Hello everyone and welcome back to another edition of Comments of the Week! Before we go into our favorite comments, let’s have a look at what went down during Seoulbeats the past week:
In music, we reviewed Brown Eyed Girls‘ latest comeback with “Warm Hole” and “Brave New World,” Rania‘s comeback with “Demonstrate,” High4‘s latest release with “D.O.A.,” MAP6‘s debut with “Storm,” and VIXX“s “Chained Up.”
We also kicked off the music awards season with a recap of the Melon Music Awards.
For our socio-cultural articles, we took a look at the history and importance of the Suneung or CSAT in Korea, and discussed the current IU debacle, focusing on the issue with Zeze.
As for our regular segments, The Sunday Social asked the question of who will be coming out of YG‘s dungeon on the 21st, For Your Viewing Pleasure was on endorsements, we talked sex in Music & Lyrics, and there was the Best of Weekly Music Shows.
And now, on to some of our favorite comments:
find_nothing_here on IU’s ‘Chat-shire’ Controversy, Part 1: The Co-Opting of Zeze
I think you excellently summarized what exactly IU did wrong, which was over-project herself onto a character who she has no right to, especially given the sensitive subject matter. I wonder though, would the controversy have increased to the fever it has if the rest of her album hadn’t so brilliantly deconstructed the preference for faux innocent concepts and the criticism aimed at women who take control of their own sexuality? Would it if her “plagiarism” controversy hadn’t stuck? Would it if certain ELFs didn’t have a bone to pick with her for ruining their oppa’s career? Would it if she hadn’t recently been revealed to be dating a popular actor? Would it if she were a man?
The cover art never struck me as provocative personally, and anyhow it was a fuck up on the artist’s part if anything (and I think perhaps you’re reading too much into it). If I missed all the whatever imagery, it’s easy to see that IU might have too.
neon on IU’s ‘Chat-shire’ Controversy, Part 1: The Co-Opting of Zeze
Yes, the witch hunt got a bit out of control, but IU co-opting a semi-autobiographical story about an abused 5-year-old to tell her own story is not acceptable. I wish that people would stop getting distracted by the silly peripheral issues and go back to the reason why this is a problem in the first place. I feel like, as a result of the whirlwind, IU is actually not learning the lesson she probably needs to learn from this.
In her fansign she stilled played Zeze (despite several abuse survivors calling it ‘triggering’) and they made no effort to cover the artwork on the album cover.
Her apology also seemed to miss the whole point of the initial criticism. She claimed in the original interview on the song that she was writing from the perspective of the tree, and in the apology she talks about how it is a third-party perspective. Fine, but then apologise for co-opting a semi-autobiographical story by an abuse victim and stop apologising for people misunderstanding — because that isn’t really the whole issue here.
I just think it is such a shame that the witch hunt has now confused the original valid issue with a bunch of hearsay and problems with other aspects of her album which, while maybe not to everyone’s taste, are not necessarily wrong.
And obviously calling her a pedophile is wrong wrong wrong. I can’t help but see the irony here though, honestly, because her fans hunted Eunhyuk calling him a pedophile and rapist (like wtf) after their scandal.
Tia_ on The Sunday Social, 11/8: November Comebacks, YG Edition
Yeah, believing it’s 2NE1 only when I see the actual MV.
That was all for this week! Thank you for reading and commenting!
