Earlier this week, Baby Soul and Yoo Jia released a song called “She’s A Flirt,” featuring Infinite’s Dongwoo. The song itself is nice enough, although I don’t find it particularly awe-inspiring and I wish the rap wasn’t in it. However the music video did catch my eye, and I wasn’t the only one.
The formula for the MV is nothing new; person A angsts, person B tries to cheer them up, they both angst, they smile, they walk away happy. In between is some cute touching and lots of staring. The difference this time? Both persons A and B are girls.
Now, straight off the bat I want to say I have no problem with this, and if Woollim Entertainment really is promoting same-sex relationships as loving as this then I am 100% behind them. But are we just overreacting? Is there any real evidence to suggest the girls are in love with each other?
Replace one of the girls with a boy, let’s say Dongwoo, seeing as he featured. If Dongwoo was buttoning up Jia’s shirt and touching her lips, would anyone say “Oh, they’re just close friends” or, god forbid, “siblings”? No, they wouldn’t. In fact, replace Baby Soul with one of Dongwoo’s bandmates and you’d be hard-pressed to stop the OTP shippers. I don’t pretend to be any sort of expert on young female friendships in Korea, but there was a quiet intimacy between those girls that, if I saw it in England, I would assume they were together.
The reaction has been… surprisingly muted actually; although there is the usual number of people calling it disgusting. Overall, I think with the idols being relatively new, and Woollim being a fairly small company, there is a higher tolerance level. People don’t mind it happening as long as its low key. I suspect it has something to do with the majority of fans being girls and therefore not paying as much attention had it been two boys. Unless I have severely misjudged the Kpop public, SM cannot release Exo Planet as a gay Korean boy group and seriously expect delight and acceptance, much as I wish they could.
Which brings me onto my next question, what does this mean for the girls’ careers? Was this video merely a one-off, or are they K-pop’s first openly lesbian idols? If they are, will Woollim use it as a gimmick, or do the right thing and let Baby Soul and Yoo Jia live their private lives as they wish? These are questions that will only be answered with time, and I just hope they do the right thing, whatever that may be.
This video may not have made a huge impact; really we need a higher-profile group for that. But it shows a willingness to accept something new, something that isn’t wrong no matter how twisted some people try to make it. I for one think the video is sweet, and the fact they might be girls sleeping together or even just – gasp! – in love doesn’t faze me. What do you think, a step forward, or a step to far?
