Things just get even messier for IU: Zezé edition

[sunsetsbaby.livejournal.com]

You can choose to enjoy this special clip of her performing it before you read the rest, I guess

Lyrics of Zeze:

It’s amusing

Look at the tail of your lips rising
I can tell by your laugh
You’re definitely mischievous

Ah ah your name is really pretty
I want to keep calling it
The things I cannot say
Those bad thoughts are lovely

With your small fingers
You touch the sounds
With that ticklish voice
You sing those colors and landscapes yeah

Zeze hurry and come up the tree
Put your lips on the leaves
Don’t joke around
You can’t hurt the trees, you can’t
Zeze hurry and come up the tree
Take the youngest leaf here
Take away the one of a kind flower

Climb up me
Climb up me

Like a flower bloomed
Look at the two cheeks turned rosy
You’re really innocent
But you’re definitely cunning

You seem transparent like a little child
Something about you is dirty
There’s no way to find out
What it is living inside you

Right now, above your head
There may be a floating sun
But I vaguely see
Dark clouds filled inside you

Zeze hurry and come up the tree
Put your lips on the leaves
Don’t joke around
You can’t hurt the trees, you can’t
Zeze hurry and come up the tree
Take the youngest leaf here
Take away the one of a kind flower

Climb up me
Climb up me

I want to touch you one more time
I wait for you here everyday
Come and take everything
I want to call for you

I wait for you here everyday
You sneak away
But you’ll come to see me again tomorrow night

Zeze hurry and come up the tree
Put your lips on the leaves
Don’t joke around
You can’t hurt the trees, you can’t
Zeze hurry and come up the tree
Take the youngest leaf here
Take away the one of a kind flower

Climb up me

Climb up me

IU's interview: "Zeze in 'My Sweet Orange Tree' is a character of hypocrisy. At some points, he's described as "angelic kid, kid with a shining mind" but at other points, he's described as"I've never seen someone as evil as you. You're hopeless." He's innocent but also cruel. He makes people dislike him because he's too playful. The story makes sense because Zeze is young. Zeze as a character is full of hypocrisy, that's why I found it charming and sexy. I got caught between the kid's two sides but I kept cheering for him and loved him until the end of the book. I thought he was amazingly charming. The lyrics are about me talking to Zeze from Minginui's point of view. I considered a lot to write the lyrics. I wrote the song with a lot of possibilities of interpretations."

However, if you read the book, you cannot say that Zeze, an abused child, is cunning or sexy.

-

An amateur photographer also pointed out IU's lolicon concept:

The books behind her are "Leon, Delicate, Discipline"

Leon is a famous film with a lolicon concept. Delicate is used to describe a "weak girl who is easy to be tricked sexually" in lolicon context. Discipline means an adult man disciplining a girl sexually. The three words are infamous clichés of lolicon.

White dress and messy hair

The photographer says these two pictures are clearly lolicon concept

-

She sings, "I'm going to be a moist woman" and pours milk on a doll in the music video. In the film 'Leon', Mathilda tells Leon, "you need to feed me with water if you want me to grow." In this context, 'water' translates into 'cum'. "Raising a girl with water" is an infamous lolicon cliché meaning "giving cum".

Pann: IU definitely has to give a feedback to this

1. [+380, -56] Woah fuck, I'm getting goosebumps... Wow... so dirty... She's a bubble for sure ㅋㅋㅋㅋ Innocent, my fucking ass~ It wasn't too long ago when she sang songs written by other composers and shook her butt. I knew something was wrong when she suddenly started to act like an artist. Bullshit. I hope many people would read this post.

2. [+374, -20] Wow, it's my first time of seeing Zeze lyrics. Who the hell wrote them? The kid was abused extremely cruelly by his dad and the lack of affection made him rebel. She sees this as charming and sexy??

3. [+354, -18] It's not blowing up because it's IU. If it was an other artist, they would've became another Yewon.

4. [+174, -7] I've always sensed that she's sexual. I think she likes lolicon concept.

5. [+141, -10] I also heard about plagiarism accusations of Leon. I'm not sure if it's just me but it sounds really the same... You can sing the song with the background music. Labelle - Open Up Your Heart.

6. [+131, -5] "I'm going to be a moist woman" ㅋㅋㅋ What's wrong with her? Just do an obvious sexy concept like Hyuna and shoot a nude pictorial. Lolicon concept is disgusting.

7. [+128, -3] Did you guys know that Zeze is also accused of plagiarism? ㅋㅋㅋ Fuck

8. [+115, -0] Minginui is a tree who is Zeze's friend and knows Zeze's mind. How can the lyrics be from Minginui's perspective? And Zeze is only five, it's a bit wrong to call him sexy.

9. [+99, -1] This is from IU's album cover. This kid seems to be Zeze and he's wearing fish stockings and is posing like a pinup girl ㅋㅋㅋㅋ Obvious shotacon, isn't it? I don't understand what she intended when she wrote the lyrics. What she says is a complete misinterpretation ㅋㅋ Did she even read the book?

10. [+93, -3] Her idea on sexualization has a lot of problems. A normal 23-year-old woman can't have this kind of thinking.

11. [+86, -2] I wonder how she'll get away with it this time

12. [+84, -1] IU said in an interview that Zeze was her favorite track and that she expected it to be #2... IU wrote the song.

13. [+83, -1] I saw this and um...

(IU's album photo is similar to a scene in a lolicon film)

14. [+72, -1] Am I the only one who finds Zeze lyrics erotic? "Take the youngest leaf here" sounds like a lolicon line and a flower is commonly used to symbolize purity...

source: 1theK, kpopfans via pann, onehallyu

i would say it's one of the best songs off chat-shire

what's your take on this omona is it ✨art✨ or is it plain gross

Comments

[kashiyaek.livejournal.com]

i honestly had no idea that it was about a book like this and looking at it from this breakdown... its nagl.

i tried looking around for the story though, but no luck yet. i just find a whole lot of iu and turkish articles. did anyone else find it, somwhere you can buy it or at least a summary? i would like to check it out for myself.

[imienazwisko.livejournal.com]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/O_Meu_P%C3%A9_de_Laranja_Lima

[crystalheng.livejournal.com]

Uhm... most of kpop idol stuff bank of the Lolita concept because of the demand for it though? You have girls in their late teens and 20s dressing like little girls (school uniforms, doll outfits, etc.), they're always doing infantile stuff like aegyo, etc. IU's career only gained traction when she began to release songs like Marshmellow. So what people should really be asking is why there's such a demand for female idols based on Lolita? Just because her Lolita concept for this album alludes to sex a bit more obviously doesn't make it more "gross" than what all the other idols are doing.

[crystalheng.livejournal.com]

Eek, should've read properly. Missed out the part about Zeze being sexy. Idgi either.

[donutism.livejournal.com]

yikes at the drawing of the boy on her album cover

i really dont care much about the lyrics, she is grown she can do whatever. but i can't get behind the whole lolicon concept thing.

Also isn't zeze about a young boy who was abused by his father, and his imagination or something? More yikes. I hope this isn't some sort of sexualization of a young boy cause nagl at all.

[benihime99.livejournal.com]

So her Zeze is like Puck and Lolita?

Léon doesn't really have a "lolicon" concept in the lolita sense of the word though...

She sings, "I'm going to be a moist woman" and pours milk on a doll in the music video. In the film 'Leon', Mathilda tells Leon, "you need to feed me with water if you want me to grow." In this context, 'water' translates into 'cum'.

Have we seen the same movie?
The relationship between Léon and Mathilda isn't sexual, the guy isn't really capable of that.

[kashiyaek.livejournal.com]

i was wondering the same thing lmao. léon doesnt allude to a sexual relationship between them at all.

[imienazwisko.livejournal.com]

both lolicon and shotacon are gross af... seriously wtf

[kiku-cha8-8.livejournal.com]

I never bothered looking into the lyrics of her songs but Zeze is a jam, Whelp.

[typhlogirl.livejournal.com]

this entire thing just makes me feel gross tbh, this is nagl for her

She sings, "I'm going to be a moist woman" and pours milk on a doll in the music video. In the film 'Leon', Mathilda tells Leon, "you need to feed me with water if you want me to grow." In this context, 'water' translates into 'cum'. "Raising a girl with water" is an infamous lolicon cliché meaning "giving cum".

this entire paragraph is so many levels of disgusting wtf

[slowitdownbaby.livejournal.com]

I almost dry-heaved reading that part. Ew.

[torontok.livejournal.com]

This is skeeving me out so much

[simplyseasalt.livejournal.com]

Do I need to read the book in order to get a better understanding? Is there some missing context that I'm not getting from the post as it translated to English?

Guess I'll wait for more comments.

[4minutesluts.livejournal.com]

one thing thats def missing from the translations is that the korean use of 'sexy' is wider than the english one and doesn't necessarily mean sexual

[lycorisc.livejournal.com]

yikes ):

[reika4nana.livejournal.com]

I highly recommend reading My Sweet Orange Tree. I read it when I was younger and it made me cry. I had to hunt it again as an adult and it made me cry again. It's a really beautiful book!

That said. Zeze's a kid. wtf at the sexy? Singing from the perspective of a tree about a little boy is... nagl.

[mlmello.livejournal.com]

I think this book was the first one that I cried reading. and I was a kid.
I need to buy a new one and read again.

[parkjsun.livejournal.com]

It's not witch hunting if the criticism is deserved, which it is. She's sexualizing an abused 5 year old boy in her lyrics.

[slowitdownbaby.livejournal.com]

If she's really singing the song from the tree's point of view then those lyrics are kinda :/

[redgreendress.livejournal.com]

I'm not going to lie, I really like the song and her performance of it having just seen that video for the first time, as someone who doesn't know much about IU. The lyrics are definitely sexual but it's so metaphorical and vague, there aren't any references to lolicon that a person who doesn't know what to look for would recognize. Look at all the detective work it took to even come up with this interpretation. Artistic license means people can go to uncomfortable places––I would never use that argument if I thought the song actually promoted pedophilia, I just don't see that in the lyrics. As far as I can see the album concept is all about fucked up subverted fairy tales, and this fits into that? But it's a tricky complicated gray area thing that should be debated, and maybe IU should weigh in and address this directly, it's not like k-netizens have any respect left for her anyway. I do think a lot of the criticism and hate she attracts is based on puritanism and slut shaming, and I really hate the term "sly fox."

[kashiyaek.livejournal.com]

yeah, this all feels like its overanalyzing or just taking it the wrong way. this is my first time reading the lyrics and if i didnt know the story i wouldve never seen the whole "lolicon" about it. the lyrics are definitely sexual though. but i also think this is dangerous territory because who knows how it sounds in korean? i also really dont understand the léon part of the analysis... the movie doesn't allude to any type of relationship like that between matilda and léon at all? however idk yet, this seems tricky. i want to wait for what iu has to say if she does mention it.

[obviousgirl.livejournal.com]

I'm not seeing the big issue, she wrote a song based on her interpretation of a fictional child from the point of view of another older character in the same story. I don't see a problem with that given she's the only one who truly knows the actual meaning or behind the song. This just feels like a witchhunt.

[iznanassi.livejournal.com]

The book is autobiographical so it isnt really a fictional child.

[mad-nux.livejournal.com]

yikes@everything. still jamming to the song and her mini tho

[furcalor.livejournal.com]

It's never ever okay to call a five year old sexy, fictional or otherwise. There are absolutely no excuses for that.

[violoncelliste.livejournal.com]

yeah, that's pretty much what it boils down to

[gathyou.livejournal.com]

Musically, it's my favourite song from this album... idk how to feel about this.
IU using a lolita concept and twisting it to make the sexual implications a lot clearer is not a problem for me. Her whole career has been based on it (maybe the highlight could be the song to her "uncle fans"...), and it seems that she's using it now to boost herself in an artistic direction, which is a lot better than being put in an infantile concept without asking for it (... like most of the cute/innocent/schoolgirl yet sexy concepts in kpop). If it could make people think about why those lolita concepts are so popular in the first place...
However, I am really grossed by her using such a story (partly an autobiography according to wikipedia??) whose main character is a five-year-old boy to do that (and then using a drawing with sexy stocking... wtf this is so wrong).
She seems to be a clever girl but this is not clever, it's fucked up.
I'm willing to shield her for other "scandals" because most of them are actually ridiculous and pilled up by haters (like the whole "sly fox" hate campaign), but this is a totally different issue.
Being artistic doesn't mean she has a free pass to do whatever she wants. There is still a need to think about the implications of lyrics+concept...

In short, I wouldn't mind this concept from IU (she always had to deal with the lolita concept and now she's twisting it for her needs/artistic grow and I could enjoy this idea), only if it wasn't about sexualizing a five-year-old boy. It's gross.

[ggumd.livejournal.com]

I feel like knetz are just band wagoning on the IU hate rn since that plagiarism issue (which isnt really an issue) but this certain instance does seem sketch

[kwikimart.livejournal.com]

LOLOLOL and just yesterday I heard the song and was intrigued by the lyrics because I thought they were just about sex
This is why you should always get a real translation in Kpop because DAMN
This girl is messy af!
Her other scandals I didn't think were really fair or 'scandals' lol but if she's really sexualizing a child, even a fictional one for edgy hipster points then yes DRAG HA!
Doesn't she have an older boyfriend too?

[msgrottesca.livejournal.com]

She has pm exclusively dated much older men publicly which, combined with this, really confirms a lot of my pre-existing notions about her tbh LOL.

[sand-nicky.livejournal.com]

I don't even listen to IU, but I was curious to see why everybody was talking about this. I thought it's another whitch hunt, but what she said about ZeZe struck a chord tbh. How is a 5 year old boy, who had been abused by his father, "sexy"? I don't get it. SMH

[fabulousdoll.livejournal.com]

If the song was a metaphor of her uncle fans this would have take such a different turn. Her explanation makes it worst...

[kashiyaek.livejournal.com]

so it's more about jealousy, or am i getting this wrong?

[yohan94.livejournal.com]

could someone explain what lolicon is and if it's problematic? i've seen the term before but never really knew what it entailed. idk as someone who was not on the whole "iu is a sly fox and always has been" bandwagon i have to stop for a minute, the calling a kid sexy in any context is weird even artistically and the picture of the little boy is ehhh it looks really bad. her explanation sounds really bad too.

that said i'm not really that informed on this book and the lolicon concept so i'll wait for more in depth info to come out? or maybe iu's response? if this is in fact bad, it's sad it'll be swept under the rug as netizens being out for her.

[typhlogirl.livejournal.com]

It's basically the sexualisation of underaged girls (i.e. pedophilia), so yeah it's pretty damn bad

[alleybetwixt.livejournal.com]

This is kind of an aside, but has anyone else who follows Kpop been confused by how the word 'sexy' is used by Koreans?

Early on, watching variety shows, dramas, etc, I learned to separate my definition of 'sexy' as an American from the seemingly loose way the borrowed word is used in Korea. Like... I think it was on Star King once, where there was this troupe of little girls, maybe primary school aged or younger, and they were dressed up and performing/dancing in the style of some girl group at the time. It might have been Wonder Girls... 'So Hot'? Can't remember. Anyway, the hosts and guests were cheering for the girls and saying things like, "Oh, they're great! They're sexy! How cute! So sexy!"

And I was soooo squicked out. Because for me, 'sexy' is pertaining to actual sex, which I would never tolerate as something associated with children. Heebie jeebies x infinity.

But this was apparently normal and not weird at all to everyone on stage. And over the years I've seen 'sexy' used to describe things that have nothing to do with sex or sexiness by any definition I'm accustomed to. It almost seems to be anything that is 'exciting' or 'flashy' or 'stylish' or 'interesting'...

Anyone else experience this?


I'm not informed at all about this whole IU thing or the source material being referenced, but my initial reaction is to temper my immediate gag-reflex when associating children with 'sexy' in Korean language. It just doesn't seem to mean the same thing it means to me.

Furthermore, it sounds like she's applying the term 'sexy' not to the child, but to a specific type of personality, which contains polar opposite character traits simultaneously. Sweet/mischievous. Hot/cold. Gentle/temperamental. Age being irrelevant. And describing it with a loose definition of 'sexy' that's more like 'dynamic' or 'fascinating'.

Just my 2c.

The infantilized styling of girl groups... or anyone that's an adult... will always creep me out though. I'll never not hate that. Lol.

[fabulousdoll.livejournal.com]

It's not only you. In the Kdrama A Witch's Love it would shock me every time they called an article or heading sexy. And I have seen it in a lot of different dramas too. Calling sexy to objects, ideas, and a lot of random things.

it sounds like she's applying the term 'sexy' not to the child, but to a specific type of personality, which contains polar opposite character traits simultaneously
I read it like that too. I don't think at all she means the boy is sexy.

To me the lyrics are still side-eyeing. But for the explanation of the video posted in the comments I thinks she is writing it from the point of view of the tree being a little girl too.

Now, the drawing has no explanation... I will wait for IU comments about all this issue.