(TW) Paper-dols and how K-pop (and K-pop fans) normalise impossible body ideals

[goshipgurl.livejournal.com]

Recently Back in January, Dispatch released yet another borderline horrifying article titled “As light as a feather: 9 ‘paper doll’ idols” (part of its ongoing list series “Girl Story” which focus on idols and often, specifically, their diets like this one) about several female idols and their less than 45kg bodies.

One of the comments on the first article says ‘Krystal isn’t as skinny as I thought’ because Krystal weighs over 42kg. At around 5’4”, I would hope Krystal weighs more than that, since in order for that weight to be a normal BMI as an adult woman you’d need to be approximately 4’2”. So when I say ‘borderline horrifying’, I mean that without the ‘borderline’.

To make matters worse, in the second article linked we have some inspirational quotations idols talking about how it feels to diet. Hani says ‘I ate only so much as so I didn’t die’.



It’s not a secret that idols starve themselves. Hell, Luna starved herself before comeback, filmed it and put it on YouTube. The episode is called girl group maintenance. This is a massive thing in the industry; bodies and appearances are talked about in terms of ‘management’ a lot in Korea. Losing weight is part of body management, and not appearing bare-faced would be part of appearance management for example.

This isn’t to suggest that it’s only girl groups who do this. Monsta X’s Jooheon openly talked about starving himself before a comeback in order to get abs. We all know they do this. We all know this is expected of them.

MONSTA X Jooheon reveals that he has been starving himself to loose weight within moments MONBEBE have been encouraging him to eat. pic.twitter.com/KgZdokfMiP

— The Nabi Project (@NabiProj) October 22, 2016

Image management in K-Pop is a big deal, not least because being good-looking according to popular standards is literally a skill in K-Pop (this is what the ‘visual’ is for). Image management isn’t covert at all – it’s very real, very loud, and very important in creating the fantasy K-Pop environment.

Take, for example, the comments on Luna’s video about her comeback starvation diet. The overwhelming themes are:

• Not talking about her comeback diet at all.


• Saying her diet is fine if that’s the kind of result she wants (and no talk of her wanting those results as an extension of what we expect K-Pop idols to look like).


• Saying that her diet is fine because it means she didn’t change the way she looks through plastic surgery, which would obviously be worse than starving herself.

So how has this become so normal?

The best way to think about it in this case is to understand how we come up with something called ‘common-sense knowledge’. Basically, when we don’t have an objective, singular correct way of ‘knowing’ something we just end up making one and getting used to it.

This is how we normalise something, and we do it in three parts. Because we’re talking about the ideal body type within K-Pop, it’s important to ask who this is ideal for, who decided it was ideal, and so on.

So, to normalise these incredible standards we do three things:

• Externalisation: This is where we see the ideal types, the fact that they’re touted as ‘ideal’ and consider them legitimate.


• Objectivation: This is where we take the subjective ‘ideal’ and make it concrete by assigning certain things to it. In this case, we assign things like thinness, long legs etc with ‘ideal’ so we can point to the ideal type when we talk about it.


• Internalisation: This is where we essentially accept this as the ideal type.

In short, an ideal type is presented, an ideal type is described, and then we get used to it without necessarily accepting it. Regardless of whether you think Krystal being regarded as the ideal type is correct, or that Luna starving herself to be this ideal type is correct, you can point to them as an example of what the ideal type being described is.

There are endless examples of talk about the ‘ideal’ idol body – whether it be about a single idol body, or a comparison of two different ones. For example, this translation of a Pann post about Red Velvet’s Seulgi talks about how her proportions are amazing and ideal…except she’s too short. That’s it. She’s just too short, so she can’t be ideal even though her body is praised. She fits what we know as the type, but that doesn’t seem to matter. No idol can ever be the ideal ideal.



It’s clear that the idea of idols starving themselves to meet some kind of ideal is not okay. There’s also no way of getting around the fact that Krystal and Luna are underweight. This is not a moral judgement, but rather a statement of concern. Luna in particular clearly meets this ideal through unhealthy means, so there’s little room for arguments that it’s alright for her in some way.

As if this isn’t dangerous enough, it affects people outside of the industry as well. Whether fans accept the ‘ideal’ or not, constantly hearing about it can take a toll. The Dispatch article linked above both feature comments, jokingly or otherwise, saying things like ‘I should just kill myself now’. The ideal feels so unattainable because it is, and this affects people by making them think they’ll never be ‘good’ enough. Of course, the reality is nobody ever will be, because this is such an unhealthy image to begin with that it makes people do awful things to themselves to meet it.

sources: beyond hallyu, NabiProj twitter, 루나의 알파벳 Luna's Alphabet yt

Comments

[bob-dabuilda.livejournal.com]

Great article OP! I mused with doing one similar to this, but glad I didn't because you nailed it and went in depth. Omona exclusives ftw.

While starvation is an open secret in many entertainment companies, I'm floored with how idolized it is in kpop. So many idols talk about their "diets" for shock value and I see so few reprimanding the system. Even Krystal got slagged on for gaining weight and her weight is scarily thin for her height. She even has anemia, which SM admitted was in part due to her weight. She also fainted several times. Like WTF, I don't like body shaming, but this is not a body or system to idealize.

[goshipgurl.livejournal.com]

i didnt write the article, its from beyond hallyu!!!!!

[tungatunga.livejournal.com]

What I don't like the most is the "as long as they are happy with their bodies" argument, when the issue with such extreme dieting is health, physical and mental, and we can safely assume that this young idols are surrounded by people in authority policing their bodies.

[seulgibear.livejournal.com]

2 weight posts in 2 days seems a big excessive imo

[goshipgurl.livejournal.com]

i know but i thought since we're already talking about this topic why not submit another one

[bob-dabuilda.livejournal.com]

Calling out the promotion of starvation to be ideal will neva be excessive mod unnie!
But thanks for all the work in mod-ing!

[bob-dabuilda.livejournal.com]

Also: I agree with people fueling the system. The fashion/celeb industry in particular. So many photographers go after waif thin girls and photoshop up the wazoo that it gets to the point people forget what is realistic.

If I ever get anywhere with photography I'm not going to go with that shit. I hate how models are treated in the industry and how much shopping is used.

[fallendaydreams.livejournal.com]

A big problem is celebs lie about their height/weight. Or should I say companies lie for them on their profiles. Amber herself said idols weigh a LOT more than they say they do. That's a given for a lot of people, but there are people who genuinely believe that's what these idols weigh.

Krystal doesn't weigh 42 kg or 44 kg. Maybe she did when she debuted, but not now.

[ctrlbeat.livejournal.com]

Re: ur first paragraph, mte. Idols do starve themselves but then the companies also lie and make their weight/height even lower.

[meyouthisthat.livejournal.com]

This is what I was about to say. No doubt lots of them starve themselves, and barring the ones that look quite frail (and that one group that has members with all sorts of eating disorders :/) ; I do think lots of them over exaggerate their diets and then they/their companies lie about their heights and weights. I personally dont think Krystal weighs 42kg either. Also I think it's about the timing when idols go on diets.  I think all of them do so just right before a comeback, and other times some are probably given more leeway.

Also I've seen some of them talk about their one meal a day diets or sth extreme and I'm always kinda skeptical. These are ppl who are pretty physically active; dancing, moving around to places; so that kind of extreme dieting clearly doesn't sustain that kind of lifestyle. I'm rambling but I think the ones -besides the idols- that really "lose" in this dieting/body image thing are the impressionable fans who lap up some of these lies and then go on and have all sorts of issues. It's so damaging.

[bob-dabuilda.livejournal.com]

True and the lying is gross. Some of the stats are near impossible; they'd be in the hospital if they were true.

[pepsi-twist9.livejournal.com]

I still can't get over people calling Luna's legs too muscular in the early days. There was legit backlash when there was the tiniest indent for Tiffany when they danced with 2PM. Tiffany said she's the "fattest" SNSD member too.
Kpop idols are good at hiding just how thin they are because they don't wear as many revealing clothes as say Nicole Richie when she was at her thinnest.
I remember seeing Yoona on Weekly Idol and her wrists are ridiculous.

[sjtaazrz.livejournal.com]

You know, I never thought about the revealing clothes before.

I remember when Mary-Kate Olsen talked about her eating disorder and people where showing her getting a star on the walk of fame in a backless dress. The same thing happened with photos of Nicole Richie in a bikini, but in kpop it's about revealing long, slim legs. So, if a lot of these girls ever wore a backless gown or and outfit that showed a lot of their upper body we'd probably be shocked.

Sure, we're shocked by tiny legs, but I can't imagine how tiny some of their waists are or how prominent their ribs could be if they showed off more of their upper bodies.

[donutism.livejournal.com]

there is no way some of these girls are the weight they say they are on their profile, and it sucks that companies make them lie about their weight and force them to lose weight. The camera also make people look bigger than they actually are so I can't imagine how tiny they all are irl.

Also, how is height and weight even on their profile to begin with? How is that a thing?

[sra-interesante.livejournal.com]

i must admit at this point i learned to accept how skinny all idols look

i guess the only wake up call would be whenever i attend to a kpop concert and realise how disturbing is their condition in real life, that's probably one of the few reasons that prevent me from internalizing kpop standards and apply them in my own life/body ...

[normanikordei.livejournal.com]

to me, krystal and seulgi look naturally thin like I'm sure they diet and work out, but neither look unhealthy and I'm not shocked by how slender they are unlike sooyoung and yoona. sooyoung's legs in particular always make me do a double take because they're so thin and yoona is not far behind. ofc they could both be naturally slim as well but in the case that they're not I could not imagine having to maintain that exact look for the duration of my career (it's been nearly 10 for them).

ive been through phases where I've tried to like limit what I eat and diet and I hate it. buying and preparing things that have nutritional value/minimally processed from the get go is the key. and indulging a lil here and there.

[sheisagentleman.livejournal.com]

imo i think yoona and sooyoung are also naturally skinny, specially yoona...could be wrong though

ia, diets suck

[lazmy.livejournal.com]

after reading about how mbk told chaeyeon she's not allowed to be over 110lbs I feel even worse for idols

I think I've become depressed for them at this point idk

[slowitdownbaby.livejournal.com]

Great post, OP!
And what kills me about this is that you have idols like Luna who were constantly bashed for being overweight and considered unattractive to the point that she lost an alarming amount of weight and was still bashed for it :(



It's like these girls can never win smh

[sacryde.livejournal.com]

My heart feels for poor Luna so much it's not even funny. She's been my f(x) bias since they debuted, and she can never seem to catch a break no matter what she does.

[rightclick5ave.livejournal.com]

two members of BP Rania (Yumin and Hyeme) eat a lot and afaik hardly exercise so I always wonder how they stay so thin.. I really really really hope it's just amazing metabolism and not... :/

(when I say 'a lot', I mean a lot. on a recent live broadcast they ate: ramyun, kimbap + sausage which was already a meal on its own.. and then they polished off a whole box of chicken [at least 7-8 pieces each]...and they'd already eaten BEFORE the broadcast started. I have a huge appetite myself, but even that looked too much for me lol)

[bob-dabuilda.livejournal.com]

How do you know it's not for show though? Or what they did after the show ended?
Don't want to assume anything, but what we see on broadcast isn't always what happens IRL.

[welljustguess.livejournal.com]

The abs thing on male idol tho, often you can see their rib bone when they try to show their abs.
Instead of thinking they are sexy, I feel bad for them.

[giriboy.livejournal.com]

i mean, jooheon didn't start starving himself “dieting” to get abs tho one of his group members, kihyun, is now doing that. it makes me really uncomf and i wish he'd stop talking about it buuut

it sucks that even idols w/ a stronger image can't even be heavier (for idol standards), it doesn't make sense to me

[10135.livejournal.com]

It's all so sad :( They get to live their dream, but they sacrifice their mental and physical health.

[donaldjdrumpf.livejournal.com]

I'm only eating 3000 calories a day as I'm preparing to debut

[broadcities.livejournal.com]

great article. it's too early for me to articulate my opinions about this but the way thin bodies and diets of not eating are normalized and glamorized in kpop are very frightening to me. not only do idols have to be thin/slender, but at the same time it's considered desirable for them to eat a lot. there's no winning in that.

i'm an older fan and have personally gotten past the point of it truly influencing me (i think), but it is so harmful other (younger) fans

[jaelissi.livejournal.com]

I'm going to throw something out there since I've been researching this subject for the past few weeks. There's a body of scientific evidencethat suggests that fasting (not to be confused with starvation) has several health benefits. Obviously these idols aren't striving for healthy body ideals, but their methods might not be as detrimental as conventionally thought

[timetobegin.livejournal.com]

With 'fasting' you mean kind of sobering up your diet? Like cutting out fastfood and alot of the fancy processed things and sticking to the 'basics' such as plain vegetables, lean meat, carbs such as potato's and whole wheat rice/pasta? If so, I could see how that would be better health wise.

[timetobegin.livejournal.com]

I thoroughly hate how the word 'management' is used for stuff like this. (When Sorn talked about it like that in one of her recent vlogs I was just 'bleh'.) It implies that ones body weight and shape can be controlled a 100% by the person who is in that body (which is not the case). If that body is subsequently not living up to expectations of others or cultural standards - well, then the person in the body must simply be lazy and sloppy and that makes them horrible people. It turns ones weight into a matter of morality, which is quite frankly bullshit.

[mjspice.livejournal.com]

Dang. This made me sad.