Gangnam Style, Dissected: The Subversive Message Within South Korea’s Music Video Sensation – Max Fisher – The Atlantic #MUSTWATCH

You need to watch the video, but a lot of my friends won’t be able to cope without the analysis:

Park Jaesang is an unlikely poster boy for South Korea’s youth-obsessed, highly lucrative, and famously vacuous pop music. Park, who performs as Psy (short for psycho), is a relatively ancient 34, has been busted for marijuana and for avoiding the country’s mandatory military service, and is not particularly good-looking. His first album got him fined for “inappropriate content” and the second was banned. He’s mainstream in the way that South Korea’s monolithically corporate media demands of its stars, who typically appear regularly on TV variety and even game shows, but as a harlequin, a performer known for his parodies, outrageous costumes, and jokey concerts. Still, there’s a long history of fools and court jesters as society’s most cutting social critics, and he might be one of them.

Continues at: Gangnam Style, Dissected: The Subversive Message Within South Korea’s Music Video Sensation – Max Fisher – The Atlantic.

Comments

One response to “Gangnam Style, Dissected: The Subversive Message Within South Korea’s Music Video Sensation – Max Fisher – The Atlantic #MUSTWATCH”

  1. Dave Walker

    Musically “not my thing”, but the tradition of wrapping politically-incorrect / subversive comment up with a tune designed to be popular has a long and proud tradition, so good on him.

    Who knows, it may even catch on again over here (in a form other than shouting in a key of “anything, so long as it’s flat”)…

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