Some of the protesters have been using references to V for Vendetta during the demonstrations. Turns out Scott went up and talked to them, and asked whether they knew that V is an anarchist, or that the V sign is an inverted anarchy symbol. They didn’t. Scott thinks they’re “retards” who are guilty of “ethnocentric cultural misappropriation,” and that “they think that going to a massive anti-government demonstration is cosplay and means nothing serious in the end…” and that I’m being patronizing in excusing this. I disagree. Wanna know why?
Tag: popculture
Romans and Pirates and Dental Hell
It’s quite a challenge to teach some of the stuff I’ve been covering in my Popular Cultures course this semester. We just finished with “The Warrior Archetype” section of the course, and it was funny how aware of World War II my students were, and how much less they knew about The Great War, aka World War I. We had a look at the first scene in the pilot episode of Rome — because I had a copy of it — and discussed the romanticization of warrior types in modern depictions of antiquity and the older verse depictions they’re mostly …
Hanbok Beijing, T-Shirt-and-Jeans Seoul
There was a very strange moment the other day that I meant to post about earlier, but forgot about because I was sidetracked into issues of foreign exchange students in Korea, especially Chinese ones. One of my students wrote a fascinating essay on the effect of Korean popular culture and Hallyu (the so-called “Korean Wave”) on Chinese society; her argument, essentially, was that many young, urban Chinese are absolutely crazy for Korean pop culture, and that this is a bad thing because they’re essentially jettisoning their own traditional culture and so on. I’m not sure whether it was alarmist or …
Good Grief!
Thanks to Boing-Boing, I know that: Jimi Hendrix made a Sex Tape. And now someone else is releasing it. Psychopaths are great correspondents. (Among others.) Canadian copyright is about to go nuts. (Hardly a surprise: the USA is exported n even-more-draconian form of copyright law to Korea, and Canada’s much more of a USA-wannabe.) As someone commented — who needs The Onion? Reality is weirder!
[Some] Koreans’ Perception of The West Wing
A few weeks ago, in one of my classes, we watched that episode of The West Wing titled “Han,” where a North Korean musician playing in the White House informs President Bartlet of his wish to defect, in preparation for a panel discussion on the depiction of leaders in American media. (We also looked at scenes from a King Arthur film that the department had on hand.) I found my students had some interesting things to say about it, though. Well, not “say,” in many cases, but I always have students write up a Prep Sheet and a Reaction paper, …
Attention K-Pulp Fans: Bow Down To A New Master
Masterly Master Lee‘s site is the Korea-blog you need to check out. I just ran across it the other night, in search of information about the “Two Sisters” video (the remake of “Venus”) a few posts back. Chock full of forgotten (and not-so-forgotten) Korean pulp goodness, and a wealth of reviews and information for anyone into popular culture! This one’s in the sidebar, and that doesn’t happen too often.
What in the World?!?
So I was looking around for Hwang Sin Hae videos on Youtube, and found this bizarre Korean remake of that song Venus, by Shocking Blue. (I think of it as “by Bananarama” but that just shows my age and ignorance.) What the hell is this from? Video pasted in below for you non-LJers.
Why Can’t Korean Pop Culture Be This Bizarre?
I like the guy, and his writing, but the_flea_king is evil. Not as evil as some people, but still evil, for having done this to me (LJers, just click here instead, and then, if you’re still note satisfied, here): UPDATE: slightly less odd, but still bizarre, video for the same song:
James on Wonder Girls
(START UPDATE #1 — 2:12 am same night): Well, Lime tells me that, no, it really is “boys and ajeoshis” who are the main consumers of Wonder Girls CDs. If this is the case, then this adds a more disturbing layer to my reading of the Tell Me video, since that would mean it’s a representation of a “girl’s fantasy” that’s constructed for the edification of male consumers. But the thing I have to wonder is, was the band aimed at male consumers from the beginning — from the release of “Tell Me”? And is it really true that the …
Thank You, Gim Hyung Tae
I don’t know whether he’d like or approve of any of my fictional depictions of Korea, but I find Gim Hyung Tae a great inspiration in that area. Whenever I’m writing anything trippy, weird, or odd about this country in my fiction, I turn to his music for inspiration. It’s a strange combination of trance, rock, folk, and 뽕짝 — in proportions that vary from song to song and album to album, but always in proportions that both work, and sound absolutely like Gim Hyung Tae. By the way, if you’re looking for his CDs, you’d be best to ask …