Lolita Pizza?
Update 4: More innocent, cute, and completely asexual dancing by a 15 year-old can be seen from 3:02-3:32 in the making of the commercial here.
Update 3: God, that’s the very last time I start my own thread on Dave’s ESL Cafe. With two notable exceptions, one of whom I know has an excellent blog and actually thinks about things before writing, everybody else has either said that the girls are just dancing, that I don’t know what “dancing’ means, that I’m blinded by my “Western perspective”, that I’m jerking off to the videos, that two of the Wondergirls aren’t fifteen, and finally that I write very badly…the last from someone who didn’t know what “acknowledged” means, or even read my posts completely.
Serves me right I suppose.
Update 2: I’ve just found this post of Matt’s which addresses the “Wondergirls Issue” more directly.
Update 1: In the end, I did rehash old debates, albeit over at Dave’s ESL Cafe rather than here.
(Available on youtube here)
Well, a provocative title, but how else to describe the video? Two members of the Wondergirls group featured in it are still only fifteen.
The popularity of the Wondergirls and their increasingly sexual images and dance routines created quite a stir on expat message boards and blogs earlier in the year, both despite and in response to Koreans seemingly being unable to visualise them as sex symbols at all.
There’s already been more than enough virtual ink spilled on them, so rather than rehashing old debates I recommend this post of Michael Hurt’s for a good summary of them, and Matt provides useful background information on teenage sexuality in Korea here and here. But I will add that on this occasion this inability of Korean seems almost myopic: I don’t think I’d ever seen such “dance moves” on a prime-time commercial from an adult here, but for the Wondergirls the fact that they’re teenagers seems to mean that the normal rules don’t apply, no matter how blatantly they’re being abused.
Last month, they were also used in an ad as part of a campaign to encourage people to vote in the National Assembly elections, held last Wednesday. You could argue that technically their skirts could have been made even shorter, but here the National Election Commission seems to have known where to the draw the boundaries for the sake of good taste, appropriateness to the subject, and their right not to have their bodies used to titillate audiences:
(Hat-tip to Mongdori for the video)
Or not.
:: 
:: 
:: 
:: 
:: 
:: 
:: 
:: 
:: 
:: 
:: 
Theory about why they are called the Wonder girls:
Cause they make me “wonder” whether their presentation is actually sexual, or whether I am just dirty for suspecting so. Which makes their presentation seem more sexual. Which makes me feel more dirty.
It’s kind of a feedback loop.
I think if you don’t know they were underaged (and lets be honest, its getting harder to tell these days) then you’d feel quite ok in feeling they’re very sexy girls. As soon as you mention they’re underaged, does it really change the inital appeal, or sell, of the product or the girl’s songs?
You only wear shirts that short if you’re asking for something. ;)
In my opinion, the WG (and other groups like 소녀시대) are such a complete non-issue it’s not even funny. First of all WG would be attractive no matter what they wore (even the 15 year olds), be it the ever-so-slightly revealing skirts you see above or burlap sacks, but the outfits in the videos you posted are not overtly sexual or inappropriate, but par for the course even among high school students here in supposedly conservative Daegu. Their dance routines are also not provocative in the least. How would these young ladies have to dance and dress in order to not be deemed overly sexual?
I mean seriously, the attention these girls are getting from the expat community here is really starting to creep me out. High school girls dress and act much more sexually ‘back home’ (which is the bible belt of the US for me), so all I can think is that this concern over the supposed sexualization of under-age women in Korea is nothing more than some sort of misguided occidentalism, like the whole expat community is collectively saying ‘whoa, these natives couldn’t possible know what they’re getting themselves into, being all confucian and less developed than us and all, we better warn them’ or something.
Bottom line: Cute 15 year old girls wearing moderately short skirts are not going to cause the 바바리맨 to jump out of every corner and start masturbating vigorously at every girl in town. He’s going to be there no matter what. Less clothing does not necessarily equal more deviant sexuality.
David, for sure. If a 15 year-old girl is better physically-developed than say, an 18 year-old, then I’m going to physiologically respond to seeing her cleavage, and some intellectual notion of her age is not going to stop that. So a limit on, say, the age of consent, is many ways completely arbitrary. Having said that, I do think that there need to be limits.
But the main point I’m trying to make is that Koreans don’t see them as sexy girls.
Chris, I disagree with, well, pretty much everything you say. But rather than answering here though (I’m tired sorry), I think I pretty much cover everything I would say in that thread on Dave’s ESL Cafe.
So a guy who fits the standard demographic of those who buy sex from underage girls (wonjo gyojae) is looking at the computer (the most common way of arranging such meetings) when suddenly (mostly) underaged girls come out of the computer to meet him in person. Interesting.
Of course, I’m not saying that was the intent at all, but it strikes me as rather funny, especially if you imagined living in a world where wonjo gyojae was legal, and re-dubbed the ad to make it a commercial for a ‘matchmaking’ service. Visually you wouldn’t have to change very much…
Chris, I’ve had my coffee now.
First up, I seriously doubt that some of the high-school girls in Daegu are wearing skirts as short as what a couple of the Wondergirls in both videos are, unless they copy their Japanese counterparts in Shinjuku who attach velcro to their skirts, hitch them up when they’re out in public, and then put them back down once they’re at school. And would it be too much to say that ubiquitous images in Japan of underage girls in sexual poses and tight clothes may have had something to do with that?
Many commentators over at Daves ESL Cafe also said that the first commercial wasn’t provocative or sexual at all. Well for one, 소희 strokes her breast, albeit quickly, wearing some of the highest shorts I’ve ever seen in my life. What isn’t sexual and provocative about it?
As for my “misguided occidentalism”, I think you mean orientalism. And I’m especially tired of the “you have bad thing X back home, so how can you criticise bad thing X in Korea” mentality that I more often hear from Koreans. The sexualization of underage women is an issue anywhere, but I just so happen to be in Korea and am raising a daughter here (maybe two) so do I have your permission to criticise this Korean problem? Please? Especially as Koreans’ warped views of teenage and female sexuality mean that they don’t recognise the WGs for the sex symbols that they are, a myopia that also leads to abysmal sex eduation, a lack of easy access to contraception for teenagers, and in turn turning a blind eye to the high number of abortions and large teenage-sex industry here.
Finally, sure, 바바리맨 will always be there regardless of the WGs dancing…or will they? I personally see Korean’s seeming toleration of their existence and impossibly high shorts on the WGs as symptoms and causes of the same myopia I mention above.
Bulgasari, very well put, and thanks for all those great posts I could link to.
Ha, amusing. Dave’s is the WORST place to try get reasoned discussion, aside from perhaps Marmot’s. No, wait, Marmot’s wins, I think.
Anyway, I would say the wording is a little bit ambiguous — that or we disagree, but I think we agree. People not “acknowledging” something does mean something different from “seeing as,” in my books. Else the phrase, “You’re not acknowledging that you see them as sex symbols” would make no sense.
That is, they are sex symbols, and wouldn’t have become the obsession of many a college boy (ugh! but true: I have seen plenty the college boys defending their “honor” by claiming they’re not talentless, not “manufactured” pop stars, in discussions in conversation classes, and all but drooling over them — “but they’re not ALL fifteen!”). The widespread attention, and fixation on them, and the wardrobe consciously chosen for them, all translate to them being, effectively, sexualized iconographically.
But at the same time, the very boys who are digging them know that it looks weird in front of their female peers, and in front of Westerners as well, and are all but required to save face by claiming that they’re absolutely not sex symbols, and that you’re sick for thinking anything of the kind.
Personally, though, I think the whole WG thing is, well, just a symptom of the bigger issue which is how gender issues are dealt with in a society where “traditional” values (ie. Confucianism) collide with postmodern consumerism, which you’re dealing with well, elsewhere on this site. If WG is more extreme that Britney was, because younger, I’d say we can thank the various forces that were already (and have long been) sexualizing young women (and girls) and encoding the necessity of their sexualization culturally for a long time.
Seeing the Electoral Commission ad just reminds me of the arguments centered on feminist groups here during the Japanese occupation. In a nutshell, the women’s resistance groups were all, “We need to focus on our issues!” and the male-dominated resistance was all, “No, you need to join up with us and focus on shared issues, and we can deal with the women’s issues later, after we’ve achieved independence.” From what I remember of the one text I saw on the subject, the women’s groups acquiesced, and discovered just how little interest there was in following up, when “later” finally arrived.
Gord,
yeah, writing there was definitely a mistake. On the bus on the way to work today, I composed a long reply in my head to put there, where I conceded a few points and clarified some others. But by the time I got to work I decided that the other posters there weren’t really worth it.
I don’t really feel like returning to the thread and going over it in detail. But in hindsight, I’m sure I could have said a few things a little more politely than I did, although my points would have been virtually the same. In my defence, when I wrote them yesterday, I was a) very hungover and b) pretty damn surprised at the reactions I was getting - we literally did seem to see watching different videos. Partially, that was my fault: my thread title probably suggested much more than what (dissappointed) viewers got. Having said that, I’m not sure what title would have revealed the thread’s contents and not dissappointed those particular posters.
I completely concede your point about the “acknowledged” thing. But I recall that when I read what Gamecock said in his reply to me, it sounded like he was repeating my point virtually word for word. I really do think that he didn’t understand what it meant.
Time to move on.
Yeah.
Actually, I have some thoughts about this post, and possibly a point that’s worth considering. I’ll let you know when I have it posted, and link to this post as well… but it’ll be a few days, I think. Tons of grading and editing to do at the moment.
Gord, we should both really both go to bed earlier! :)
By all means add your points; I shouldn’t have said “time to move on”. To be more precise, I’m just a bit braindead about the whole subject at the moment.
*Ahem*.
I’ve been following this thread (on dave’s esl and here) with some interest and I have to say that it’s SO nice to see a group of men debate the relationship between feminism and Confucianism and consumerism. (I realize that last sentence might sound sarcastic but, rest assured, I’m serious. About this anyway).
I don’t really have an opinion on the matter (or perhaps my opinion is so extreme - i.e. that we should just let … pizza sell … pizza - that it would be dismissed almost immediately by most healthy men in the world) but I just wanted to say ‘kudos’ and thanks for talking about real issues, and not just vapid tripe like what your cute kids did today or how yellow dust really *is* yellow.
Heh. Good blogs.
Hi Melissa.
Thank you for your comment, it was much appreciated. And actually, I was going to email you a couple of days ago when I noticed your link to my blog, because I was quite happy to find another expat parent here (there’s not many of us!). I would have checked out your own blog thoroughly already, but for this post and then my Korean test on Sunday coming up. But I will definitely do so next week!
Are you familiar with an American singer called JoJo? When she released her first single at the age of 13 I thought it was a catchy tune whose lyrics and video were totally inappropriate for a girl of that age…and that’s pretty much how I feel about the Wondergirls…
A colleague of mine at work (our age) went to a college (or maybe army) reunion and they had the Wondergirls perform and he was quite happy to tell me how they are even more sexy close up and in person…while acknowledging that it would be inappropriate to act in any way, he didn’t have a problem with lusting after them…
PS, trust you got the links I emailed?
I did thanks, and was going to email and thank you for them after I’d finished replying to the comments to the most recent post. I’ll give them a proper looking at tomorrow.
James, I don’t know how to convince you of Daegu high school girls’ clothing habits, but when out downtown on a weekend you can’t walk 10 feet without seeing a young woman who is obviously under 18, wearing high heels and/or a short skirt. Even when we took our high school students to the Busan Aquarium for a field trip, my very own students dressed much the same as some of the WG. You’re just going to have to trust me on this one.
Second point is perception. You and many others find the WG clothing and dance overly suggestive, while myself and many others do not. Who’s to say who’s correct? You say one of the girls strokes her breasts, I see her run the hands up the side of her body in an uninterestingly blase manner. Also, like I said, the clothes are pretty run-of-the-mill as far as korean fashion goes. How long do their skirts need to be before it’s no longer provocative? What sort of dancing would meet your approval? Should we poll a sample of middle-aged korean men and find out what sort of clothing is least attractive on underaged girls? More skin does not necessarily equal more deviant sexual activity, and I’m sure that many a 바바리맨 would prefer regular ole’ high school girls wearing regular ole’ uniforms to tickle their whistle. And regarding the supposed sexual meaning of lollipops and ‘fetishwear’ — in order for for these symbols to have any sort of semiotic verity, the viewer’s consent is needed, and in this day and age, high heels, short skirts, even lollipops, have lost much of their ‘potency’ if you will.
So far all I’ve seen regarding this issue from blogs like the Metropolitician and now the Grand Narrative are emphatic but nebulous statements that there is most definitely some correlation between the rise in popularity of wonjo gyojae and the increased sexualization of young women in Korea, OR that the WG are inappropriate because they might lead to REALLY bad things like that 6-year old girl who was really wearing next to nothing for no reason at all and dancing wayyyy more suggestively than the WG do in that youtube video. This is like when George W. said that gay marriage should not be allowed because, well if you let two men or two women get married, what’s to stop people from marrying their dogs or washing machines?
I will reiterate that I think this is a total non-issue, and that men who want to think inappropriate thoughts about or do inappropriate things to young women are going to do so no matter how they are dressed or how they move their bodies. If there is a problem here at all, it is not the sexualization of underage women, but rather the lack of education among men in Korea about respect for women, sexual equality, etc…
I totally agree with you that sex education in Korea is abysmal, there is a lack of easy access to contraception for teenagers, and koreans do turn a blind eye to the high number of abortions and large teenage-sex industry BUT the sort of self-reinforcing cause -symptom relationship between problems such as these and groups such as WG is not as obvious as you think it is. If there is, in fact, some link, I would be very interested to see it brought to light with a little more evidence.
I got a bit of a chuckle skimming the last comment and seeing WG and thinking for a minute it stood for Wonjo Gyoje and not Wonder Girls….
More to say on this but I’ll leave it for tomorrow…
Chris, I reply directly to your second comment in this post. And everybody else too, if you could continue the discussion in that post rather than this one it would be appreciated. Thanks!