i don't need a man!

[lirazel]

NEW OBSESSION ALERT:

Seriously, watch this video. It made my whole night. And I think I've finally found ~my girl group. Fei (the one with the curly hair) is my QUEEN, but all the ladies seem super awesome! (I already loved Suzy because she played this absolutely wonderful hbic character in Dream High. That drama was just decent, but her character was GREAT.) I was bouncing along with this song on my way to work, it's so damn delightful.

Lyric translations here. What I love about this song is this is a woman who says, "I don't want to be a burden to my parents [note: ONLY IN A KPOP SONG], so I work really hard for what I have, and it may not be a lot, but I know how to be content. I can live well without you so you better not be all talk, you better take this seriously." I find that really delightful.

Also: I am FOUR ICONS AWAY from reaching my limit. This is distressing to me. That's too close for comfort.

Comments

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

I am 100% on your side. Like, all women throughout history in partriarichal societies have had to navigate 'how do I empower myself and other women and tell the truth while basically being confined by the prison of patriarchy?' We all have to figure that stuff out! And most of the time we have been controlled by men, but that doesn't make our struggle to speak truth any less ours or any less powerful. Saying it does just gives men EVEN MORE POWER which is really the last thing they need. And yes, powerful/rich men are going to use our truth-speaking to sell things, that's going to happen. And in this case, it's usually men writing these things (JYP writes almost all of his bands' songs and the man is talented but he is an egomaniac), but that doesn't mean that the women singing these songs aren't striving to put real female empowerment (however they define that, even if they wouldn't define it in those terms) into the music and it definitely doesn't mean that women listening can't find empowerment in things that were prepackaged. THERE IS NO PURE ART THAT IS BOUGHT OR SOLD. SERIOUSLY, come on. If you're intending art for an audience, especially if you're expecting to sell it or make money off of it in some way, there's a degree of...compromise there. BUT IT'S NOT NECESSARILY BAD COMPROMISE. Because self-indulgance in art is most often annoying! You don't create art for yourself, you create it to communicate with other people so there's absolutely nothing wrong with that compromise. We'd have to discredit ALL ALL THAT WAS EVER BOUGHT OR SOLD if we go down that road and that is just ridiculous.

And the degree to which these companies control these women's (and men's, but that's less fraught) lives is just disgusting and wrong and I wouldn't have a problem with people criticizing the audience for being complicit in that wrongness (it's something I fret about myself). But the women themselves? Seriously? This is dismissal of women masquerading as feminism and I have no time for it. Your thoughts are all correct and I love them and you.

BTW, you should chat with kwritten sometime about 2ne1 (which I STILL pronounce as to-anyone in my head), because she has lots of feelings and we have had conversations about "Ugly" which I think you would be interested in.