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.
Now I will move on to discuss how performances of “Hayôga” participate in the construction of another theme common to contemporary configurations of masculinity in South Korea: remasculinization. Like fraternity, remasculinization helps uncover the intricacies of gender at work in these performances and is at the same time hegemonic and to some degree disruptive. This section will discuss the following: recalling the previous section on fraternity, the performances’ focus on dance and new and noisy music helps to build the ‘spirit’ of active and complete (male) subjectivity, something central to South Korean discourses of remasculinization. This ‘spirit’ should be understood as masculine, and not a genderless subjectivity because of the music genres used in “Hayôga” as well as the performances’ fraternity. However once again, the remasculinization theme constructed within “Hayôga” performances does not fit neatly within or outside normative South Korean masculinity or powerful hegemonic masculine practices.
SOME BACKGROUND ON SOUTH KOREAN REMASCULINIZATION
Remasculinization has a long, substantial history in modern South Korea and continues to play a significant role in many recent South Korean films and other cultural products and productions as well as circulating through numerous current public discourses. As part of her analysis of masculinity and the War Memorial in Yongsan-gu, Seoul, Jager (2002) traces the remasculinization theme back to Korean nationalist writers working during the early years of modern Japanese imperialism in Korea. Jager writes:
For Korean nationalists like Sin Ch'ae-ho (1880-1936), engaged in their own battle against the civilizing principles of Japanese imperialists, the record of Korea's "true" national history was written as a historical struggle against foreign imperialism (the "struggle of the fittest"). This (progressive) struggle was further framed in terms that reflected the nationalists' new concern with modern (read military) manhood. Like other nationalists of his time, Sin attributed Korea's weakness to a lack of military spirit and adventurousness. The liberation of the nation, thus, would mean not only an end to Japanese colonial overrule but also the reinstitution of a powerful "manly" ethic that starkly contrasted with the traditional "effete" and "effeminate" characteristics associated with Korea’s Confucian past . . . The idea of a return to a time before the nation's corruption by Confucianism thus constituted the basis for the nation's modern salvation: the rediscovery of the true martial spirit of the nation would enable Koreans to do battle, to "struggle," and to "survive.” These ideas were not lost on President Park Chung-hee (1917-79), who actively sought to forge a link between martial manhood and the nation-state (2002:390).
Despite some challenges especially from younger generations, the powerful “manly” ethic which Jager outlines has proven tenacious as even today public discourses reveal a largely uniform picture of ideal masculinity as courageous, authoritative and sometimes virulent (Moon, 2005, 2002). Also, the recuperation of this “manly” ethic (remasculinization) continues to be inextricably tied to the ‘development’ of the South Korean nation as a whole, economically as well as culturally and politically (Kim K. H. 2004; Abelmann, 2003). Central to the remasculinization project is the recuperation and nurturing of male subjectivity (chuch’esông). Dominant masculinist discourses circulating in recent years place “healthy” or complete male subjectivity at the centre of national institutions such as the normative family and the military (Abelmann, 2003; Jager, 2002; Cheng, 2000). Abelmann (2003) deals with the topic of South Korean male subjectivity in depth. She refers to male subjectivity as a prevailing national and historical narrative and writes:
For the women in this book [women in their 50s and 60s in the 1990s], male subjectivity refers to both the personal attributes of the men in their lives and, metaphorically, the national and historical narratives…In Korean, “subjectivity” registers very differently than it does in English: it operates in both the personal and the national range of meaning. A person without chuch’esông refers loosely, for example, to one with little spine, confidence, or a sense of self (Abelmann 2003:187-188).
She goes on to explain how “[s]pecifically, male loss or displacement—physical, material, cultural, and social dislocations—constitutes a grammar for articulating the costs of colonialism, the Korean War, and rapid social transformation in South Korea” (Abelmann, 2003:188). This theme or narrative is also at the centre of Choi (2002) and Kim K. H. (2004) research on South Korean films. Abelmann adds, however, “…for increasingly post-nationalist and perhaps post-development generations, this and the other narratives in this book grow perhaps even more remote” (2003:188). In my experience, for the post-development generations which my interviewees and Korean friends belong to, the national range of meaning for subjectivity has weakened to a degree but the recuperation of male subjectivity is still a prominent theme in popular culture appealing to young generations (for example in the movie Crying Fist (Chumôgi Unda, 2005, dir. Ryoo Seung-wan).
SEO TAIJI AND SUBJECTIVITY
My interviewees Chae-tol and Kang-t’ae very seriously and consciously took it upon themselves to develop their own subjectivity—their own sense of self and way of being—a project that has distanced them physically and psychologically from their older relatives and South Korean parent-culture generally. Additionally, both Chae-tol and Kang-t’ae were explicit about Taiji being their guide for this. For all I interviewed, Taiji’s appeal was, in essence, his strong, complete subjectivity. This subjectivity, for a number of fans (Yun-hûi, Yu-t’aek, Chin-ha, Kang-t’ae, Yong-t’ae, and Kûn-hae) stood out in contrast to other singers or celebrities whom they viewed as lacking subjectivity—superficial idols.[6] Taiji as the real person and performance persona (Auslander, 2004; Frith, 1996) (talented, charismatic and confident with a strong sense of self and so on), also differs from so many male characters in films of the late 1980s and early 1990s who suffered, without subjectivity, under the burden of rapid social transformations.
Taiji’s subjectivity not only comes from his performance persona and skilful manoeuvres in the Korean music industry, but from sounds and visuals of many Taiji and Boys’ performances, “Hayôga” for instance. We can conceive of sonic and visual signs as shaping the character enacted in a performance. In “Hayôga”, the noisiness and newness of the sound of the song combined with the new and disorienting (‘noisy’) visual aspects of the video contribute to shaping the characters enacted in the performance. The visual and sonic noisiness and newness of “Hayôga” expand on or emphasize Taiji’s and the Boys’ subjectivity displayed in their independent, confidant
and distinctive performance personas. The newness of the Boys’ dancing and displays of their skill and virtuosity also helps to form the character with subjectivity.
Dance skill and virtuosity are a primary focus of the music video. This focus is evident at 2:34, 2:41, 3:08, 3:17, 3:20, 4:26, 4:29, 4:33, and 4:42. At many of these points, the camera shoots the dancers close-up, and highlights their skills by framing their bodies tightly, often focusing on their feet, so that their quick movements fill-up and spill out of the frame (see
figures 30, 31 and 32).
The dancers’ skills and prowess that we are drawn to by the camera as well as the music’s new and exciting beat form a sense/effect of confidence, competence and vigour. These visual signs point to the chuch’esông of the dancers’ performance persona. Considering the central place hip-hop style dance often takes in Korean youth culture and the respect skilled dancers are given by youth, skilful dancing may be a key to exhibiting one’s confidence and firm sense of self ―strong subjectivity.[7] The role of dance in shaping the performance personas and characters’ subjectivity in “Hayôga” performances is more apparent in the music video’s narrative of competition. The Boys’ dance skills deployed in the video are not just for display or enjoyment, but explicitly used to beat (or tie) the African-American dancers at dancing. In short, the music video is a dance competition and The Boys’ skills are sufficient to impress foreign men. The Boys’ active and successful confrontation, through dance, in this video provides an almost ideal alternative to the many subjectivity-less male characters’ failures and frustrated goals in films of the same era and the 1980s (the topic of Kim K.H.’s 2004 book).
SOUTH KOREAN ROCK, RAP AND MASCULINITY
It is likely there are those who would consider subjectivity—a new, active spirit perhaps—enacted in “Hayôga” performances has little to do with gender and should not be taken as evidence of remasculinization. Indeed this genderless approach is how most writers approach the performance persona (Auslander, 2004; Firth, 1996) of Taiji and Boys (Howard, 2003; Morelli, 2001; Yun, 2001; Shin, 1998; Kim, 1999). Furthermore, the dynamic participation of female fans in the Taiji phenomenon seems to contest “Hayôga” and other Taiji performances as enactments of male subjectivity and masculinities. However, because of the musical genres used in “Hayôga” as well as the lack of female presence in the song and its performances, it is difficult to ignore the closeness of “Hayôga” to males and their masculinities.
Although it is often difficult, or problematic, to associate a particular genre with a particular gender, some popular music genres in Korea tend to be associated with a gender. Anglo-American rock or heavy metal music, for example, are often associated with tough or rugged types of hetero-masculinity (Young, 2004; Walser, 1993), but often this association is weakened due to the diversity of performers and their various images as well as the role of female fandom in these genres (Fast, 2001). 1990s South Korea, rap, hard rock, and samulnori, the three main genres used in “Hayôga”, were, for the most part, associated with males and rough or tough types of masculinity. Although there are female rappers in Korea and examples of soft, gentle rapping by males (for example Taiji in “Nôwa hamkke han shigansok-esô” and “Nôege”) these are exceptions to the rule. Most rapping is like that in “Hayôga”, heavily accented, semi-shouted, and usually performed by males. The maleness of rap and its rough masculinity is highly noticeable in bands where the division of voices is made along gendered lines: tough men rap in tough sounding voices while delicate women sing the melodies in light voices (for example in Roo-ra’s (Rulla) “100 iltchae mannam” (1994), S#arp’s (Syap) “Yes” (1998) or Space A’s “Arûmdaum ibyôl” (2000). Even among boy bands, voices are often gendered with the rapping often performed by the member or members with the tougher image (for example Eric in Shinhwa or Joon Park in G.O.D.).
Heavy rock music, and certainly heavy metal, tends also to be associated with males and a rough type of masculinity in South Korea. Some of my interviewees’ hypothesis for why Taiji has more-or-less equal numbers of male and female fans was that he plays many different genres of music, implying certain genres are for boys and others are for girls. A cursory look at Korean rockers reveals not only few females, but also plenty of “tough guy” characters, a characteristic consistently used to describe even rock balladeers. Although rap and rock in Korea do not always nor in every context relate to tough types of masculinity, there is a strong tendency for rapping and rock to be associated with this type of masculinity.
These links between rock and rap have also been strong in China. Furthermore, genre choice in Mainland Chinese popular music has also played a role in the remasculinization theme in Chinese popular culture and public discourses. As such, Baranovitch’s comments on Chinese rock, and on rap at other points in his book, can bring us to think about a similar role of rock and rap in South Korea. Baranovitch (2003) writes:
The search for the "real man" (nanzihan) in Chinese rock is revealed also in sound and performance [not only in lyrics]. Chinese rock follows Western rock in both sound and performance style, yet it is associated almost exclusively with men, and its unique sonic and performance-related stylistic features are perceived almost as synonymous with masculinity . . . The characteristic features of rock—a fast tempo, an accentuated, forceful, stirring beat and danceable rhythms, loudness and an aggressive, noisy quality—as well as its general aesthetics of roughness, force, straightforwardness, and unrestraint, are accepted by many Chinese as symbols of masculinity even when found in other styles (135).
Baranovitch’s observations here match my own on South Korean popular music. The search for “real men” in Chinese rock that Baranovitch outlines in his book resembles a similar search (partly a search for complete male subjectivity) in Korean popular culture and public discourses. Like Baranovitch, I consider the choice of rock and rap, as well as samulnori, as playing a role in the building of men. These genres’ associations with men and masculinities influence how we receive the new, active, self-defined ‘spirit’ (or subjectivity) evident in the “Hayôga” music video, as well as its live performances. In my view, these genres influence the meanings of the visual signs, the dancing for example, in the “Hayôga” performances. Carol Vernallis (1994, 2004) has seriously considered such relationships in music video and outlines the simultaneous relationships between sound and images. She writes:
Music video, like music itself, contains many simultaneous processes. In music video, the image can only point to a few parameters of music at a time. Music video image thereby acts as a guide that says, "listen to this, now this, now this." Therefore, the music video provides one reading of a song that contains many possible readings. However, the reading it provides can have a great deal of power. It can teach us about features in the music that we might not otherwise have noticed (1994:140-41).
Similarly, the music, including the choice of genre, can bring the viewers to attend differently to the visuals in a video or even to dancers on stage. In this way, the rough/tough associations and sounds of heavy rock, rapping and Samulnori’s t’aep’yôngso solo draw our attention to these aspects of the dancing. In short, the music genres used in “Hayôga” draw our attention to masculinities at work in the display of dancing skills and the narrative of competition and toughness in the video. If the genres were those more often associated with females and a gentle type of femininity, we would likely attend differently to the dancing and narrative, which occurs in the 94 Yôrûm saeroun tojôn live performance of the ballad “Nôege.”[6 ½]
COULD A TAIJI PERFORMANCE REALLY BE HEGEMONIC?
Taking a step back to examine the subjectivity enacted in “Hayôga” performances, I am once again ambivalent about its place with regard to powerful masculine hegemonic practices and the remasculinization theme in popular South Korean culture and public discourses. In some ways, the strong (male) subjectivity enacted simultaneously by Taiji and Boys’ as real persons, performance persona and characters (Auslander, 2004; Frith, 1996), exhibit particularly well what is needed and desired—a strong sense of self, confidence, and display of physical skill and so on—in a hegemonic masculine character (such as Agent Yu in the blockbuster Shiri, 1999). Taiji and Boys’ practices in these performances―their dancing, competing, rapping―combined with the overall noisy newness of the song, stand out against representations of men that dominated Korean popular culture leading up to the Taiji and Boys era, namely the repressed and often emasculated male characters of so many Korean films and the industry-formed formulaic ballad singers of the pop music industry. Considering this, it appears these performances could be aligned in some ways with hegemonic masculinity. However, upon second glance, the male subjectivity, in some ways heroics, constructed by “Hayôga” performances, especially by the video, is difficult to neatly explain away as participating in the remasculinization, affirming hegemonic masculinities. This is difficult because of aspects of Taiji as the real person and also aspects of his performance persona (Auslander, 2004; Frith, 1996).
In many ways, Taiji’s performance persona and aspects of his real self reflect a decidedly non-normative hetero-masculinity—his asexual and/or androgynous sensibility and image, his physical delicateness, his gentle singing and rapping in other songs and so on. In addition, his lack of participation in institutions upon which South Korean hegemonic masculinity depends, namely the military and marriage/normative family life position his real self way outside of hegemonic masculinity. Considering these aspects of Taiji, it is once again difficult to label “Hayôga” performances as expressing hegemonic masculinity.
[6] Taiji’s subjectivity becomes more evident when we consider the context of the Korean music industry. Taiji’s difference―his independence, command of his sense of self, tenacity―becomes especially evident when we consider Willoughby’s observations on the industry generally:
In Korea, whether due to lack of ingenuity on the part of the media, performers or their managers, it is difficult for a singer to keep up with the constant demand for change. Therefore, rather than one ever transfiguring performer remaining popular for years, there is a rapid rate of turnover among popular stars. Sometimes, a star may be able to retain popularity for an entire year or, if really lucky, a few years, but more often the fad they represent will last only a few months… Managers and production companies actually play a more important role than does the disposable singer: the industry must be able to continually find new talents that will engage the public and sustain or create new images, while the singers merely fade away (2005:4-5).
In many ways, Taiji’s subjectivity, of Taiji the real person, is formed and displayed by his transcendence of the idol system Willoughby describes.
[6 ½ ] In their performance of “Nôege “, Taiji and the Boys include quite a lot of dancing that is break dance inspired, but include more dance rather than tricks. During the ballad, Taiji and one of the Boys dance in a duet, wearing light coloured, loose fitting suits. Then the third member joins, and does break-dancing moves on the stage floor as Taiji sings gently beside him. Their movements during the song are quite fluid rather than jerky and combined with the gentle ballad,
[7] In her examination of the career aspirations among teenagers at a bottom-tier high school in Seoul, Choi (2005) illustrates the importance of hip-hop style dance:
In consumer popular culture, urban youths tend to fantasize about the entertainment industry…Their wish for popular stardom is reflected in Hyonju's [a student] comments on Juno:
Juno is a hip-hop dancer. He comes to school only for the first two hours and is exempt from the rest of the day, and then is allowed to go to a dance practice hall outside of school. He is already famous, and works for a big entertainment company. Plus, his [dance] team performed at a high school dance contest. He is out classmates' idol. I envy him. I sometimes feel so proud that I am his classmate and go to the same school.
Hyonju's view represents that of most SGH [SaeGil High School] students. Juno was cool and popular among girls. He has a clean and handsome look. Although he attended a bottom-tier school (SGH) and presumably has low academic ability, he looked confident and capable because of his kki. Dance was becoming the popular symbol of adolescence and an essential part of being 'cool'. I often observed SGH students practicing hip-hop dance on the dancing machines that are set up in many leisure places, or performing mini dance contests in classrooms, hallways and the smoking room (275).
See Morelli (2001) on the central place of hip-hop dance in 1990s Korean youth culture.
[8] The physicality and competitiveness of the dancing in “Hayŏga” performances could be interpreted using Kam Louie’s (2002) Chinese wen-wu framework of East Asian masculinity. The high value placed on dancing skill could be part of the resurgence of wu in younger generations’ appraisal of how best to be a man.
[9] This same gendered division of voices occurs in early 1990s British dance music (Bradby, 1993:167-68)
The list of musicians under the rock genre most popular list on the well-liked Internet music players Buggs Music lists the following: Nine female solo acts or band leaders (Jaurim, Chuchuk’ŭllŏp, Pak Ki Yŏng, Tŏdŏ, To Wŏn Kyŏng, Sŏ Mun Tak, Lia, PPippi Baendŭ, Cherry Filter) out of a total fifty-one acts. In addition, many of those nine acts play soft or jangly rock music (Changnŭbyŏl at'sŭt'ŭ: Rok, 2005).
[10] The list of musicians under the rock genre most popular list on the well-liked Internet music players Buggs Music lists the following: Nine female solo acts or band leaders (Jaurim, Chuchuk’ŭllŏp, Pak Ki Yŏng, Tŏdŏ, To Wŏn Kyŏng, Sŏ Mun Tak, Lia, PPippi Baendŭ, Cherry Filter) out of a total fifty-one acts. In addition, many of those nine acts play soft or jangly rock music (Changnŭbyŏl at'sŭt'ŭ: Rok, 2005).
[11] In their performance of “Nôege “, Taiji and the Boys include quite a lot of dancing that is break dance inspired, but include more dance rather than tricks. During the ballad, Taiji and one of the Boys dance in a duet, wearing light coloured, loose fitting suits. Then the third member joins, and does break-dancing moves on the stage floor as Taiji sings gently beside him. Their movements during the song are quite fluid rather than jerky and combined with the gentle ballad, appear very soft and serene. The combination of the ballad song and dancing provides an example of break dancing and break dancing-inspired dance that does not equal tough masculinity. In fact, this dance is very refined, beautiful and compliments Taiji’s extremely gentle, soft voice. This performance reveals that it is too simple to say rap and break dancing style in Korea always equal tough masculinity.