2012-12-23 08:35 pm (UTC)I usually just google her name plus the name of the song/video in Korean if I can't find the info in the usual places. Unfortunately her profile at Hancinema doesn't list any MVs.
no subject
Date: 2012-12-23 08:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-21 10:30 pm (UTC)