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| Tiffany of Girls' Generation poses after accepting the Vdeo of the Year award at the YouTube Music Awards in New York earlier this month. / Yonhap |
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| The Korean Popular Culture Reader, Duke University Press |
Fan or not, anyone who saw Tiffany of Girls' Generation accepting the prize for Video of the Year at the YouTube Awards in New York earlier this month has to admit it was a bit awkward.
Folks with a passing knowledge of Korea may have expected at least a few enthusiastic whoops in recognition of the country's ballyhooed wave of cultural content known as "hallyu." Instead, one could hear the sound of crickets chirping as the crowd wondered how the Korean girl group beat out the likes of Miley Cyrus, Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga.
It's since registered that the awards were chosen by the fans, and that fans of Korean ''idol'' groups are pretty darn dedicated. If for some the moment was a realization that entertainers who aren't household names in the U.S. can grab attention in a wired world, for those in Korea it was a reminder that not all their idols have Psy's global profile.
Given such gaps ― and the role of culture in generating export revenue ― it may be increasingly useful to inject historical context into discussions of the "Korean Wave." A forthcoming book, "The Korean Popular Culture Reader," does that with some success. Due out in March, it initiates a scholarly conversation on hallyu's roots in Korea's rapid economic development. However its academic language is likely to make it intimidating for many outside of the classroom.
Edited by Kim Kyung-hyun and Choe Young-min, the book gamely seeks to cover a wide range of Korean popular culture, from K-pop and cinema to video games and graphic novels. It is comprised of 18 essays from Korean and international scholars.
There is plenty of interesting material for those interested in Korea. Published on the premise that understanding popular culture is not just about "separating the good from the bad, the modern from the anachronistic, the authentic from the mimicked," it seeks to couch discourse in the context of the peninsula's turbulent history.
In an essay on the film and fashion of the post-war 1950s, Stephen Chung says discourse has focused on challenges of the era such as corruption and the influx of American culture. However, he argues that films such as "Madame Freedom," which capitalized on the "anxiety and excitement" of rapidly changing social values, present a contradiction to such characterizations.
Kelly Yoojeong Jeong tracks the career of film icon Kim Sung-ho in relation to the April 19th Revolution of 1960 and the rise of authoritarian leader Park Chung-hee, which "helped build but also used his stardom" ― revealing the relationship between popular culture and nation building.
The section "Strut, Move and Shake" looks at K-pop through critical and historical lenses.
Son Min-jung and other writers point out that occupation and rigid social mores prompted popular music to parody and satirize cultural practices. However, entertainers have largely turned to dominant cultures for material to satirize, such as Japan and the United States.
That is understandable, but the products have mostly fallen short of producing work that has received global acclaim without the aid of "inane music videos and excessive use of hair gel." Stephen Epstein and James Turnbull challenge the notion that the rise of girl groups in the YouTube era represents a departure from Korea's patriarchal power structure.
The book doesn't lack for intriguing topics, which also include challenges facing the country's drive to market Korean food abroad, media portrayals of female Korean athletes and the country's unique gaming culture.
However, because it packages the work of many writers, the book falls short of conveying a unified feel. And contrary to what the book cover suggests, the writing targets academia, which will make it challenging reading for laypeople.
Still, Korea's standing on the international stage and the challenges of explaining sudden cultural phenomena such as the "Gangnam Style" craze seem to necessitate the need for better contextualization of hallyu. "The Korean Popular Culture Reader" is welcome in this respect.
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