Problematic Korean Video Friday: Orange Caramel A~ING♡
This week we present a trio of leggy model types in their late teens/early twenties dressing like kiddie toys in a kiddie picture book. It looks incongruous and eerie to me. As Mat says, "It's odd, because they almost have a supermodel look to them with their long legs, and it just seems grotesque to put them in cheap girly Halloween costumes." I think you get a lot of this in Korea; I don't have any insights. Orange Caramel are a sub-unit of the fierce After School, so perhaps this is a chance at another identity (or maybe it's a way to wall off this side of their characters so the rest of After School - mostly mid to late twenties, and supposedly inspired by the Pussycat Dolls' eroticism, though I don't necessarily see that - aren't contaminated by the little-doll stuff).
Orange Caramel "아잉♡"
For further reading, see petronia on twee versus burikko.
(Orange Caramel also do a nice version of M2M's "The Day You Went Away," which it turns out has been covered a whole shitload of times in Asia.)
EDIT: Of course, just because something might strike us (in our ignorance) as grotesque doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with it, or anything problematic. Or the problem might only be ours, that we don't understand what's going on. But women acting girlie can raise a red flag. That is, do women in that world generally have a choice not to act girlie? What are the consequences for those who don't act girlie?
Orange Caramel "아잉♡"
Click to viewFor further reading, see petronia on twee versus burikko.
(Orange Caramel also do a nice version of M2M's "The Day You Went Away," which it turns out has been covered a whole shitload of times in Asia.)
EDIT: Of course, just because something might strike us (in our ignorance) as grotesque doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with it, or anything problematic. Or the problem might only be ours, that we don't understand what's going on. But women acting girlie can raise a red flag. That is, do women in that world generally have a choice not to act girlie? What are the consequences for those who don't act girlie?