Seo Taiji 1992-2004: South Korean popular music and masculinity (my master's thesis)
© Janet Hilts 2006 - please note: this is not the final version of my thesis.
I will begin the case study of Kang-t’ae with some of Anthony Fung and Michael Curtin’s concluding remarks on the Chinese popular music star Faye Wong. Wong is a contemporary of Taiji who is similar to him in terms of her atypical maneuvers in the music industry, high degrees of financial and critical success, and presenting an androgynous image:
Almost word for word, with a few obvious substitutions, these remarks could have been written about Seo Taiji. In Kang-t’ae’s talk about Taiji and in his own personal struggles, I have seen first hand how Taiji’s efforts to craft an alternative image at odds with prevailing Korean music industry standards and conventional ways of being a young Korean male, have resonated with fans in the same way that Faye has. Because Kang-t’ae has been negotiating tensions between how he wants to be a man, including how to show this publicly, and conventional expectations of being a man in South Korean society, Taiji has resonated especially well for him. Again and again, Taiji worked into Kang-t’ae’s talk in highly gendered and emotional ways.
Kang t’ae is my boyfriend and he lived with me in Toronto when I was researching and writing this thesis. Because of this, my methods of collecting his stories and opinions were more varied than for the other informants in my study. Although I also conducted semi-structured and unstructured interviews with him, the most telling instances of his opinions on Taiji and on masculinity came from his talk in daily life. Whenever he brought up Taiji, I would run off, usually within seconds, into another room to make notes. The examples I include in this chapter are from such instances and although they were not recorded and as such are not word-for-word records, I am confident they come very close and capture his sentiment.
As indicated in the vignette preceding this chapter, Kang-t’ae introduced me to Taiji by hesitantly but joyfully offering me a Seo Taiji CD he had copied off his computer. Perhaps this innocent gesture marked the beginning of our friendship. In our apartment in Toronto, Kang-t’ae often listened to Taiji’s music on his computer where the mp3 files most often in his player jumped back and forth from different albums, from the first to the latest. Often Kang-t’ae played his Taiji songs when he was more hyper than usual, loudly singing and yelling along, often putting on norebang-style performances full of rock star antics for me, the audience. Although Taiji’s music provided him with considerable entertainment, joy and energy, Taiji and his music meant a lot more than this to Kang-t’ae. The depth of his affinity for Taiji was largely a private matter. On the outside, his fandom did not seem remarkable. However, in times of high emotion, self-searching and difficulty, he called upon Taiji as a role model, specifically as an alternative way to be.
Over the past year, Taiji’s role as a hero or a guide for Kang-t’ae has become more apparent. This past year, he has also spoken about him in unmistakably gendered terms. The nine months during which I attempted to capture Kang-t’ae’s fandom for my thesis, was an extremely positive time for him. His “Toronto life” was a chance he took to, in his own words, “up-grade myself” and was importantly a time where he re-examined how he wanted to be, and how he could be best. The impetus for this came from experiencing an education system that he liked for the first time, becoming good friends with an intellectual and well-read young Korean man (his hyông), my family’s influence and myself. Another impetus for his search for self came in his decision to marry me, a foreigner. This pushed him further to evaluate himself, his role as a man, and importantly his role and identity as a Korean man. This decision shook things up considerably and required him to carefully consider what he wanted to be like as a man and how he wanted to live and why, so he could confidently begin the arduous task of gaining his family’s acceptance of his choice in wife, lifestyle, beliefs and so on.
Over the past six months, much of Kang-t’ae’s self-searching centred on what in essence is a critique of hegemonic Korean masculinity. In his communication, Kang-t’ae regularly positioned himself as an outsider or an alternative person, much as he viewed Taiji. As time went on he began to articulate more precisely how he viewed himself in opposition to hegemonic Korean masculinity. This critique was evident when he spoke about the following issues. Kang-t’ae expressed anger and frustration over the military conscription system, speaking about how it forms unthinking, reactionary men. He expressed concerns regarding the traditional role of the first son in “taking care of” the extended family and criticized the injustice of the burden this puts on women married to first sons such as his mother, as well as concern, worry and dissatisfaction over his role in the first son position in the future. Kang-t’ae often strongly criticized, in his words, “authoritative fathers”, i.e. fathers who order other members of their family around and do not seriously converse with or listen to children or wives. He expressed frustration and anger over his father playing this role, and when we watched and discussed the authoritative (or abusive) fathers in the South Korean movies Classic (2001) and Once Upon a Time in High School (2005), he reacted with phrases such as ‘I really hate fathers like that’. Concerning child rearing and imagining being a father, he often spoke about wanting to take my open-minded, accommodating, creative father as a model, and even at times fantasized about being a house-husband for a time, although fully aware of the impossibility of doing this if we were to live in Korea as parents with young children. Excerpts 1 and 2 exhibit aspects of Kang-t’ae’s critique of hegemonic masculinity. In both these excerpts Kang-t’ae’s talk not only positions himself against authoritative men, most often men who act in Korean hegemonic masculine ways, but reveals how he is aware and deeply concerned about how he appears to other Koreans.
It is significant that Kang-t’ae brought Taiji into his talk at times, such as in excerpt 2, when he was seriously and emotionally talking out his gender struggle. One way we can consider this as significant is by noticing that Kang-t’ae’s talk in this excerpt, as well as excerpt 1, is a good example of what Bakhtin called dialogic talk (Bakhtin, 1981) and shares striking similarities with the teenaged boy’s talk whom Skinner, Valsiner and Holland (2001) analyse using some of Bakhtin’s ideas on language. Like this Nepali teen in Skinner, Valsiner and Holland’s work, Kang-t’ae’s discussion of himself is highly social, dynamic and multi-voiced, integrating characters that represent aspects of society he would like to change. Both the Nepali teen and Kang-t’ae’s talking clearly reveal different social languages (also referred to sociolects in Bakhtin-influenced work), the language of certain social groups (Skinner et al, 2001). Because social groups are not equal in terms of power or authority, Bakhtin argues that
Kang-t’ae and the teen in Skinner, Valsiner and Holland (2001) incorporate voices which are authoritative and hegemonic into their talk―the teen incorporates voices of men of upper castes who look down on him, and Kang-t’ae incorporates voices of men who speak for normative South Korean masculinity and look down at many of Kang-t’ae’s traits. Both the teen and Kang-t’ae use reported speech to engage in dialogue, quite clearly, with these authoritative voices and attempt, in their own ways, to speak against them in their efforts to define themselves.
Specifically, in Kang-t’ae’s case in excerpt 2, much of his talk arises out of a recent conversation he had had earlier with his cousin, and here he continues this dialogue but from his own perspective. Although I am his immediate audience in both examples, Kang-t’ae answers his cousin, and his other unnamed male relatives as well, and answers in his own way, insisting that he is strong despite differing from conventional expectations of manliness. Furthermore, Kang-t’ae incorporates Seo Taiji into his answer to the question of strength and manliness. In a way, Kang-t’ae sets things up so that the conflict or dialogue has two sides or two types of voices: himself and Seo Taiji versus his cousin and his unnamed male relatives. Although these two sides shift in other instances of his talk, sometimes his cousin would be on the Seo Taiji side with him, at this point in his talk such as division is present. Just as the women in Abelmann’s (2003) book conceive of themselves in contrast to other types of women and the teen in Skinner, Valsiner and Holland (2001) defines his present and future self in contrast to morally corrupt men of high caste, Kang-t’ae here, as well as in excerpt 2, conceives of himself with Seo Taiji as alternative men in opposition to more conventional types of men. Instead of being alone in dialogue against his cousin and other male relatives’ conceptions of strength, Kang-t’ae speaks of Taiji being like him, and vice versa, sharing an “independent spirit”, appearing weak but in fact being strong, being critical of society and so on. As such, Kang-t’ae has the backing of his hero to help him define himself. In these few sentences, Kang-t’ae positions himself with Taiji and situates both of them into his larger ongoing struggle over defining himself as a man against authoritative notions of masculinity and into his critique of society.
In the political economy of music, Faye [Wong] challenges, distorts and transforms the prevailing market logic, and by that twisting, she further commodifies her image and her music while at the same time enhancing her cultural capital. The largely unintended outcome of her insistent efforts to craft an image at odds with institutional and cultural conventions is that Faye's ambitions seem to resonate with fans who are negotiating tensions between their own public personae and the traditional expectations of women in Chinese societies…[The richness of the Faye phenomenon furthermore] engenders multiple appropriations of Faye, which also open possibilities for other movements, such as queer and masculine struggles (Chow, 1998) (Curtin, and Fung, 2002: 286).
Almost word for word, with a few obvious substitutions, these remarks could have been written about Seo Taiji. In Kang-t’ae’s talk about Taiji and in his own personal struggles, I have seen first hand how Taiji’s efforts to craft an alternative image at odds with prevailing Korean music industry standards and conventional ways of being a young Korean male, have resonated with fans in the same way that Faye has. Because Kang-t’ae has been negotiating tensions between how he wants to be a man, including how to show this publicly, and conventional expectations of being a man in South Korean society, Taiji has resonated especially well for him. Again and again, Taiji worked into Kang-t’ae’s talk in highly gendered and emotional ways.
Kang t’ae is my boyfriend and he lived with me in Toronto when I was researching and writing this thesis. Because of this, my methods of collecting his stories and opinions were more varied than for the other informants in my study. Although I also conducted semi-structured and unstructured interviews with him, the most telling instances of his opinions on Taiji and on masculinity came from his talk in daily life. Whenever he brought up Taiji, I would run off, usually within seconds, into another room to make notes. The examples I include in this chapter are from such instances and although they were not recorded and as such are not word-for-word records, I am confident they come very close and capture his sentiment.
As indicated in the vignette preceding this chapter, Kang-t’ae introduced me to Taiji by hesitantly but joyfully offering me a Seo Taiji CD he had copied off his computer. Perhaps this innocent gesture marked the beginning of our friendship. In our apartment in Toronto, Kang-t’ae often listened to Taiji’s music on his computer where the mp3 files most often in his player jumped back and forth from different albums, from the first to the latest. Often Kang-t’ae played his Taiji songs when he was more hyper than usual, loudly singing and yelling along, often putting on norebang-style performances full of rock star antics for me, the audience. Although Taiji’s music provided him with considerable entertainment, joy and energy, Taiji and his music meant a lot more than this to Kang-t’ae. The depth of his affinity for Taiji was largely a private matter. On the outside, his fandom did not seem remarkable. However, in times of high emotion, self-searching and difficulty, he called upon Taiji as a role model, specifically as an alternative way to be.
Over the past year, Taiji’s role as a hero or a guide for Kang-t’ae has become more apparent. This past year, he has also spoken about him in unmistakably gendered terms. The nine months during which I attempted to capture Kang-t’ae’s fandom for my thesis, was an extremely positive time for him. His “Toronto life” was a chance he took to, in his own words, “up-grade myself” and was importantly a time where he re-examined how he wanted to be, and how he could be best. The impetus for this came from experiencing an education system that he liked for the first time, becoming good friends with an intellectual and well-read young Korean man (his hyông), my family’s influence and myself. Another impetus for his search for self came in his decision to marry me, a foreigner. This pushed him further to evaluate himself, his role as a man, and importantly his role and identity as a Korean man. This decision shook things up considerably and required him to carefully consider what he wanted to be like as a man and how he wanted to live and why, so he could confidently begin the arduous task of gaining his family’s acceptance of his choice in wife, lifestyle, beliefs and so on.
Over the past six months, much of Kang-t’ae’s self-searching centred on what in essence is a critique of hegemonic Korean masculinity. In his communication, Kang-t’ae regularly positioned himself as an outsider or an alternative person, much as he viewed Taiji. As time went on he began to articulate more precisely how he viewed himself in opposition to hegemonic Korean masculinity. This critique was evident when he spoke about the following issues. Kang-t’ae expressed anger and frustration over the military conscription system, speaking about how it forms unthinking, reactionary men. He expressed concerns regarding the traditional role of the first son in “taking care of” the extended family and criticized the injustice of the burden this puts on women married to first sons such as his mother, as well as concern, worry and dissatisfaction over his role in the first son position in the future. Kang-t’ae often strongly criticized, in his words, “authoritative fathers”, i.e. fathers who order other members of their family around and do not seriously converse with or listen to children or wives. He expressed frustration and anger over his father playing this role, and when we watched and discussed the authoritative (or abusive) fathers in the South Korean movies Classic (2001) and Once Upon a Time in High School (2005), he reacted with phrases such as ‘I really hate fathers like that’. Concerning child rearing and imagining being a father, he often spoke about wanting to take my open-minded, accommodating, creative father as a model, and even at times fantasized about being a house-husband for a time, although fully aware of the impossibility of doing this if we were to live in Korea as parents with young children. Excerpts 1 and 2 exhibit aspects of Kang-t’ae’s critique of hegemonic masculinity. In both these excerpts Kang-t’ae’s talk not only positions himself against authoritative men, most often men who act in Korean hegemonic masculine ways, but reveals how he is aware and deeply concerned about how he appears to other Koreans.
Kang-t’ae revealed this concern most tellingly in his anger directed at his uncle’s stereotyping of him, an anger combined with frustration at being typecast as a certain type of man because he comes from an essentially poor and uneducated family. Abelmann (2002) paid close attention to the prevalence of this type of talk among the women in her study and how this acted in forming how they conceive of themselves. Abelmann writes "...it is apparent that all of the women in this book are keenly aware of the ways in which they can be seen as one type or another. Most important here is that "one type or another" refers not generally to one type of person, but specifically to one type of gendered person, one type of "woman" (2002: 242). In such as way, the struggles in Kang-t’ae’s talk reveal similar concerns but over another type of gendered person, a type of man. This is especially evident in example 1 where his struggles were expressed as much in his angry upset voice, pacing, and arm waving as in his choice of words. Lines such as ‘[my relatives think] “A man has to be extroverted and talkative to be successful” indicate that he conceives that his relatives think a man, as one specific type of gendered person and not simply one type of person, needs to act a certain way. Kang-t’ae’s emotion in both excerpts attests that this struggle is not merely an intellectual one, but something with which he is deeply engaged and which matters considerably to him.
Excerpt 1
After an evening class at his university, Kang-t’ae came home and began chatting, by typing, over msn messenger with his “Rich Uncle”, the term we used to refer to his only middle class and university or college educated relative. His uncle was living for the year in the United States and had been chatting with Kang-t’ae a few times earlier to arrange a sight seeing trip up to Canada. Kang-t’ae didn’t know his uncle very well. There was a lot at stake in communicating well with this uncle. First Kang-t’ae thought his uncle would like me, and as a result of Rich Uncle’s high status in the family—being educated, middleclass and so on—this would help me to be accepted by his family. Secondly, Kang-t’ae was very proud of becoming much more educated and intellectually curious while in Canada—he had been enthusiastically reading up on international and domestic issues on a daily basis for example. It was important to him to show Rich Uncle how he had improved himself. Because his Rich Uncle was educated and had traveled to other countries, Kang-t’ae had presumed that Rich Uncle would be more open-minded than his other relatives, but he had been mistaken. During their chatting this particular evening, Kang-t’ae started swearing loudly and started hitting the computer table with his fist. This behaviour was extremely unusual for him. After the chatting, I needed to know why he had been so angry. He said he was upset that his uncle had stereotyped him as ignorant and incompetent. He said he was very angry and hurt that his uncle would say such things and think of him in such a stereotypical way.
Kt: 'My uncle knows this much (shows a cm with his fingers) about me and then stereotypes this much (shows wide distance with outstretched arms) about me.'
(Kang-t’ae continued angrily expressing how his family members think there is only one good way for a man to live, a sentiment he had expressed a number of times before).
Kt: ‘(My relatives think/say) “If someone does this, he is good and will have a successful life.” For example, “a man should be able to drink well/a lot” [I said ‘yes but your father doesn't drink much’] Yes but the other family members... (They say/think) “A man has to be extroverted and talkative to be successful.” I'm not extroverted! More than before, but not really. They should... why can't they know that each person has good points, their own individual way to be, their own characteristics! I am more introverted, I'm sensitive and emotional, this can be good. Why do they not understand that individual characteristics are important? I am more educated then them! They are not educated. Why do they judge me?!'
He was very angry and frustrated and had some tears in his eyes after speaking this last line and quickly left the room I was in. The next day he said he had also been upset about school, which had made him extra upset. But at that time, his anger, frustration and sadness was heartfelt and serious.
Excerpt 2
One evening after our dinner, Kang-t’ae started talking about his cousin (a male cousin a little younger than him with whom he is very close). He seemed frustrated and a little annoyed and disappointed. A few days earlier, he had talked and argued with his cousin late into the night at our apartment over beer and some tequila―like many Korean men, they communicate best while drinking. At this point in the year, the two were not getting along so well, partly because the three of us living together in a one-bedroom apartment was proving too stressful. This evening Kang-t’ae, like he had at other times, criticized his cousin in gendered terms saying he a was “a little macho” (negative connotation)―not listening, not thinking critically, not being flexible, just reacting and getting angry. Kang-t’ae was talking about his cousin when all of a sudden he brought up Seo Taiji:
Kt: ‘Seo Taiji is like me. He appears very weak but in fact he is very strong. I am like that. It makes me angry when people…my relatives [your uncle?] yes and others, say I am weak. But I am not. For example they think that arm wrestling shows strength. But I can run further, longer than many people. Endurance is strength. In fact women are stronger than men. Auschwitz—women lasted longer than men, endurance and more fat. We [men] are just muscle and bone. It annoys me that Sûng-mo (his cousin) doesn’t agree with me about that [that women can be stronger than men]. He doesn’t listen. I am like Taiji. Independent spirit and care about different issues…since I came to Canada. Also we care about the innocence of childhood. I also had a pure mind in childhood, like him. I didn’t know about how awful society is. I wasn’t critical. Now I think society is shit. So much shit.’
[He ended this topic by briefly mentioning how the public libraries in Korea are, in his mind, terrible and his plan to try to get his university in Seoul to open its reading rooms to the public, so that all people—old, poor etc--can have access to reading books].
It is significant that Kang-t’ae brought Taiji into his talk at times, such as in excerpt 2, when he was seriously and emotionally talking out his gender struggle. One way we can consider this as significant is by noticing that Kang-t’ae’s talk in this excerpt, as well as excerpt 1, is a good example of what Bakhtin called dialogic talk (Bakhtin, 1981) and shares striking similarities with the teenaged boy’s talk whom Skinner, Valsiner and Holland (2001) analyse using some of Bakhtin’s ideas on language. Like this Nepali teen in Skinner, Valsiner and Holland’s work, Kang-t’ae’s discussion of himself is highly social, dynamic and multi-voiced, integrating characters that represent aspects of society he would like to change. Both the Nepali teen and Kang-t’ae’s talking clearly reveal different social languages (also referred to sociolects in Bakhtin-influenced work), the language of certain social groups (Skinner et al, 2001). Because social groups are not equal in terms of power or authority, Bakhtin argues that
[t]he voice of one group may be authoritative and hegemonic, supporting other voices, but in any society, there are counter-hegemonic voices that threaten to weaken and subvert more authoritative ones… For Bakhtin, then, language is “heteroglossic,” comprised of a combination of social languages, some of which are engaged in opposition and struggle (Bakhtin, 1981 in Skinner et al, 2001).
Kang-t’ae and the teen in Skinner, Valsiner and Holland (2001) incorporate voices which are authoritative and hegemonic into their talk―the teen incorporates voices of men of upper castes who look down on him, and Kang-t’ae incorporates voices of men who speak for normative South Korean masculinity and look down at many of Kang-t’ae’s traits. Both the teen and Kang-t’ae use reported speech to engage in dialogue, quite clearly, with these authoritative voices and attempt, in their own ways, to speak against them in their efforts to define themselves.
Specifically, in Kang-t’ae’s case in excerpt 2, much of his talk arises out of a recent conversation he had had earlier with his cousin, and here he continues this dialogue but from his own perspective. Although I am his immediate audience in both examples, Kang-t’ae answers his cousin, and his other unnamed male relatives as well, and answers in his own way, insisting that he is strong despite differing from conventional expectations of manliness. Furthermore, Kang-t’ae incorporates Seo Taiji into his answer to the question of strength and manliness. In a way, Kang-t’ae sets things up so that the conflict or dialogue has two sides or two types of voices: himself and Seo Taiji versus his cousin and his unnamed male relatives. Although these two sides shift in other instances of his talk, sometimes his cousin would be on the Seo Taiji side with him, at this point in his talk such as division is present. Just as the women in Abelmann’s (2003) book conceive of themselves in contrast to other types of women and the teen in Skinner, Valsiner and Holland (2001) defines his present and future self in contrast to morally corrupt men of high caste, Kang-t’ae here, as well as in excerpt 2, conceives of himself with Seo Taiji as alternative men in opposition to more conventional types of men. Instead of being alone in dialogue against his cousin and other male relatives’ conceptions of strength, Kang-t’ae speaks of Taiji being like him, and vice versa, sharing an “independent spirit”, appearing weak but in fact being strong, being critical of society and so on. As such, Kang-t’ae has the backing of his hero to help him define himself. In these few sentences, Kang-t’ae positions himself with Taiji and situates both of them into his larger ongoing struggle over defining himself as a man against authoritative notions of masculinity and into his critique of society.
Previous posts
- [ch. 1] Chae-tol
- [ch. 1] conclusion
- CHAPTER 2: Talking about Seo Taiji, popular music ...
- [ch. 2] Popular music and gendered meanings
- [ch. 2] Popular music and gendered meanings cont.
- [ch. 2] Taiji and gender 1
- [ch. 2] Taiji and gender 2 & Conclusion
- Vignette # 2
- CHAPTER 3: Alternative masculinity through Seo Tai...
- [ch. 3] Vocal sound and gender