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okay so this is an essay that i wrote for my retrospring initially that got much too long, and so i figured because retrospring feels kind of ephemeral in general, that i would upload it here so it would have a bit more of a permanent home!
here was the original question:
and here is the answer, in essay-length glory!
okay so first of all thank you for this question because it took me to some interesting places & research holes trying to conceptualize & articulate my answer. second of all, like, answering this with true rigor and any degree of like accuracy probably requires some sort of degree, like this would be someone's dissertation you know? which is not to say that i am not going to offer up my opinion bc i do have a lot of thoughts, but just putting this here to say that i certainly am not an expert in any way so please don't take my speculation as anything more than that!
i think it's important to highlight at the outset here that there very much exists a korean butch lesbian culture—there are plenty of butch women and they identify as such as well, and many of them create online content that is pretty accessible, if you're interested (butch youtube duo , and this artist which recently went pretty viral on twt for some examples). so, clearly, there is legible community & moreso than that, specifically butch community; like that's very real!! so then the question becomes, like, why is there no real, for lack of a better word, representation of this in the idol scene? i do think it's particularly notable that, like you pointed out, the only butch in kpop is taiwanese-american, and likely chosen specifically to appeal to a sino market: here she is citing specifically that lsm wanted to emulate a "tomboyish chinese singer" (she is probably talking about ella chen here of s.h.e who is also taiwanese also once upon a time the one butch in a group with two other femmes and is now a hot mom...). and like, the second butchest girl in kpop, who is, of course, gwsn miya, also has her origins in like a different entertainment scene that more heavily incorporates crossdressing/butchness, having originally come from a vixx drag king cover band.
this brings us to my first source (yes i am citing sources here i told you there would be a research dive okay), ( Read more... )
here was the original question:
Q: I’m curious if you think there is a reason behind the lack of masc/masc-of-center women in Kpop as compared to Cpop? And if I remember correctly the only butch in kpop (Amber) is Taiwanese American. Like of course there is a population size difference and it seems like the way the training process works is very different but it seems like such a big contrast in expected femininity from idols
and here is the answer, in essay-length glory!
okay so first of all thank you for this question because it took me to some interesting places & research holes trying to conceptualize & articulate my answer. second of all, like, answering this with true rigor and any degree of like accuracy probably requires some sort of degree, like this would be someone's dissertation you know? which is not to say that i am not going to offer up my opinion bc i do have a lot of thoughts, but just putting this here to say that i certainly am not an expert in any way so please don't take my speculation as anything more than that!
i think it's important to highlight at the outset here that there very much exists a korean butch lesbian culture—there are plenty of butch women and they identify as such as well, and many of them create online content that is pretty accessible, if you're interested (butch youtube duo , and this artist which recently went pretty viral on twt for some examples). so, clearly, there is legible community & moreso than that, specifically butch community; like that's very real!! so then the question becomes, like, why is there no real, for lack of a better word, representation of this in the idol scene? i do think it's particularly notable that, like you pointed out, the only butch in kpop is taiwanese-american, and likely chosen specifically to appeal to a sino market: here she is citing specifically that lsm wanted to emulate a "tomboyish chinese singer" (she is probably talking about ella chen here of s.h.e who is also taiwanese also once upon a time the one butch in a group with two other femmes and is now a hot mom...). and like, the second butchest girl in kpop, who is, of course, gwsn miya, also has her origins in like a different entertainment scene that more heavily incorporates crossdressing/butchness, having originally come from a vixx drag king cover band.
this brings us to my first source (yes i am citing sources here i told you there would be a research dive okay), ( Read more... )
