Is Korean media silencing LGBT voices?

[broadcities.livejournal.com]

The Lachica performance referenced in the article

From Lady Gaga’s LGBT anthem “Born This Way” to a Freddie Mercury biopic, LGBT voices are being ‘filtered out of media,’ experts say.

A rendition of Lady Gaga’s LGBT anthem “Born This Way” with a missing lyric by a South Korean group on New Year’s Eve has caused controversy, with experts calling it “LGBT erasure.”

The controversy comes after a local TV broadcaster faced criticism last year for editing out kissing scenes between two men in the Freddie Mercury biopic “Bohemian Rhapsody.”

During an annual year-end bell ringing ceremony held by the Seoul Metropolitan Government, which aired on YouTube and city-funded broadcaster TBS, dance group Lachica delivered a performance that included a short version of “Born This Way” – a 2011 hit single by Lady Gaga.

While many viewers praised their performance, some -- most of them members of the LGBT community--noticed a missing lyric: “No matter gay, straight, or bi, lesbian, transgender life.”

In 2015, a JTBC drama series called “Schoolgirl Detectives” received a warning from the KCSC over a kissing scene between two female high school students.

“In the subtitles, they also opted for a literal translation of a lyric about drag queens and just translated it as ‘don’t get dragged,’ as if they had no idea what a drag queen is,” Kim said.

“They wanted to consume popular cultural content but the message of diversity and acceptance for sexual minorities was absent.”

Minsoo Kim, a queer photographer, also agreed.

“When the performance aired on Mnet, it was interpreted as ‘a song for freaks.’ And the fact that this interpretation was repeated without second thoughts makes this something close to a censorship of sexual minorities,“ the photographer said.

Jung, however, said, it is important to understand the causes and effects of the issue surrounding Lachica’s performance of “Born This way.”

“If the Seoul city government only allowed Lachica to deliver the same performance the group has been doing before, there does not seem to be an issue.

“It is also worth noting that when the team performed the song on Mnet, they took to the stage with gay dancers, which shows that they did not completely ignore the song’s message.”

This is not the first time the Seoul city government has been accused of discrimination against sexual minorities.

In November, the city‘s own human rights commission ruled that the city’s decision to not allow the Seoul Queer Culture Festival Organizing Committee’s application to establish a non-profit foundation was “discrimination against sexual minorities without a reasonable cause” and “an infringement on their freedom of association.”

Source: Yim Hyun-Su for the Korea Herald, Youtube video via Carolyn Tang

Let's share some examples of good representation of the LGBT community you've seen in Korean media (or anywhere)! The article references Schoolgirl Detectives which I remember really liking when I saw it back in the day.

Comments

[chikage-chan.livejournal.com]

“Is Korean media silencing LGBT voices?”
Yuuup.
I think it’s pretty clear from the fact that I’ve been into kpop for a good 14 years now but I can only count mainstream representation/openly lgbtq+ artists on my fingers. One would think things would’ve gotten better by now, but nope.

On the memorable moments question, I remember liking the approach taken to Hoya’s character in Reply 1997 being gay, I never expected the drama would actually bring up a storyline like that.

[torontok.livejournal.com]

I also mentioned Reply 1997 and its sad we haven't seen any kind of representation that good in a mainstream drama ever since.

I do wonder if maybe ten-twenty years from now when 2nd and 3rd gen idols have hit a phase of settling down or completely leaving idol life if we'll see more of them start to come out. I have a feeling there's already a couple idols who are "open secret" out in the industry but it'll be interesting if we ever get an active or big name idol doing so.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_profiterole_/]

They do some BL shows now, but we all know that doesn't mean equal rights IRL. Even China does (censored) BL shows.

[nudrive.livejournal.com]

Idk I kinda feel like BL shows are kinda regressive. They're almost all exclusively written by straight women, so many fans are only ~okay~ with it bc it's fiction and hot guys they can dream about (if they were ugly then they wouldn't like it), even the actors can be/ are homophobic and then you have how the camp characters are portrayed in Thai BL... It all just feels so exploity and gross.

Edit: OH and worst of all, the use of SA as plot points and never addressing it properly or worse instead they fall in love or it's not a problem bc they're both guys or some other dumbass gross shit

[torontok.livejournal.com]

I think Reply 1997 did a wonderful job with the LGBT storyline for Hoya's character and him coming out to his friends including the one he had a crush on. He didn't get an onscreen romance but they implied with the ending that he had found love and it wasn't a kill-your-gays ending. Reply 1994 on the other hand dropped the ball with whatever the hell they tried to do with the gay character on the show. And you also have complete shitshows like Strong Woman Do Bongsoon that are successful despite being chockful of homophobia. So I suppose its still an uphill battle

[em-cavey.livejournal.com]

It's odd bc on the one hand I do feel like certain aspects of culture are opening up as culture and media generally are being diversified and overall gp attitudes towards LGBT+ are definitely evolving but the most formal and mainstream media is treading water or even moving backwards. I think it would be hard for someone like Harisoo to emerge as a major media figure today. Hong Seokcheon is more active than ever, has a very public-friendly image and the media treats his experiences pretty thoughtfully (well by Korean standards) but at the same time we have exactly one gay household name in mainstream media and he came out almost twenty years ago. I know progress like this usually isn't exactly linear but the gap between formal and informal media/perspectives feels especially wide the last few years.

I remember like ten or so years ago, there was a family drama on a major network and a large part of the story was the oldest son coming out as gay to his family and his relationship with his boyfriend. I'm sure it wasn't perfect, but I remember it generally being very relatively open-minded and respectful and nonjudgmental for a network Korean drama in the late 2000s or early 2010s. There was a scene of the grandmother quietly accepting him and telling him, there have always been people like you and talking about an old gay couple in her childhood village (or something like that) and it was really sweet and touching. I wish I could find that drama again but my memory is Swiss cheese and tbh I wasn't watching it very closely (mostly when my mom was watching and I happened to be in the room lol) so I forget the title and the actors ㅠㅠ But I think it remains the best LGBT representation I've seen in mainstream Korean media

As for kpop (or at least kpop-adjacent) I still love this iconic piece of cinema

Despite the 12-dollar budget and Seo Inguk acting his face off, it still gets to me and the song is still so good (lord this was also ten years ago😵)

[chikage-chan.livejournal.com]

Recently I had the pleasure of introducing this music video to a new kpop fan friend hahahaha It had been a while since I had met someone who still hadn’t watched it lol

[xoxkenzxox.livejournal.com]

AH! I think you may be talking about Life is Beautiful (because honestly, it's the only korean drama I have ever seen really showing adults in a gay relationship).



It had a lot of weirdly slow hugs but actually gave us some cute moments. It even showed them together in bed which was HELLA surprising.








(sorry for overload. I've just literally never heard of another person watching this show and I watched it AGES ago)

[catharsiskat.livejournal.com]

Daaaang I've never seen this, ty for sharing!

[bauci.livejournal.com]

Lol the song came up in my playlist this morning and I still love it and it's epic music video.

[em-cavey.livejournal.com]

Ooh I forgot about this one but also in Yumi’s Cells

Minho’s character is gay and it’s not even really commented on in the context of the show. It’s a pretty minor role/character but a blessedly normalized depiction of LGBT

[pikapika217.livejournal.com]

uhh....YEAH!

The proof is in the pudding if only with Holland, who I both had to look up to remember the name of and discovered hasn't had any sort of comeback in 2 1/2 years. He still has a semi active instagram -

https://www.instagram.com/holland_vvv/

but music wise? Error 404!

[nacomi.livejournal.com]

I wonder if Holland will continue releasing music.

I'm Not Afraid is still one of my all time favourite songs. It's a song that gives you strength, like one can do anything no matter what.

[chikage-chan.livejournal.com]

I really hope he can keep making music ;-;

[xoxkenzxox.livejournal.com]

I still remember an older drama called something like "Life is Beautiful" where they had a gay couple (Kyungsoo and Taesub?) Does that sound familiar to anyone? That was the most surprising representation I have EVER seen in Korean drama.

[myrrhcat.livejournal.com]

"they took to the stage with gay dancers, which shows that they did not completely ignore the song’s message.”

I mean... not really. i've seen gay dancers performing on korean shows quite a few times now, but they're not actually doing anything gay up there. only the most extreme of homophobes would be challenged.

[broadcities.livejournal.com]

yeah i also struggled a bit with that part! i haven't seen the original performance so i cannot judge, but to say that just because they originally performed the song with gay/lgbtq+ dancers does not solve the issue — unless they made a statement in the original performance around lgbtq+ rights or something.

[chikage-chan.livejournal.com]

I guess it really tells a lot about the present situation that we are still at the point in which having gay dancers on stage is what is considered challenging.

[xoxkenzxox.livejournal.com]

I mean, did they ask the dancers to check a box of whether they were gay or not? Would they not have allowed straight dancers because it would...ruin the message? Like, what were they aiming to accomplish with that statement?

[996677.livejournal.com]

Let's share some examples of good representation of the LGBT community you've seen in Korean media (or anywhere)!

i've barely seen anything and it drives me crazy. as a fellow queer i really feel for the lgbt+ folks in korea.

some recent examples of attempts (?) i've seen are:
1. when brave girls performed with the trans dancer group KARDASHIBA (https://www.instagram.com/kardashiba_official/) for the MMA 2021 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcjQSyw7lDI). i didn't like the implications of brave girlies wearing suits and kardashiba wearing dresses at ALL.
2. when the main guy in king's affection was ok with being in love with a man and kissing the prince way before he actually found out that the prince was a woman.

idk!

[broadcities.livejournal.com]

omg i hadn't seen brave girls' performance at the mma's before. kardashiba killed it but i totally get what you mean with the implications of brave girls in suits and kardashiba in dresses :////// what are they trying to say with this :(((( (i can guess but i don't want to think it)

[myrrhcat.livejournal.com]

oh, speaking of, i don't follow mamamoo so i almost missed it but moonbyul's latest song shutdown is an actual lesbian sex song apparently. it didn't get much attention here either but it's a nice little tune and very gay. i wonder if she is gay/bi herself...

[dior-chic.livejournal.com]

I’m one of the only ones to talk about the song lol. I found it through tiktok since my fyp is for lesbians and bi women, and the wlw kpop fans were so hyped for this song. I checked it because of them and loved it!

I saw the MV post here was only me and 1 or 2 other people lol. I get it, Mamamoo has a bad reputation after their brownface incident. Moonbyul seems to be the least repeating offender and I’m willing to check out her stuff since I’m not going to buy anything of hers.

I do wonder if she’s into women. She could be singing about her own experience but is allowed to as long as she doesn’t label herself as being part of lgbt because the moment she does, her career will be impacted :((( I follow Lionesses on social media and get sad how they aren’t really allowed to promote because they’re gay. Their cute Christmas song was banned simply because of their sexuality. So it’s like if Moonbyul is into women, this is the closest we’ll get to news without her career being really hindered.

But I also thought about how she’s probably aware that Mamamoo is the most popular group amongst Korean lesbians, so she could know her fanbase really well and just gives them what they want. I’m not sure where it comes from, but it felt nice to have a song that felt throughly about women loving women.

[chikage-chan.livejournal.com]

I’m one of the people who stopped following mamamoo after their repeated offenses, but I’ll give Moonbyul a view for that!

[babyjenkski.livejournal.com]

Let's share some examples of good representation of the LGBT community you've seen in Korean media (or anywhere)

Reply 1997 — Hoya
Love with Flaws — Cha In Ha (RIP)

LGBTQ+ needs true acceptance and not just tolerance.