Reflexive Essay

Michelle Yang

K-pop Immersion

Dr. Saeji

7-28-17

These past three weeks has been very eventful, from daily Kpop classes to adventures to the Seoul area. Throughout these weeks, I have made many new friends and learned many new things. I had initially joined the K-pop Immersion program without knowing what to expect. I just thought that I would be surrounded by people who had similar interests as me. When I first saw Kpop class on the schedule, I was so confused and wondered what can possibly be taught about Kpop? I thought it would be something akin to teaching us the members of every possible Kpop group. However, after attending the class, I realized that I was completely wrong. We could learn things about Kpop such as the history and pioneers. There were a lot of details present in Kpop that are easily overlooked by the majority of Kpop fans. These include sexual objectification of both men and women as well as the male gaze.

‘The male gaze is the way in which the visual arts and literature depict the world and women from a masculine point of view, presenting women as objects of male pleasure.’ (Mulvey, 1975). The usage of male gaze can be seen in many different music videos from American MVs such as DJ Khaled’s I'm the One to Meek Mill’s Face Down. Male gaze is also very prevalent in Korean music videos such as 4L’s Move and AOA’s Miniskirt. Before this lesson, I always simply thought that the videos were catered toward men because men are attracted to women. I didn't think about the way that the music video was filmed or the way that the angles focused on the female idols ‘assets’. This class gave me a more appropriate term to use to describe MVs with this type of situation.

Other lessons that were taught that stuck with me were the lessons about South Korea obsession with image as well as the intertextuality that is present in MVs as well as idol activity. Being able to learn all of these new terms and information makes these Kpop lessons to very enlightening to me, a hard core Kpop fan. It will be something I can talk about and discuss with my fellow Kpop fans back home.