Sexual harassment controversy of B1A4 growing

B1A4

By Park Jin-hai

The sexual harassment dispute between K-pop boy band B1A4 and Lee Se-young, a female cast member of Saturday Night Live (SNL) Korea, keeps growing.

A recent video uploaded on Saturday on SNL’s facebook page with the title of “B1A4 ‘SNL Korea’ Behind-the-scenes,” showed some of the female staff members, including comedian Lee, suddenly touch the B1A4 members in their genital areas and run off. The idol members were seen completely in shock.

When the controversy over sexual harassment was first raised, SNL Korea posted an apology online, apologizing to B1A4 and its fans for the “extreme behavior” of the SNL Korea cast members but did not call it sexual harassment. That added fuel to the fire among the online community, where angered fans bombarded the site with comments saying that this definite act of sexual molestation on male idols has been brushed off as some careless behavior.

Comedian Lee, belatedly, posted a hand-written apology on her social network on Monday, which stated, “I’m sorry for disturbing so many people because of my wrongful actions on SNL Korea. I apologized to each member and I want to apologize once again to all the fans and members through this letter.”

SNL Korea also issued a second apology on the same day, explaining that the incident was intended to loosen up the guests, who could have been under pressure to appear on the show. It also added that the events have been organized from the first episode of the show as a way to show a warm welcome by the show hosts but this recent incident went too far, disturbing many people.

B1A4 fans, however, raised the issue that SNL has had hazing rituals, where many boy group members, including INFINITE and Block B, received the same treatment. They demanded the broadcaster and comedian Lee apologize to those others as well.

An online comment by a person surnamed Sang said in his comments on SNL’s facebook page, “It is not solely Lee’s fault. Replicating sexual molestations, shooting them and uploading them, thinking it is funny… all this reveals is the perception of sex by the SNL production team. Its second apology has no mention of other victims. Apologize.”

Although there were local reports that Lee will leave the show, SNL Korea denied the rumor. “Nothing is determined as for Lee’s departure. We deeply apologize for the incident,” said an official of the show.