Min Hee Jin, Creative Director of HYBE'S NewJeans, Under Fire for Sexualization of Minors
Today, HYBE Entertainment officially launched their newest K-Pop girl group NewJeans with the digital release of their debut EP and its final title track, "Cookie" ( you can find the post for the "Cookie" M/V here).
As our previous posts on the subject have discussed, the members of NewJeans are all very young, with the oldest being 18 and the youngest just 14 years old. This has opened up concerns about Min Hee Jin’s past treatment of underage idols in her work at SM Entertainment and about her overall penchant for aesthetics that center underage subjects in a way that some feel glamorizes pedophilia.
You can find a summary of the critiques and concerns behind the cut, and please note that - SENSITIVE CONTENT WARNING - the following contains descriptions of potentially inappropriate relationships and behavior between an adult and children, as well as of media depicting abusive and pedophilic narratives.
First up, people have taken a close look at a photo she shared on her Instagram of what is presumably her home, identifying the images she has on her walls and noticing how many of them come from media that sexualizes and abuses young girls and women:
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A post shared by MINHEEJIN (@min.hee.jin)
The media here pictured hanging on her wall includes:
- A painting based on what looks like a still from the 1974 Italian comedy film Le farò de padre, or I’ll Take Her Like a Father, starring Teresa Ann Savoy (18 or 19 years old at the time of filming) as an intellectually disabled adolescent. The IMDb summary for the film is as follows: “An older man plans to marry a mentally-challenged, sex-crazed, adolescent girl.”
- A painting based on what looks like a still of a topless Teresa Ann Savoy from the 1976 Nazisploitation flick Salon Kitty, about a Nazi SS commandant who, according to the Wikipedia summary, “devises a plan to select a special group of female informants in order to plant them as prostitutes in a high class brothel on the eve of World War II in order to collect intelligence.” As you may have guessed, Nazisploitation is a niche in the exploitation film genre that focuses on Nazis committing sex crimes. Salon Kitty is considered a seminal work in the subgenre. Savoy would have been 20 when this movie was filmed.
Additionally, fans have spotted the cover art of the 1971 French concept album Histoire de Melody Nelson adorning what appears to be her desk (it’s the circular blue-background image leaning against the wall in the second and third photos):
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A post shared by MINHEEJIN (@min.hee.jin)
This has gotten attention because of the pedophilic romance driving the concept album, which Wikipedia summarizes as: “Its narrative follows an illicit romance which develops between the middle-aged narrator and 15-year-old girl Melody Nelson.”
Min Hee Jin’s fixation on an underage Brooke Shields has also raised eyebrows - last year, she shared the below image on her Instagram, showing a taped-up photo of “Baby Brooke” with a caption that details how young she was when she rose to fame (14) and the “sexually controversial roles” she played as a minor:
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A post shared by MINHEEJIN (@min.hee.jin)
Additionally, people have pointed out that Min Hee Jin has a history of sexualizing underage idols in music videos and concepts she oversaw as SM’s creative director. Fans of groups SHINee, f(x), and Red Velvet have discussed the way she has set up inappropriate concepts for groups featuring underage members - please note that I was not able to locate verifiable sources for this, but fans have accused her of: having SHINee do shirtless, sexually suggestive photoshoots when the youngest member, Taemin, was still a minor and the others only newly of age; citing the work of an underage Brooke Shields as a muse and inspiration for f(x), particularly member Krystal; and having idols rapidly switch to mature and explicitly sexual concepts once they turn of age.
Below are some music videos Min Hee Jin oversaw as Creative Director:
- NCT DREAM’s “My First and Last” features the group (at the time, all members were underage) dressed up as students and crushing on their teacher. (As a side note, OP has also found their MV for “Chewing Gum” dark-sided):
Click to view- “Ice Cream Cake” is a Red Velvet video that fans feel sexualized the members in a subtle “Lolita” concept when Yeri, who had just debuted, was still only 16 - this one in particular has drawn a lot of comparisons to the new NewJeans track "Cookie" because of the sexual nature of the food-themed lyrics and concept:
- The last one I’m including here is another video of NewJeans that has caused some discussion in light of everything above, released just last week, a music video for the B-side “Hurt” by NewJeans - the video features intense close-ups of the girl’s faces and mouths that some have found uncomfortable given their young ages (the group is entirely made up of minors, the oldest being 18 - in Korea, 19 is the legal age of adulthood). You can find our original post for the "Hurt" release here:
Finally, fans have raised concerns about Min Hee Jin’s behavior with the underage members of NewJeans after this excerpt from an interview with Be Attitude went viral:
this is min heejin (43 years old) talking about hyein (13) https://t.co/gtzcOfJQIW pic.twitter.com/3sGn4S6p89
- luna☾𝗙𝗟!𝗣 𝙏𝙃𝘼𝙏 chuu is my wife! (@chuusdykegf) July 27, 2022
Fans and netizens have argued that the familiarity and intimate contact she describes here seems inappropriate for what should be a professional relationship, especially considering all the other context here provided.
What do you think, Omona? Do those of you who followed SHINee, f(x), Red Velvet, and/or NCT DREAM since debut have any additional insights or memories about Min Hee Jin's treatment of them?
Sources: Previous Omona posts { 1, 2} | Min Hee Jin’s Instagram {1, 2, 3} | Wikipedia references {Salon Kitty, Le farò de padre, Histoire de Melody Nelson} | Music Videos {My First and Last @ SMTOWN, Ice Cream Cake @ SMTOWN, Hurt @ HYBE LABELS} | Be Attitude article & tweet from account @chuusdykegf