Hope
I know that the majority of this entire blog makes you feel helpless and angry at the world. Believe me, I had to do research about this, and type out this entire thing, I know how it feels.
However, while it’s times like this that things feel unfair and that the world is cruel, there is hope on the rise. Take for example Crazy Rich Asians, which did phenomenally well at the box office, making $25.24 million in Canada after just one week. It’s the first ever movie in 25 years to have an all Asian cast, and while it’s just a regular rom-com, it does something amazing. It normalizes Asians.
While there was a lot of buzz about having an all Asian cast, I think the really amazing thing about this film was the fact that they didn’t do anything crazy, like making it about Asians fightings for their rights, or battling against racism. They just made a regular rom-com, but just made the cast full of Asians. And this makes having East Asians in the main lead in Hollywood normal.
Another thing that I personally have a lot of pride in is the K-pop band BTS. They’re seven regular boys from Korea, who have soared into the Western charts, doing what others have never done before. Multiple #1’s on the billboard charts, winning multiple awards, making history as the first ever all Asian boy group to win the Billboard Top Social Artist award (and breaking Justin Bieber’s 8 year streak), performing at both the Billboard Music Awards and American Artist Awards.
But they go even further than that. BTS’s story really is that of the underdog rising to the top. Coming from a tiny, in-debt company in Korea, they were a no name when they started. They were laughed at, they were mocked, and they were thought to be a failure. But they never gave up. They continued fighting, they refused to get any plastic surgery, to bleach their skin, to pretend that they aren’t who they really are. And continued to put out the message they wanted to speak about.
And their hard work finally paid off. Because they remained true to themselves. Even in their latest song, Idol, the main message of the song is that you never have to change yourself. With the chorus going “You can’t stop me from loving myself” and even the opening lines saying “You can call me artist, you can call me idol, no matter what you call me, I don’t care, I’m proud of it” They go on to say “I know what I am, I know what I want, I’m never going to change, I’m never going to trade”.
The entire music video for this song is filled with traditional Korean imagery (as a response to haters who were saying they were trying too hard to be American) - the boys are wearing a modern spin on traditional Korean clothes, they’re dancing under a traditional Korean-looking structure (1:32)*, and have imagery of a white tiger (which is a symbol of Korea - 3:06) and a bunny on the moon (which is a reference to a traditional Korean folktale that there are rabbits that live on the moon and make rice cakes - 2:12). To top it all off, the background instrumentals use traditional Korean sounds, and their lyrics include things such as 얼쑤 (ulsoo, a traditional Korean exclamation, 1:11) and 덩기덕 쿵더러러 (the sounds that a traditional Korean drum makes, 1:30). Keep in mind there's a lot more symbolism in this music video that I could delve into but I'm trying not to make this longer than it already is....
*I've added in timestamps in the video if you want to see the evidence and not comb through the entire video yourself ^-^
They don’t try to hide the fact that over half the group grew up in the countryside. They aren’t ashamed that they have a bit of a satoori (think of it like an accent… Seoul Korean is the ‘standard’ Korean, but because 5 of the members grew up outside of Seoul they speak a different dialect, which is more like an accent on the ‘regular’ Korean), in fact, they embrace it and have done two whole songs using their satoori, something that’s never been done before. They have another song dedicated to their birthplaces called Ma City, with lines like “Ilsan is the place I want to be buried when I die” from RM, who’s born in a small city outside of Seoul called Ilsan. J-Hope starts his rap with “I’m and South Jeolla Gwangju baby”, Suga says “I was born in Daegu, I was raised in Daegu” and Jungkook and Jimin both take turns talking about Busan’s sea.
Finally, they speak out about a very important message. Loving yourself. After finishing their series on the struggles of youth, they moved onto their Love Yourself trilogy, releasing the albums Love Yourself: Her, Love Yourself: Tear, and Love Yourself: Answer. The three tell a complex story that I could ramble on for ages about, but in short:
However, while it’s times like this that things feel unfair and that the world is cruel, there is hope on the rise. Take for example Crazy Rich Asians, which did phenomenally well at the box office, making $25.24 million in Canada after just one week. It’s the first ever movie in 25 years to have an all Asian cast, and while it’s just a regular rom-com, it does something amazing. It normalizes Asians.
 |
| The cast of Crazy Rich Asians at the premiere of said movie |
Another thing that I personally have a lot of pride in is the K-pop band BTS. They’re seven regular boys from Korea, who have soared into the Western charts, doing what others have never done before. Multiple #1’s on the billboard charts, winning multiple awards, making history as the first ever all Asian boy group to win the Billboard Top Social Artist award (and breaking Justin Bieber’s 8 year streak), performing at both the Billboard Music Awards and American Artist Awards.
 |
| BTS backstage for their song Fake Love |
But they go even further than that. BTS’s story really is that of the underdog rising to the top. Coming from a tiny, in-debt company in Korea, they were a no name when they started. They were laughed at, they were mocked, and they were thought to be a failure. But they never gave up. They continued fighting, they refused to get any plastic surgery, to bleach their skin, to pretend that they aren’t who they really are. And continued to put out the message they wanted to speak about.
And their hard work finally paid off. Because they remained true to themselves. Even in their latest song, Idol, the main message of the song is that you never have to change yourself. With the chorus going “You can’t stop me from loving myself” and even the opening lines saying “You can call me artist, you can call me idol, no matter what you call me, I don’t care, I’m proud of it” They go on to say “I know what I am, I know what I want, I’m never going to change, I’m never going to trade”.
The entire music video for this song is filled with traditional Korean imagery (as a response to haters who were saying they were trying too hard to be American) - the boys are wearing a modern spin on traditional Korean clothes, they’re dancing under a traditional Korean-looking structure (1:32)*, and have imagery of a white tiger (which is a symbol of Korea - 3:06) and a bunny on the moon (which is a reference to a traditional Korean folktale that there are rabbits that live on the moon and make rice cakes - 2:12). To top it all off, the background instrumentals use traditional Korean sounds, and their lyrics include things such as 얼쑤 (ulsoo, a traditional Korean exclamation, 1:11) and 덩기덕 쿵더러러 (the sounds that a traditional Korean drum makes, 1:30). Keep in mind there's a lot more symbolism in this music video that I could delve into but I'm trying not to make this longer than it already is....
*I've added in timestamps in the video if you want to see the evidence and not comb through the entire video yourself ^-^
Even in the version in which it features Nicki Minaj, in the background they have what she's rapping written in Hangul (Korean characters). Even though she raps in English, they've sounded out what she's saying in English into Korean characters, instead of having her lyrics in English in the background.
They don’t try to hide the fact that over half the group grew up in the countryside. They aren’t ashamed that they have a bit of a satoori (think of it like an accent… Seoul Korean is the ‘standard’ Korean, but because 5 of the members grew up outside of Seoul they speak a different dialect, which is more like an accent on the ‘regular’ Korean), in fact, they embrace it and have done two whole songs using their satoori, something that’s never been done before. They have another song dedicated to their birthplaces called Ma City, with lines like “Ilsan is the place I want to be buried when I die” from RM, who’s born in a small city outside of Seoul called Ilsan. J-Hope starts his rap with “I’m and South Jeolla Gwangju baby”, Suga says “I was born in Daegu, I was raised in Daegu” and Jungkook and Jimin both take turns talking about Busan’s sea.
Finally, they speak out about a very important message. Loving yourself. After finishing their series on the struggles of youth, they moved onto their Love Yourself trilogy, releasing the albums Love Yourself: Her, Love Yourself: Tear, and Love Yourself: Answer. The three tell a complex story that I could ramble on for ages about, but in short:
- Love Yourself: Her is about trying to conform to society’s demands and trying to force yourself to love someone, because society demands that’s how you be successful. You ‘fall in love’ with someone else. Their title song, DNA has the lines “I want it, this love, I want it, real love,” and it’s a fairly innocent song about loving someone else. Their outro on their album, Outro: Her has the lyrics “But I’m looking for love, I don’t care if it’s a fake me, if you hold me”
- Love Yourself: Tear is about realizing that the love that you threw yourself into wasn’t a healthy relationship. It wasn’t working, and you realize that you were trying to just fall in love because, once again, that’s what society demands. Their title song Fake Love, the bridge has the lyrics “What do you mean? No, I’ve grown blind. What do you mean ‘this is love’? It’s all fake love” and their Outro, Outro: Tear says “If someone could turn time back, maybe I could’ve become more honest”
- Love Yourself: Answer finally brings a close to this cycle. Their Intro, Epiphany has the lyrics “I’m the one I should love in this world, me who shines, my precious soul, now I finally realize, I love me” with Idol (which I already deconstructed) as their title song, and their B-side being I’m Fine, which is all about no longer needing to rely on someone else to know your self worth. Their choreography includes a lot of picking yourself up moves, a stark contrast to this song’s counterpart, Save Me.
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| Choreography during I'm Fine vs choreography for Save Me (shown below) |
With BTS steadily breaking into the Western market (and paving the way for other K-pop acts to be taken seriously such as Blackpink, NCT, MONSTA X and Momoland to name a few - all of which have been interviewed on Buzzfeed) as well as the rise of Asians in the film industry, not all hope is lost. There is still some things changing, however small they might be, we just need to look out for them and continue to support these changes.
One of the biggest fears people have with putting Asians into mainstream media, I've realized, is that they're scared they won't do well. That they'll lose money by gambling their chances with Asians. So what we can do as a public is support these types of things, no matter how small they are. Go and watch a movie that has strong Asian leads. Give a listen to all Asian music groups and add on that one view on their music videos.
After all, I heard that the Steve Aoki x BTS collaboration song, Waste it on Me music video is coming out soon. And since BTS is too busy to make it to the filming, I heard that we'll be seeing a lot of other Asian American actors in the music video, notably stars from Crazy Rich Asians, Fresh Off the Boat, and To All the Boys I've Loved Before
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| The cast of Fresh Off the Boat (above) and To All the Boys I've Loved Before (below) |
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