Elaine:
Aesthetic visualization of K-pop girl groups in music videos “stays within the conventions and practices” as sexuality performance for male consumption or female interest (Unger 2015: 41). They desire to showcase distinct personalities through visible styles in their music videos, differentiating either from others or along with their evolving career stage. However, this essentially yields to changing consumer tastes due to the survival predicament of girl groups. In this essay, through the video analysis of AOA’s title song “Like a Cat” of their 2nd Mini Album, I argue that multi-dimensional presentation of a K-pop music video in accordance with the musicality enriches the conceptualized image of K-pop, while for K-pop girl groups, they struggle to develop intrinsically exclusive identity.
Echoing the key identity and the subject position in the title and lyrics, different visual forms of “Like a Cat” music video cooperatively convey AOA’s imagery of “cat” to the viewers. Firstly, the sexy outfits in concise black, red and white colours construct a “visual unity” (Unger 2015: 40). Secondly, the major choreography imitates the movements of a cat. For example, in the chorus part, they twist the body from side to side, cat-walk in cautious steps, and then wiggle their buttocks in one side, which harmonizes with the lyrics “I’ll walk over to you like a cat”. Besides cat-like movements, each member’s profile shots illustrate their kitty-like make-up and fist-twisting around the face. Lastly, in the storyline, they transform into mischievous Catwomen breaking into a safe with amazing teamwork. Catwoman is a well-known Western burglar character typically wearing all-black tight outfit. Such iconic animalized image absorbed from the history of Western pop culture suggests the emphasis on pictorial concepts of K-pop (Kim 2018: 102). In this way, the hybrid image of animalization and Westernization advances K-pop’s fanciful conceptualization and eclectic style.
Unlike most girl groups’ music videos focusing on profile close-ups and synchronized dance, this video has a complete storyline. Opening with the leading actor holding a crystal diamond, as the camera pulls back, the major scene is displayed at a safe looked after by a bodyguard team. After the leader locked the diamond, secretary-look Seolhyun asks for his signature and watches him leaving the safe. Subsequently, other members start their individual missions: hacking into phone, turning off the CCTV and cracking the safe. At last, everyone arrive at the vault door, knock out the bodyguards and seize the diamond. The sets of safe, monitor room and hallway with complimentary guns, infrared laser and smoke combs construct the realistic scenario. In addition, foreign actors further “serve an atmospheric function” and connect this video with authentic western storyline (Saeji 2016: 263). Therefore, the catchy storyline dimension attracts audiences to follow AOA’s accomplishment ending the song, which strengthens the viewers’ impression of central conceptualized imagery.
Notably, AOA incorporate strong Catwoman image as new music conceptualization by their dominance of male bodyguards in the storyline. Nevertheless, the overall presentation is “objectified and reduced to a commodity of idealized beauty” (Unger 2015: 25). On those fierce shots like whip cracking and gun holding, slow-motion fragmentation on their figures inevitably conforms the standardization of sexualized costumes and ideal bodies for male perspectives. Since the song conveys the feelings of a woman desired to look beautiful in front of her lover, in those individual shots, AOA’s sex appeal and “aegyo” responses to the lyrics reflect the submissive position in “conventional femininity” (Lin and Rudolf 2017: 31). That is to say, with only partial empowering and dominant image in the music video, K-pop girl groups’ identity can hardly be separated from the standardized sexuality.
To conclude, the multi-dimensional visualization in “Like a Cat” music video contributes to demonstrating new conceptualized image of AOA and thus makes a hit. Hit track making, in essence, unavoidably addresses normalized sexuality for mainstream K-pop girl groups. Yet nowadays, dynamic musicality and progressive standards about femininity in K-pop are striving for music prosperity and fresh identity distinction.
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Bibliography
Kim, Suk-young. K-pop Live: Fans, Idols, and Multimedia Performance. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2018.
Lin, Xi, and Robert Rudolf. "Does K-pop Reinforce Gender Inequalities? Empirical Evidence From a New Data Set." Asian Women 33, no. 4 (2017): 27-54.
Saeji, Cedarbough T.. “Cosmopolitan Strivings and Racialization: The Foreign Dancing Body in Korean Popular Music Videos.” In Korean Screen Cultures: Interrogating Cinema, TV, Music and Online Games, edited by Andrew David Jackson and Colette Balmain. 257-292. Oxford: Peter Lang, 2016.
Unger, Michael A.. “The Aporia of Presentation: Deconstructing the Genre of K-pop Girl Group Music Videos in South Korea.” Journal of Popular Music Studies 27, no. 1 (2015): 25-47.