Why Size Matters: Feminine Representations of Men in Korean Advertising

( Source )

Introduction: How Sexism Came to be Subtle

What is it exactly that renders an advertisement sexist? Is it what probably first comes to mind, an overemphasis on female body parts and/or women in sexual poses, both usually with virtually no relationship whatsoever to the product being advertised? Well…yes, of course, and I completely accept that both are overused in advertising. But on the other hand, it’s also quite naive to suppose that in a social climate of sexual freedom and styles of dress that the advertising industry wouldn’t use both, particularly in advertisements aimed primarily at men, or that somehow there were golden eras in the past when sexual messages weren’t a core component of advertisements. Besides which, what products would be related to sexual messages exactly, and thereby “acceptable”? Bikinis? Lingerie? Beds? Condoms? Personal lubricants?

No really, I’m being quite serious. It’s rather a lonely place being a man studying sexism and gender roles in advertising, as the vast majority of internet sources on the subject are written by women, and rather dogmatic feminist ones at that. Which is painting them with a rather broad brush, sure, so let me be more precise: “dogmatic” in the sense that many seem to go overboard and criticize virtually any use of women’s body parts in advertisements. Which I think is excessive, to say the least: breasts, for example, are an important secondary sexual characteristic that evolved into their current disproportionate size (for primates) precisely to gain the attention of males (see the second half of this post for the biological basis to that), but acknowledging this seems to be very much the elephant in the room for modern feminism, or at least this small but much-analyzed part of it. Or, to put it another way, there’s no use pretending that T&A haven’t always and won’t always be a core component of the way males judge female attractiveness, and so if we accept that sex is going to used in advertising then obviously both are going to feature pretty highly in them, particularly in advertisements aimed primarily at men.

Don’t get me wrong: most of the time I heartily agree with most feminist critiques of certain advertisements, but I would still differ with this one for this advertisement for Chivas Regal whiskey on the right for instance (source), frequently mentioned by such sites, but which, like when I first saw it six years ago, I can’t help but find myself smiling at and heartily agreeing with the message in the text (click for the large version to read), although do I accept that it does contribute to the image of whiskey as “a man’s drink” that women can have problems with when they order it for themselves. Moreover, I don’t think that it demeans women, that liking it means that I consider my wife or any woman a sexual object rather than a thinking person, or that women that lack such a figure aren’t or can’t be sexy or attractive. Like a female friend with small breasts pointed out to me once, you just learn to live with the fact, just like I have to live with being bald, and I like to think that I can still be sexy despite that. Indeed, the two sexiest women I have ever known actually both happened to have small breasts, which, far from reflecting some fetish on my part, just goes to show that sexiness (from men or women) is ultimately about one’s attitude really.

Why mention this, other than the fact that I’m slightly drunk as I type this that is, and also perhaps subconsciously at least want to provide justification for continuing to post revealing images of women on the blog under the guise of feminist analysis? Well, one is that as T&A and sexual poses dominate discourses of sexism in advertising on the internet and in more traditional forms of media, then there’s my take on that as it were, and my ultimate conclusion that the excessive emphasis on both is ultimately a lost cause, and a trivial, misguided and somewhat wasteful one at that.

Let’s move on to the second aspect of sexism in advertising most likely to be mentioned, albeit most likely if not exclusively by those from liberal arts backgrounds (i.e. those who’ve actually studied the subject, at least indirectly): the depiction of women in inferior, weak, passive, submissive and/or traditional roles instead. I’ll say less about these, as its now relatively rare to find blatant examples in the Western media (and even the Korean media is catching up in this regard), and hence most examples you’ll find on the internet will date from the 1970s and earlier. But this is ironic, for even in 2008 there are still huge divisions in the amounts and kinds of paid work, childcare, housework, and so on that men and women do, still following a traditional pattern not all that different from the 1970s. Yes, naive of me to think otherwise, certainly, but, and if you can forgive the brief aside, I didn’t really think much about the issue until a few days ago when I read the chapter entitled “Family Work and Family Money” in Maureen Baker’s sociological primer on families Choices and Constraints in Family Life (2007), and was honestly quite a bit taken aback. Especially the fact that, once begun, the division of a husband doing mostly paid work outside of the home and a wife doing unpaid housework and childcare tends to be both enduring and get larger over time, no matter how equitably both were done before the wife stopped working…which has a special poignancy for my own marriage.

But, to return to advertising, it means that what inferior, weak, passive, submissive and/or traditional images of women that exist in them now are increasingly subtle. Take this one of Moschino’s below for instance:

( Source: shine so cold )

Personally, it took me a few moments to figure out what this advertisement is supposed to represent exactly: were the couple prisoners? No…why would their sunglasses be tied up too? How apart parts from a model kit then? No…then they’d be disassembled, and besides which the man appears to be raised from the white background a little, a rather awkward position for a model component. And then I realized that’s he actually standing, which would mean that the woman is too, although I can surely be forgiven for thinking that she’s lying down. So probably they’re supposed to be like a Barbie and Ken doll set in a box, like you find in a toy store. But then why is the women tied down so helplessly, whereas the man, ostensibly also tied down, looks – as the photographer points out – firmly grounded and in control? I haven’t been looking (sorry), but I dare say that Barbie and Ken dolls don’t leave the Mattel factory like that in real life. So why would the advertisers choose to depict them like that?

I’ll let you ponder that for yourselves. But I will say that, no, that single advertisement is not going to, say, discourage a girl from playing chess, or persuade a teenager to want to become a nurse rather than a doctor (and so on), but I’d be surprised if readers didn’t agree that there must surely be a cumulative effect on both sexes of seeing advertisements with men in dominant roles over their lifetimes, however subtle at first glance. And to me, that point is at the heart of the criteria formulated by Erving Goffman that are used today to evaluate sexism in advertisements: that they are subtle, but no less pervasive and influential for all that. With that in mind, in the rest this post I want to:

• Discuss one of those criteria, “relative size”.
• Then outline the results of a study of Korean advertisements that finds that, ironically, this method is used not just with depictions of women but also with those of men.
• And finally, illustrate this with a recent series of advertisements and a commercial for the Korean cosmetics company Etude House, one of which you can see at the beginning of this post.

Why Size Matters to Korean Women

( Source )

Considering that some of his works can be best sellers, and that Gender Advertisements (1979) is one of the founding works in this sociological niche as it were, then I find Erving Goffman to be surprisingly long-winded and obtuse *cough*, and so I’ll refrain from quoting him in this post. Instead, I prefer this, more succinct source on the significance of relative size:

…when females and males are shown together, males are mostly shown as taller than females, even though if females and males were randomly paired together, in one in six pairs the woman would be taller.  However the tall female with the short male displays a relationship in which the female has power, according to conventional indicative codes, and so the reverse is preferred, since the cultural ideal is the the male “should wear the pants”.  Therefore the most common image is the taller male, and the shorter female. Exceptions occur where the male is weakened by sickness or old age, or is of lower social status (such as a servant) than the female. Height routinely symbolizes social rank.

Now humans are a biologically dimorphic species – i.e. the sexes tend to be markedly different sizes – and so in the majority of advertisements featuring couples or mixed groups then of course the males are going to be bigger than the females, and to suggest that this is somehow sexist would be absurd. But whereas I don’t know where that one in six figure above comes from, it sounds reasonable, and the fact remains that in practice the real figure in advertisements is a great deal lower, both because of and giving rise to our preconceptions that the male should always be the dominant figure.

Take the above advertisement with Kang Dong-Won (강동원) and Kim Tae-hee (김태희) for instance: he is 186cm tall (maybe), and she is, well, actually there’s quite a debate amongst netizens about that, so let’s say that she’s about 30cm (or a foot) shorter, and that’s certainly how they are depicted here. Other than that, they’re both well-dressed, wearing black clothing against a black/grey background, and he has a serious, stern expression on his face, so I’d say the intended overall tone of the advertisement would be one of class and authority.

Now, if this advertisement was analyzed in isolation, then obviously there’s not enough evidence to argue that the large height difference between the two actors isn’t anything but a simple reflection of the large difference in their heights in real life. Still, if it was all I had to work with, then I could and would argue that Kim Tae-hee’s expression – trying to look serious but not really succeeding – presumably detracted from the advertisement’s authoritative tone as a whole, although it certainly does potentially add to the notion that the source of authority and seriousness in a heterosexual couple lies with the man, a notion which the height discrepancy doesn’t exactly challenge either as explained. Moreover, any argument that the either feature (and the depiction of the height difference in particular) is mere chance would simply be bullshit, as absolutely nothing in an advertisement is accidental, let alone ones involving multimillion dollar contracts with stars like these.

But actually, I do have another advertisement with the very same actors to work with:

( Source )

Yep, Kim Tae-hee is still a whole foot shorter than Kang Dong-won in real life, so why are they depicted as almost equal in height in this advertisement for video phones? Presumably because most young Korean couples – its primary target – cherish the notions of equality and mutual respect within their relationships, which wasn’t exactly the first thing that came to mind earlier. Moreover, presumably most women would at least in theory be less than thrilled at the prospect of ever calling a boyfriend with the domineering personality of Dong-won’s alter-ego, let alone buying this expensive video phone so that he can demand real-time video proof of her location and company every half hour.

(Update: Although the gist is the same, I’ve considerably refined and expanded my thoughts about both advertisements in response to comments, so please do go on and read those too!)

I should perhaps note that these two advertisements are not at all representative of Cyon advertisements as a whole, let alone Korean advertisements, but merely those two (out of dozens of Cyon ones on my hard drive) that best serve to male a point about relative size, which I think I have done (thank you very much). Moving on, I won’t discuss those relatively rare cases in which “the male is weakened by sickness or old age, or is of lower social status (such as a servant) than the female,” other than to say that, of the rare cases where a female is indeed depicted as larger than a male in advertisement, I’d be surprised if the vast majority weren’t in that vein.

That is, with the exception of Korean advertising at least, where a variety of factors, but most particularly the increasing sexual objectification of men, the eroding of old ideals of men as protectors and providers (both covered here), and the existence of a cultural norm of sexual attractiveness that demands childlike behavior and dress from adult women, have combined to the extent that the latter now informs the former two. Or, to be more precise, if you replace women with men as your object of study and apply Goffman’s criteria to them, then it turns out that they too are increasingly portrayed in a sexist fashion, albeit still much less so than Korean women.

Update: But before moving onto that, in hindsight perhaps a few more examples are necessary. The taking of the photograph of this one from outside a Pusan Bank branch (부산은행), for instance, took 25 minutes on my part, getting off at a different bus stop to my normal one, fielding inquiries from bemused security guards and having to waiting for the next bus afterwards and all, but I think you’ll agree that it was worth it:

A picture really does say a thousand words, yes? True, literally only seven, but you get the idea. If you’re curious though, the text roughly translates as “The best partner for life, with Pusan Bank you (we?) can do it”.

It’s perhaps rather apt that I found such an archetypical example from a Korean bank, for a friend of mine finds them to be a great analogy for Korean gender divisions as a whole. Think about it: invariably the tellers are all women, and appear to do the vast majority of the work, whereas their supervisor at the desk behind them will tend to be a comparatively relaxed-looked man, only seeming to expend any real effort when they occasionally go to him with a form, which he’ll sign and/or they’ll discuss for a minute or so before the woman goes back to the front to deal with yet another customer. He’ll probably make twice as much as them for perhaps an eighth of the effort, and be on a promotion track too, whereas they’ll be expected to quit upon getting marriage. Exaggeration? Sure, but not that much, as my Korean female friend that works at a bank was forced to admit, and which is why she was so depressed when she had to transfer from her (rare) all-female branch last year.

Finally, here is one more recent example from a Korean bank on the right (source), and two US examples from the 1970s in the same vein, the above one (source) actually being the first one presented in Erving Goffman’s book, which I was quite surprised to find online. Like I’ve said, naturally I’d much rather have only used modern Korean examples, but in fact all the sources on advertising I’ve read in recent months have pointed out that relative size is becoming increasingly useless as a criterion of study, for it is actually now quite rare to see couples and mixed groups in advertisements. Which isn’t to say that they don’t exist at all, obviously, but on the other hand it’s certainly true that providing a decent example did involve some legwork on my part, and after weeks of looking online.

Why cover it at all then? Well, I thought it best to give myself readers a decent grounding in Goffman’s various criteria and framework as a whole before discussing the academic debate surrounding it in the three decades since he formulated it, and it does place the Korean cosmetics advertisements in the next section in some context too. But before that, here is the second of those old advertisements I mentioned:

( Source )

Although the inferiority of the woman depicted in it is made explicit by the text in this particular case, I think that that just goes to highlight the significance of her diminutive size all the more, yes?

The Emasculation of the Korean Male?

( Source: infacinatorinc )

Which is one finding of Nam Kyoung-tae, Lee Guiohk. and Hwang Jang-sun’s 2007 study of selected advertisements (one page or bigger and showing full adults) from Korean women’s magazines CéCi (쎄씨), Cindy the Perky (now discontinued), and eCole (에꼴) from 2002 and 2003, which you can read in their paper “Gender Role Stereotypes Depicted by Western and Korean Advertising Models in Korean Adolescent Girls’ Magazines“, downloadable here. It has other points of interest however, albeit somewhat predictable ones for long-time readers of this blog, so let’s quickly get those out of the way first. As for new readers…then welcome(!), and don’t worry, for I’ll link to the relevant posts as I go along. Do worry that many are NSFW though, somewhat inevitable in a blog about sex and in advertising.

Firstly, of 644 female models in total, 57% were Korean and 43% were Western. For the reasons behind and significance of the large numbers of the latter, see here, here, here, here, here, and then finally here for starters. As mentioned in those, Korean women generally disdain lingerie modeling, which would heavily affect those results, but although this presumably wouldn’t apply quite so much to Korean men, the ratios remained almost the same: of 299 male models counted, 59.2% were Korean and 40.8% Western.

Next, Western women were more likely to be depicted in revealing clothes and or nude than Korean women, but at the same time they were also likely to be portrayed as independent, self-assured, and assertive than them too, and by no means just in a sexual sense. Again, this finding is true of Western and Korean men too, which may well demonstrate Korean sexual stereotypes of Westerners just as much as anything else, but then who can blame them given the hypersexual state of Western advertising today, albeit one there is a high and increasing demand for by readers of Korean women’s magazines, and which, if not technically the only factor, is arguably still the most significant one behind the increasing sexualization of Korean alcohol and lingerie advertisements also.

Now, when I said above that men, too, “are increasingly portrayed in a sexist fashion in Korean advertisements”, I should stress what I’ve briefly alluded to in previous posts: that what academics in the field consider “sexism” in advertisements exactly is very much in flux, which recent papers on the topic, not least the one discussed here, demonstrate is actually very culture-specific. Not at all that the concept is culturally-relativist, something I’m completely against, but more…well, take the act of lying or sitting when others are standing for instance, part of Goffman’s “Ritualization of Subordination” criterion. According to an earlier paper of Nam Kyoung-tae’s referred to in the paper, Goffman:

…read that lying or sitting conveys a sense of sexual availability and lowering oneself physically indicates deference or admittance of inferiority.

That may sound bizarre in itself, but take my word for it, it makes sense when you see Goffman’s full arguments and examples. Continuing:

This may not be an accurate interpretation of Korean advertising. In a Korean culture which is accustomed to sitting on the floor, a seated person might have a higher status than people who are standing nearby because he takes a more relaxed and comfortable position.

This comes to mind whenever I must walk over and talk to my department head, who is Korean, and invariably remains seated during our conversations. Coming from a culture where it is considered rude to tower over someone when talking to them, regardless of the difference in status, then I find myself squatting down to his level to make myself feel at ease. Then I’ll remember that I’ve yet to see a Korean person do something similar in the entire eight years I’ve been here (except to children), and I’ll quickly correct myself…but which leaves me feeling uncomfortable again, and so the cycle continues. It must be very amusing to watch, which is possibly why my colleagues always seem to treat me like an idiot.

But while I’d love to get my teeth into that debate (the sexism one; I’ve given up on my colleagues), it’s premature to do so when I’ve mentioned only one criteria of Goffman’s and others’ so far, so that will have to wait for a much later post. With the proviso that their significance is possibly more subtle than what at first appears then, the study found that Korean men were more likely than Western men in advertisements to:

• Touch and grasp themselves (rather than a functional object with which they could go off and do things – hence “The Feminine Touch”).
• Be portrayed with their body or head canting, smiling, or have a childlike or cute expression (“Ritualization of Subordination” again).

Considering how feminine I already find much of Korean men’s standards of dress and behavior, at least of young men that is, then I wouldn’t say that I was surprised at either finding. Having said that, for all my focus on relative size in this post, it was actually Western rather than Korean men that were by far the most likely to be portrayed as smaller and or shorter than their female counterparts. But they still are sometimes, such as in most (but by no means all – check the links) of Etude House’s advertisements for its new mascara brush with Go Ara (고아라) and Jang Keun-suk (장근석) below (who just had a car accident by the way). I first noticed them myself (well, the one at head of this post at least) on pages 24 and 25 of the October 2008 edition of CéCi, and already thought about using them to explain relative size back then, but when I learned that they were the subject of a brief article in the October edition of Korea Ad Times (코리아애드타임즈) too, then *cough* I couldn’t help myself.

Etude House Puts Men in Their Place?

( Source )

But it’s been over a week since my last post, so rather than my waiting until I’ve finished my translation of that before posting, I’ll leave this post here for now, and instead invite readers (who by definition must be quite dedicated and interested in the topic to have reached this late stage!) to comment on what they make of the advertisements and commercial for themselves first: you may well have ideas and make observations on them that I’ve missed, which would be good to hear before I post the translation and my own thoughts here tomorrow later in the week.

I can’t resist not giving some context to that until tomorrow then though. Would anyone agree that it’s garish, slightly dreamlike and soporific style is in the same vein as recent commercials and music videos like these?

( Source )

( Source )

( Source )

( Source )

Update: Well, first up, apologies for spending over two weeks rather than two days updating this post(!), but intellectually speaking I was (understandably) a little spent after writing all the above…and then my two daughters and my cold(s) didn’t exactly help either. But having made my points about the implications of differing sizes of sexes in advertisements in general, then ironically I don’t think that’s actually all that much to add about these ones that isn’t immediately obvious from Jang Keun-suk’s rather diminutive size in them (albeit not in all of them). If not, then him titivating himself while waiting for Go-ara in the passenger seat in the first one really does say it all, like a perverted mirror-image of Grease.

But don’t get me wrong: you don’t have to read the following explanation of the video commercial (from the October edition of Korea Ad Times) to realize that the gender roles have been deliberately switched for the advertising campaign, and that therein lies some of its humor and appeal, whereas when it’s done with women it’s usually done subconsciously and/or thought of as “more natural” for the reasons I described earlier.

“벗어주고 올려주고 꼬리빼고 꼬리치고~”

Comb, Raise, Lengthen, and…Flirt!”

매력적인 배우 아라가 국민체조 음악에 맞춰 멋진 율동과 함께 속눈썹을 빗어준다. 인형 같은 외모에 마스카라를 손에 쥔 숙녀가 느닷없이 국민체조라니. 하지만 새로운 버전의 이 눈꼬리 빗카라 체조는 장근석의 마음을 사로잡기에 충분했다. 새롭게 탄생한 에뛰드 TV CF 속 체조로 도발적인 여우 눈꼬리를 만들어보자.

With a flourish, attractive actor Ara combs her eyelashes to the rhythm of Korea’s traditional national gymnastics music. How surprising it is for a lady with such a doll-like appearance to do so. And in this new version of it, her dance is enough to captivate Jang Keun-suk. Ladies! Through this new Etude House commercial, let’s make our eyelashes foxy and seductive!

2008년 보다 강령해진 빗카라가 탄생했다. 비단 눈의 크기를 크게만 만들어주는것이 아닌 눈의 표정을 살려주는 눈꼬리 빗카라와 함께 채조를 시작해보자.

In 2008, a more effective and sturdier mascara brush appeared. Not only does it make your eyes look bigger, but by following these mascara brush gymnastics it can add life to your facial expressions too. Let’s begin.

‘눈꼬리 빗카라 체조 시작~’ 이라는 구령과 함께 에뛰드 하우스로 당당하게 들어서는 아라. 아라의 손에는 무언가 비장의 무기가…그리고 곧이어 시작되는 아라의 체조.

“Let’s start the mascara brush gymnastics!’ With this command, Ara grandly begins the Etude House commercial. But before she does so, we see that in her hand she has a hidden weapon.

빗카라로 속눈썹을 길게 좀더 길게 ‘빗어주고~’, 아라의 체조와 함께 속눈썹이 점점 더 올라가도록 ‘울려주고~’, 꼬리를 빼니 꼬리 빗으로 살아나는 눈꼬리에, 아라에게 근석은 눈을 떼지 못한다. 마무리로 ‘꼬리치고~’ 아라의 앙큼한 윙크, 그리고 하트를 날리는 근석, 이번 가을도 근석은 아라의 매력에서 못 헤어날 듯하다.

Following the narrator’s command to comb her lashes, Ara’s eyelashes are made longer. Then she’s commanded to raise them, and they become raised. Once they are raised, and her fox-like expression comes to life, then she gains the attention of Keun-suk, who finds that he can’t take her eyes off her. Finally, with the command to flirt, Ara winks and Keun-suk makes a heart symbol to her. This autumn, he simply won’t be able to escape her charms and attractiveness.

대한민국 걸들의 국민체조는 이제 눈꼬리 체조. 지난 붐, 아큼상큼 복숭아 볼로 근석을 사로잡았던 귀업고 사랑스러운 아라가 또한번 광고에 나섰다. 달콤 상상 에뛰드 하우스의 문을 열고 들어서는 아라의 눈빛부터 남다르다. 아라는 근석 오빠의 마음을 사르르 녹일 준비가 완료됐다.

Korean girls’ gymnastics are now mascara eyelash gymnastics. Like in a previous commercial last spring, the cute and lovable Ara has again captured Keun-suk with her cute peach cheeks. Finally, the sweet, imaginary Etude House open door appears and we see that Ara’s eyes are unusually shiny. She is ready to completely melt Keun-suk’s heart.

눈꼬리 빗카라 체조 시작!

Let’s start the mascara brush gymnastics!

2007년 귀업고 사랑스러운 남녀의 뮤지컬로 에뛰드 빗카라의 탄생을 알렸다면, 2008년 가을에는 업그레드된 빗카라 시즌2가 시작됐다.

Through a cute and lovable musical-like commercial in 2007, Etude House announced the arrival of its new concept for a mascara brush, and in autumn 2008 its upgraded second season has started.

이미 소비자들 사이에서는 아이메크업의 대세가 변화하고 있었다. 소비자들의 워너비 아이메크업은 인현처럼 크기만한 눈이 아니라 청순하고 착해 보이는 눈웃음. 또는 깊고 그윽한 매력을 뿜는 눈매처럼 매력적인 표정이 살아있는 눈매 만들기다. 이번 광고의 과제는 소비자 인식 상에는 있으나 그동안 마스카라 광고에서 소구해본 적 없는 눈꼬리 메이크업을 이슈화시키는 것이었다.

Already eye make-up trends among consumers have been changing. These days, they don’t only want doll-like large eyes, but also innocent, friendly and humorous ones too that vivify and show off their facial expressions. In addition to highlighting how Etude House’s new mascara brush can be used for that, the purpose of this commercial is to draw consumer’s attention to how well it can be used for making foxy, seductive expressions also.

이번에는 뮤지컬에 이은 채조다. 가장 익숙하고 친숙한 국민체조를 이용해서 제품의 특징을 쉽고 재미있게 표현하고자 한 것. 친숙한 국민체조 멜로디의 모델들의 앙증맞고 재미있는 댄스를 가미한 이번 광고는 에뛰드만의 톤 앤 매너로 업그레이드된 빗카라를 효과적으로 알릴 수 있을 것이라는 판단이 있었다.

On this occasion, the commercial features Korea’s traditional national gymnastics, very familiar to audiences and which makes the commercial easily memorable and amusing to consumers. The combination of the gymnastics familiar melody and the extremely cute, tiny dance steps and overall tone and manner was judged by the producers to be the most effective method of adding spice to the commercial.

그래서 탄생한 것이 ‘눈꼬리 빗카라 체조’. 속눈썹이 올라가는 모습을 상징적으로 보여줄 수 있는 안무들로 구성하여 제품과의 연관성을 높였다. 마스카라 광고라서 눈가에만 머무르는 광고가 아니라 에뛰드답게 액티브하고 즐겁게 표현되었다.

Hence the birth of the “Mascara Brush Gymnastics”, which has made a symbolic connection between the traditional national gymnastics and the product in consumers’ minds, and which renders it not just a commercial but also an expression of an active and humorous “Etude-like” vibe

____

Think that the translation sounds rather strange? Given the somewhat bizarre original Korean, then by all means be my guest if you feel that you can improve the English!^^  On a more serious note though, the link to the traditional national gymnastics, regularly done by almost everyone until the mid-1980s or so, does make the commercial somewhat less surreal than it may at first appear to non-Korean viewers. It also marks an increasing use of retro themes in Korean commercials and advertisements that I’ve been noticing in recent months, like in this Lotteria commercial that I discussed earlier.