More Angry Than Funny

[koganbot]

I'm only two views in, but so far this seems way more angry than funny. I wasn't expecting it. The jokes appear mean, deliberately, like tacks on a chair, electric-shock handshakes. Maybe Psy's attitude is that the decorum he's throwing raspberries at is mean in itself, so he'll be mean to decorum.

Watch on YouTube

Nine comments down I see:

cjua2803 6 seconds ago
PSy is such a troll lmao

The music is relentlessly nondevelopmental. Intentionally refuses to give us any release.

As a dance track, it isn't as compelling in its maddening repetition as "Harlem Shake," but maybe that's beside the point, if there is one.

Btw, Ga-In, his partner in mischief here, the one who gets him back with the chair trick, was in the best K-pop video I've seen ("Irreversible"), and another that's in my top ten ("Abracadabra").

*Maybe I should've been. The only Psy track I knew other than "Gangnam Style" was "Right Now," which maybe isn't just about getting the commuters to shake and the secretaries to feel better; maybe it also harbors background dreams of giving a wrong time, stopping a traffic line. The gag in the "Gangnam Style" vid is something of a "what am I doing here?" in relation to the posh life of Gangnam; in this one the answer seems to be "I'm fucking everyone up."

Comments

[arbitrary-greay.livejournal.com]

I'm assuming it's all just one LMFAO-esque "hurr hurr he's singing about being a gentlemen while being an asshole" gag.

Rather disappointed the intro didn't turn into Lovey Dovey.

The lack of progression, I think, is partially reflected by the dance. Whereas in Abracadabra it was used for the hook, and thus the chorus was able to achieve higher heights, in Gentlemen it's used for the chorus, which necessitates that the song never get too active, or it wouldn't fit keeping a wide stance and cool swaying.

I said before that Gangnam Style was more confidently passive compared to the manic energy of Right Now, but Gentlemen cools down even further in the name of the self-assured persona. Gentlemen's Psy doesn't even let loose as GS's Psy does because he never closes the valve. He exists in a state of low pressure from constant continual release. He indulges his asshole urges as soon as he gets them, instead of letting them build until he snaps and does something over the top. This also means that this Psy is so self-satisfied that he never invites anyone to join in on his fun. Right Now was call to party, Gangnam Style was an open invitation to his party, Gentlemen is telling you about what he did last night and didn't feel like inviting you to. Which wasn't partying. Because partying is for desperate saps, which Gentlemen Psy is just in his own one-man party ALL of the time. Hold on, he's got to go grope that hot waitress that passed by just now. For the lulz.

[(Anonymous)]

I found it mean-spirited and rather depressing. Gangnam Style, despite its shots of butts and bikinis, felt like a joke everyone, male and female, could still join in on, whereas this feels like a chance to indulge in asshole-ish behaviour whilst covering it up with a flimsy facade of "oh, it's a joke, don't you get it?" (and the joke is far too obvious to account for the behaviour, imo). Early accusations of misogyny have been met with a rousing round of comments pointing out that Psy is having a laugh, but it's hard to see at what -- are gentlemen objects of fun? is it old-fashioned and uncool to go through these mannerisms? Are practical jokes only hilarious when women are the targets?

Particularly dislike the scene where Psy's partner in crime goes to pick the girl up from the floor and then flings her down again, because really, in what reality is that funny?

I don't think it redeems itself in the end, either, as Ga In might play along with Psy but it doesn't get close to giving us enough of a revenge fantasy to wrap things up. I'd have ended it with Psy getting kicked in the nuts.

Ho hum.

[koganbot]

I may well be projecting myself into his attitudes, but my assumption here is (1) that Psy is not stupid, and (2) he can't possibly think these gags are great expressions of wit. So the aggression is not (just?) aimed at the objects of his pranks, but at the world. He doesn't think it's just entertainment. But actually, regardless of what he thinks, this sort of aggression isn't just entertainment. Damned if I know what it is.

[(Anonymous)]

Mm. In my most charitable moments I wonder if Psy is inviting us to debunk the images of "gentlemen" that are being marketed to us in pop music (ones that, to a certain extent, in his role as "senior" and unelected leader of the hallyu wave, I guess he too has to subscribe to -- though considerably less than conventional idols), but... other times I think he's just trolling. I definitely agree with you that "this sort of aggression isn't just entertainment" -- I foresee many soul-searching articles as we attempt to figure out what it means so we can enjoy it. Or not.

[koganbot]

I search my soul on other topics, actually. As for this song and video, I think it needs better music, and more... something, in the video. More extremity. More invention. The kids' scene with the soccer ball, for instance: it needed to do something that was more disappointing to the kids. To tell you the truth, the most powerful moment for me was the one you disliked most, when the partner-in-crime faked out and flung over the woman he was pretending to help.

I'm kinda 6.0 on the music, 7.0 on the video. But I don't know where I'll end up.

[arbitrary-greay.livejournal.com]

It needs more contrast, more fakeouts of Psy appearing to be an actual gentlemen (or at least putting on the airs of it) and then turning around and going asshole. Without it, it's like telling the punchline to a joke without that crucial pause.

Case in point, the kids' scene with the soccer ball needed more Peyton Manning. It's about setting up that contrast of expectation, either in the audience's mind or in the kids' mind so that the audience can relish the kids' having theirs demolished.

[koganbot]

Actually, nothing is just entertainment, so I think I need to say more in specific about this, though I'm not clear as to what "this" is, what my topic is. Whatever Psy's intentions, and whatever he thinks about "punk rock" or whether he ever gave it a thought at all, he's being something of a punk here, way more than CL and crew were ever being punk. "Punk" isn't an unmitigated praise word. And I don't use it to describe many performers, especially not now. There's still a multiple meaning to the word, for me: it's weak kids trying to be tough, it's brats trying to fuck things up (so it's not just weak people trying to be tough, since most of those aren't trying to fuck things up but rather to slot themselves into a safe spot from which to hurt others and feel good about it). So that was kind of my original sense of the word "punk" applied to music when I saw it in places like Creem and Fusion in the early and mid '70s, a double meaning already, something poised uneasily between bullying and brat, but at least some sort of social risk, enough to be a target, not just a bully or brat. Made good sense as a term applied in retrospect to mid '60s garage rock, "96 Tears" and "Pushin' Too Hard," all the stuff that sounded like junior high school (and had hit back when I was in junior high school), and maybe a few of the metal kids of the '70s. It made less sense applied (which it was, at times) to Lou Reed and the Stooges and Dolls and Alice Cooper, all of whom were way more self-conscious and aware of how problematic they were being (like the Stones and Dylan had been, the people the original garage-rock punks were imitating and only getting partly right, the garage punks slotting themselves too easily into what had been real uneasy in the Stones and Dylan), playing the problems like an instrument. I basically resisted using it for the Stooges et al. until '77 or so when that usage, now for the Ramones and the Sex Pistols too, became unavoidable, and sort of useful. I think the Sex Pistols were more powerful than the Ramones, by quite a bit, maybe because the Pistols didn't stint the power, because maybe hurting people seemed less problematic to Johnny and his mates.

I don't feel I'm finding my way to the words to express myself (I'm relying on "junior high" and "Sex Pistols" to resonate, rather than, you know, delivering their actual sense). But anyway, "Gentleman" is about hurting people, and not just the victims in the video but, you know, hurting us, too, hurting the social fabric, and not necessarily with good intent. And as such it's not nearly as good as the Ramones, much less Raw Power or Appetite For Destruction or Never Mind The Bollocks or The Marshall Mathers LP. There's probably some unknown-to-me line of Korean "humorists" that it draws on, and obviously I don't know what the performers in that line make of hurting people, don't know whether they do it or not, whether, if they do it, they do it to play it as problematic, have their cake and smash it in your face too, or just, you know, find ways to hurt.

Interesting video, would have been more interesting if sound and vision had been better. I'll probably forget to think about it. Sonically, this month, my musical excitement is Evol's "Get Up."

By the way, here's the Stooges, a poorly recorded live track, 1974, their last performance ever, in a truly problematic moment (though this rip leaves out the opening anti-Semitism, "this song is dedicated to all the Hebrew ladies in the audience"). Among other things going on here, Iggy is goading the crowd (including a bike gang he was feuding with) to throw bottles at him. (And I also think he was sort of descending to their level, though maybe if he hadn't he'd have been less of a punk.)

Iggy And The Stooges "Rich Bitch":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIuUlRPCMPE

[koganbot]

For what it's worth, I'm now up to 8.0 or even 8.5 on the track, more for the way the beats continue to pull me than for the sociology (not that there's anything wrong with the sociology, just that, even if the sociology can rock you, the sound has to come through for the rocking to really stick). Wish I could say more about what it is about the beats. Let's try: the way the synth at the start sounds snide and pushy (the tone of the synth seems to be razzing us); the way the drums fall out and come back in at 1:02 and then again at 2:06 — these are the only real nods towards the idea of a release, a transcendence, an emotional payoff, and they're only a nod. I still think "Harlem Shake" plays this better, the drive towards something and the withholding of it.

I've been exploring early '00s Psy, effective tracks like "2-Year-Old Wife" and "Yes, I Am," which from the English bits may be provocative etc. in their attitudes (maybe when he says "I wanna make you love you make me feel so high tonight, just come to my bed I wanna feel you want, I wanna make you love you make me feel so high tonight, just come on I want to fuckin' you, bitch," maybe he's using the word "bitch" provocatively, maybe he's using it generically or affectionately, maybe he thinks they're really bitches). The uploader on YouTube says of "Yes, I Am,": "This is the man I love... Soulful, sincere, intense and genuine."

[(Anonymous)]

I don't know, I felt PSY got what was coming to him when Ga-in kicked the chair in from behind him, leveling the whole situation. PSY makes a fool out of himself when he falls over the cone at the end, while Ga-in seems nonplussed and still having a fun time, and that sort of gotcha-back attitude is what made me love the whole thing. I agree it isn't as rousing as Right Now or as enthralling as Gangnam, but the fun this time was that everyone was playing jokes, cruel may they be (though admittedly I didn't think so until I read the comments here)

[petronia.livejournal.com]

I read it as the moment where the "PSY persona" splits off from "PSY the artist" (if indeed they hadn't always been separate); "PSY persona," having encountered global success, has ramped up to full-time asshole in cocaine fairyland.

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Further thought: although PSY is being mean to women, I don't think he's being sexist. If anything it's feminist trolling -- "gentlemanly" social behaviour is just another way of pulling the chair out from under women and expecting them to like it.

The lyrics actually bear out this interpretation somewhat -- PSY confronting the girls with questions: do you know why you do these things? do you know why you want these things? what *do* you want? -- and ironically answering, Me, PSY, The Gentleman and Party Animal! while being cartoonishly horrible to them. And all cast in a broader, fuzzier, more antisocial sense that by breaking this stricture, you-the-everygirl Ga-In has broken through to a topsyturvy world and will shortly find yourself confusedly humping a lamppost in broad daylight and laughing about it. But by that same measure I don't imagine PSY expects everyone in his audience to perform this same exegesis. He might expect some people (like me) to come up with an explanation like mine, but also expect other people to derive other meanings. (During one Tumblr discussion one Korean friend said her mother defined a "feminist" as "a woman who wore lipstick." Famously, Japanese coopted "feminist" to mean "a man who is chivalrous to women as a matter of principle," leaving the original idea with no word to express it.)

[(Anonymous)]

I think just as the lyrics poke fun at the macho vibe of a lot of rap songs, maybe Psy as MF Gentleman is his spoof of the tough guy/player type. Ultimately, maybe he does want you to see his persona as silly or even more as mean and small.

[askbask.livejournal.com]

I found the video immediately funny. The chair scene is maybe taken too far. But he's not only mean to women, and he stops being mean when he finds a mean woman. In other words the message is 'fight back' and not 'accept it'.

Was initially _very_ disappointed with the track. I thought now was the opportunity to, I don't know, do something different. He's got catchy songs in his arsenal that do. But it grows on me in the way that I think to myself "if people hear this a couple of times or watch the youtube they'll probably buy it on itunes". So it might not do too bad on the charts this time either.

I watched his live streamed show on youtube where the MV and performance of it was premiered. Psy is a sentimental guy, he talks quite a bit about how he feels at the moment. Among other things the show featured a blistering performance from a 2NE1 on overdrive after not having much to promote last year.

[koganbot]

Is there a link? Esp. the 2NE1 performance (or an equivalent if they've done it elsewhere recently)?

I think my reading is more interesting than yours, whether or not I'm "right" — and I wish Ga-In had gone on to join Psy in mayhem. Again, I think the chair scene is the most powerful thing in it. Maybe the vid needed to be meaner.

[(Anonymous)]

Ga-in is plenty in the mayhem, she's all up in the middle of the mayhem and doing twirls around it! I thought she was great in this.

[koganbot]

Oh, she is great. She's great in everything, pretty much, at least from "Abracadabra" on. And she's in the thick of the pole humping, for sure. But not of the gratuitous cruelty, which is what I meant.

Some of it reminds me of early Chaplin, though without Chaplin's physical genius.