Kim’s creativity is always to take a look at the the case of the Girls’ Generation’s (SNSD) American first as part of an enthusiastic “commercial strategy” that achieves all over the world application with the sociocultural and you will politico-financial system and also the hegemonic relationship out-of Korea while the You so you can show ladies K-pop music idols while the racially and you may sexually proliferated
Lanham; Boulder; Nyc; London: Lexington Guides [an enthusiastic imprint of your Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Category, Inc.], 2019. xxxiv, 153 pp. US$, content. ISBN 978-1-4985-4882-step three.
Into extensive global popularity of Korean social facts for example Korean new music (hereafter K-pop), television dramas, and you may clips, students across the world have begun to examine the power personality and you can associated endemic energy imbalances inserted from the factory-layout cultural creation procedure and you may intensive labour strategies responsible for the monetary popularity of the nation. With its study of the fresh new sociocultural conjuncture ranging from an excellent patriarchal Korean people together with commodified femininity and you may sexuality off Korean social areas, Off Warehouse Female so you’re able to K-Pop Idol Females: Cultural Politics of Developmentalism, Patriarchy, and Neoliberalism inside Southern area Korea’s Music Globe occupies a switch position about emerging important discussion demanding good feminist direction when you look at the K-pop music studies.
Chapter step 1 brings into linkage between Southern area Korean-concept developmentalism, popularly known as the brand new “Wonders regarding Han River,” while the K-pop music idols, as an excellent neo-liberal subjectivity; such as for instance, in the Park Jung-hee Regime, ladies workers’ intensive labour is actually necessary underneath the patriarchal commercial system, hence the thing is new key characteristic of one’s neo-liberal exploitation off ladies K-pop music idols. Chapter 2 looks at the brand new sexual commodification from lady K-pop music idols due to the fact a beneficial neo-liberal expansion regarding a vintage womanliness stuck throughout the continuity from patriarchal Korean neighborhood. They argues one ladies K-pop idols’ useful standing about community business, likewise generating neo-liberalization when you’re perpetuating a good patriarchal steps, together with their severe doing work conditions, the thing is that brand new points of female factory employees inside “miracle” years of the fresh new sixties toward mid-eighties. Within the section step three, Kim investigates social hybridity as one of the activities one to has generated the global popularity of K-pop music. Which technology is one a large number of almost every other scholars off Hallyu (Korean Wave) possess checked-out in some outline.
Section 4 expands a great taxonomy out of generations step 1, dos, and step 3 of your own people idols in order to argue that they have perpetuated and you may warranted new patriarchy inserted into the Confucian public norms when you find yourself part 5 turns so you’re able to an analysis of 1 ladies celebrity just who, Kim argues, could have been described as this new split personalities from absolute femininity for the the only give and severe sexuality on the other once the this lady offering activities. Which paradox will be connected to the precarious socio-financial standing out-of Korean feamales in neoliberal capitalism, construed because a breeding out-of old-fashioned sex term and its particular conflicting traditional. Chapter 6 examines the idea of strength since the an integral part off neo-liberal public thinking and you can buildings regarding lady subjectivity. It is reasonably of the feeling of responsibility that neo-liberalism wishes to see, just like the a moral norm and you will a moral virtue of women, inside lady subjectivity. During the chapter 7, the thought of “self-confident psychology,” illustrated through the messages conveyed of the female idols, try tied to the fresh new commercialized nostalgia having 90s Korea, the latest golden chronilogical age of each other economic profits and you may economic crisis. So it nostalgia are highlighted by the “ToToGa” event, spotlighting dated K-pop celebs and their musical about 1990’s, towards the facts television program Infinite Challenge, which usually romanticizes neo-liberal pseudo-individualism.
One of several characteristics of Kim’s guide are the methods, particularly the entry to romantic textual data in several chapters to help you understand specific seminal K-pop idols’ audio video. Kim’s interpretations build the latest extent off feminist dialogue from just how K-pop films, given that greatly marketed social facts, serve an enthusiastic ideology in which lady idols was a sexualized item and their audio movies end up being internet sites where in fact the sociocultural and you will politico-economic assemblages from Korean-layout patriarchy and you may ladder converge. Meanwhile, an audio movies is essentially a compressed reveal meant to condition K-pop music people to eat K-pop due to the fact an item to-be watched as opposed to paid attention to.
Training music videos regarding people K-pop idols, since the Kim do, is actually hence a beneficial opportinity for uncovering the brand new techniques off deployment regarding sexist narratives and you will images inserted regarding antique personal thinking and norms reinforced of the male-dominating, elitist community
That matter that we wished to select searched even more contained in this guide is that away from taxonomy. Based on Kim, “taxonomy articulates and you can categorizes identities and you can variations around them” (65), but his taxonomies out of about three generations for example “Age bracket We that have innocent, lovable rules, Age group II having ambiguous femininity, and Age group III which have explicit sexualization” (65), do not good enough simply take the paradigm changes from femininity facebook dating online and you will sexualization on the make from females K-pop idols.
Still, there is another exceptional aspect toward methods on the book. Kim is sold with recent circumstances because a warning together with an excellent medical diagnosis of your own ongoing state from Korean ladies fight regarding the real world, like the really intense labour and severe performing criteria associated having females sweatshop gurus in older times, however, which are nevertheless taking place now. Thus, Kim’s analysis musical a security concerning the worldwide interest in K-pop’s neoliberal blend of Western hegemonic ideology and you may traditional Korean patriarchy. Like this, their complete argument has an unexpected timeliness within the exploration of a beneficial feminist position for the rapid changes in this new K-pop music world.
Anybody who would like to understand the in the world “Hallyuscape” along with the Korean socio-financial and governmental alter is always to realize Kim’s book cautiously. This type of customers tend to delight in just how deftly Kim weaves the new posts out of just how men-dominant elite Korean community and its people community has created good novel particular ladies exploitation off a combination off neoliberal capitalism, “structured” patriarchy, and you may Confucian steps. This guide shows an easier way out of wisdom besides brand new nature out-of feminist activism certainly one of more youthful Korean lady but also the significant feminist movements against antique public philosophy and you may norms throughout the realm of Korean neoliberalism.