I am always teaching my students how to "read" texts, whether they be actually textual or even visual. I teach them that a "text" is more like an argument or message and doesn't have to actually be written. There are texts in film, television – in all media, in fact. Then I move on to talk about subtexts, or the implied or underlying messages that accompany the overt messages of the text.
Advertising is a good source from which to read textual signs and symbols, as any graduate of Brown University's "Modern Culture and Media" major might be able to tell you. I really hated that department and the army of black-clad, hipper-than-thou graduate students it seemed to be training; funny now, I kind of understand them. Well, I'm not aspiring to be hipper-than-thou, but I am a graduate student. So I kind of get now what it was that they were talking about, although I now see fully just how horrible they were at explaining it to us poor, hapless undergraduates. Bad teachers, they were.
Take a close look at the image below. There are a lot of implicit assumptions and implied meanings rolled up in this little advertisement for what I have figured out is an education center that offers different kinds of instruction, which also includes language education. And just because I'm mad, let me just say that when I called to confirm just what kind of company this was before going ahead with my little reading (the phone number below is visible but the text is too small to make out without much annoying rescanning), the woman was extremely suspicious, terse, and unhelpful when I innocently inquired as to just what kind of services the company offered. When asking that question, she replied with something short and unexplanative that I didn't understand, so I asked her to explain a bit more specifically (an answer in complete sentences was what I was hoping for), she got even more terse and asked, "Why? What is this for?" at which point I asked in a somewhat annoyed tone whether or not it was indeed this company that had put up adverstisements in the subways that had a toll-free number that customers were supposed to call. I also added that I was a foreigner and hadn't understood her previous terse explanation. At that point, I think she realized that she had been a bit out of line for someone answering inquiries on behalf of a large company that had paid out the nose for a citywide ad campaign. Sometimes I don't understand customer service in Korea, which is largely quite good, but is punctuated by horrible service in the most unexpected places, places where one might simply expect basic courtesy instead of the attitude that speaking to customers was some kind of irritating chore and answering actual questions was akin to extreme rudeness on my part.
So, ThinkBig Korea, you get a big, fat "F" for customer service in the way you took my call, placed at 4:57 PM on October 25, 2005. I hope the operator who took that call someday gets her karmic comeuppance. Lady, this read's dedicated to you!
Take a look at what's generally going on in the image below. A young girl has been trussed up as a geisha, the quintessentially stereotypical, gendered representation of "Japan," especially as expressed through the sexualized symbol of Japanese female subservience, something that fascinates Korean males as much as it does those of the West. For those doubting as to whether she has been coded as geisha, try to make out in this picture the fact that her face has been given a bad "whitening" job, mimicking the elaborate makeup job that is the mark of the revered Japanese courtesan. She is also not wearing a simple kimono or even lighter yukata, but something that is made to look pretty elaborate, matching the similar effort put into her hair and makeup. She is obviously coded as Japanese, obviously as geisha.
The boy, dressed simply, is implied to be Korean, as the text says "Wooljin ThinkBig – Exporting to Japan" and is matched by the visual image of the same in the whisper, though which travels the ThinkBig logo and, one might assume, the company itself. In the context of recent Japanese-Korean relations, it's no surprise that Koreans would feel better about – or at least not find a bone to pick with – an opposite representation of "Japan" and "Korea." Wanna see? Let's do a thought experiment: switch the nationalities and genders and see what happens:
I think a Japanese company showing a boy coded as identifiably Japanese – perhaps with colonial-era black school uniform with half-collar? – whispering into the ear of a sexualized image of "Korean" woman in a hanbok would piss off a lot of Korean people. And regardless of the argument as to who might have the "right" to get mad or not, due to the Japanese nation's isn't it problematic that a girl who's obviously under the age of 10 has been placed into this image that overtly implies a relationship of sexualized subservience? Call me sensitive, but I bet Japanese people might find this image a bit...offensive.
OK - you still think I's be crazy. Take a look at this:
This is an ad for the Marché restaurant chain. The copy reads "The powerful taste of Marché this coming summer! The barbarian burger steak has come!"
Do I even need to read this closely? You know why the picture looks more convincingly "barbarian," ya'll. Someone who looks like the white "barbarians" that the Chinese have described European folks as resembling ever since the "Middle Kingdom's" first contacts with the lesser civilizations found in Europe and Africa, which was a long-standing linguistic convention that did not get lost in translation into Korean. Yes, as Koreans all know, Whitey is hairy, with big, pointy noses, and usually accompanied by the smell of rotten milk. At least, that's what I overhear.
Don't even get me started on Black folks. That's another post altogether. Can anyone say blackface and the Bubble Sisters? Seriously. Oh – I gotta put up just ONE:
OK, let me put up a few more.
Yes, ladies and germs, that's four Korean women done up in Blackface in the 21st century. Their theme was one of railing against the beauty standards that oppress and keep talented singers out of the spotlight because of a large figure or an unattractive face (this is around 2003, when Big Mama was also getting – ahem – big). Now, I applaud that these ladies have some serious singing talent, but their rallying cry – verrrrry liberally translated as "Death to the pretty!" – is somewhat problematic in that it went along with this weird Blackface gimmick. When a certain biracial Black/Korean rap talent made some noise about it, along with some members of the international community, the girl pleaded ignorance and their marketing director – Rob Seo – offered a through-the-teeth apology "to the "1% of people who were offended by this." Whatever – I have called in a reservation on his behalf in the Ethnic Studies ring of hell that ya'll might not have heard was in the extended edition of Dante's Inferno. One reason's for that lame-ass apology; another's for the fact that no one with half a brain could have done the research to do not just blackface-with-a-small-b, like Roola did almost a decade ago when she tanned her face and fanned her 'fro for her pseudo-reggae rhymes. While weird, I didn't take offense. This was sort of an homage that simply coincidentally resembled a horrible cultural practice of which she was probably completely oblivious. No, the rollers in the hair, the infantilized image of black dependency that is represented by the pajamas – naw, dawg – you did research to get that shit right. And there is no way, even if you didn't know anything about it, that you could have missed the fact that this is now considered a racist slap in the face of each and every person of African descent in the United States – and an offensive image to even those who are not! And if "Rob" is a Korean America – dude – that's even worse. So until I hear otherwise, from my research, I've decided to hold you, Rob Seo, personally responsible for setting up Korea to having virtually called every Black person here within ear or eyeshot the equivalent of "Nigger!" to their face. So does a commentary on Allhiphop.com. When I saw that shit on MNet, I was the closest I ever came to leaving this country and scrapping all of the good things I was doing for the Ministry of Education, my students, as well as anyone who might benefit from my research and other activities here. But I didn't, and I kept on going. Let the good times roll! Here's more:
Man, that shit is offensive! I have to offer a shot-out to the Korea Herald article, written by Matt Hodges, that jogged my memory and from where I lifted the quote about this bygone issue.
Here – while I'm at it, let me hit you with just a few more goodies, although not nearly so juicy.
One thing that I also notice is that in underwear and other commercials that require people to be scantily-clad, only white people seem to be plastered up on walls in the near-buff. Now, it may be the sense that Korean folks – especially women – would be considered too reserved and above that sort of thing (what I call the "cult of Confucian domesticity"). Maybe that's linked to the stereotyped expectation that white people always be running around all nasty and hanging out already, as is their "way." Another possibility has to do with the reaction I hear from Korean people when I mention this, which is that white people just "look better" with less clothes, since Koreans have "short leg" syndrome and gams that look like "radishes." The men are more "manly" and just look more "natural" with their shirts off. Hmm. The thoughts of the culturally colonialized? Perhaps I'm being too harsh? My hunch that it's all of the above. Take a look.
Man, white folks just be running around in their undies everywhere! The line reads: "I'm attracted (being pulled) to you!" I won't read anything into that and let you connect the dots on your own with that one.
I like this one as well for its similar level of ridiculousness, in that the folks sitting around in their skivvies could just as well be on the veranda of a bistro in the south of France. Eating strawberries in a bathtub in lingerie, with a towel wrapped around one's head. Ah, those Westerners! So fancy free!
A recent favorite, reflecting the relative position of Korean masculinity vis a vis whiteness, specifically white women. I don't think it's a coincidence that the relatively greater financial power that has made Korean men an attractive partner – or at least potential plaything – of Eastern European and Russian women, and that many of them now enter the country under the E-6 "entertainment visa." In any case, this is a fascinating statement on the changing status of "the white" in relation to Korean masculinity. No longer the inaccessible Playboy fantasy held by many men in a developing Korea that had been culturally (and partially symbolically sexually) dominated by the United States – now the tables are turned. The product being sold here is a cream to make/keep one's skin "white." Don't even get me started.
Link this with something I found next to a highway onramp. Man – that is just – so – in your face! "Marry a Vietnamese virgin!" The smaller text to the left lists the possible ideal clients: "First marriages, remarriages, the disabled." Talk about a refiguring of the Korean man's buying power. This sign is much more common that you would even want to think.
Juxtapose this against this picture of what I call the "Korean everywoman" I found in the same subway stop. The text to the left reads: "Don't fantasize about me!" Interesting message, given the items being worn, and the sexual innuendo communicated by the expressions and poses of the model. Funny, these two pictures together remind me of the (admittedly ridiculous) popular quip now that women have "taken over" society and that men are all too henpecked to even dare approach Korean women with some game "these days." I don't know about that, but sometimes I observe that many Korean women's perceptions of self-confidence or even of power itself – gets too often confused with being or positioning oneself as an object of a man's inaccessible desire or another woman's unfulfillable envy. Is this the source of a particular kind of 공주병 – the so-called Korean "princess complex?" Again, I leave that reading up to ya'll.
Let me leave you with a final "reading" of an image that may not be so intuitive. For many reasons, most of which I didn't realize at first, this image really rubbed me the wrong way. It just made me feel gross. So I took the picture and tried to figure out why later. It was only when explaining my photography and a lot of my then-recent pattern of taking shots of advertisements to a group of students that I finally figured out why this picture really makes my hair stand on end.
This is a picture that symbolizes the meeting of "30-year subway friends" with the implication that two Seoulites, one who experienced his first day on the job in 1974, sitting with his daughter, who is also experiencing the same, both of them united by the same conveyance to and from the workplace. Now, forgetting the fiction that this is supposed to be his "daughter," let's get all "Modern Culture and Media" on this picture.
First, I'll give you my conclusion up front, and then break down the elements. Basically, if you take away the two tickets they're "toasting" in their hand and replace them with wine or beer or shot glasses, you get a very different image, but one that almost any man in this society is quite familiar with. Call me crazy – and some of you will – but this shot reminds me of first meeting between customer and client in a room salon.
Ok, ok, ok. You are saying that I have "sex work" and this apparent social problem on the brain. But hear me out before you dismiss this reading completely. As a photographer, there are some fictions about this picture that need to be stripped away. First, the background was added later. This is obvious in the bad Photoshopping job and the fact that, logistically, it would have been too irritating and expensive and time-consuming to actually get the perfect desired shot right when the spire of the Namsan Tower is passing between the two models. It's a marker to tell you what city we're talking about and it was simply added later. The subway isn't moving, the shoot's being done in studio conditions (even though the lighting is harsh and too direct, and the shot is overexposed, but enough playa-hating'), and each and every pose is planned down to the most minute detail, as is the framing. So it's no coincidence that arm of another passenger just "happens" to slip into the shot; it's there to give you a stronger sense that the two models are sitting amongst many other people. Nothing happens by chance in shooting done for advertising purposes, at least that done by professional commercial photographers.
First off, there is a very good reason, I admit, for the genders to not be switched. 30 years ago, it's much harder for anyone to imagine a young woman's first trip to her job and her becoming a grandma career woman sending off her young son to work. That being said, we cannot forget about the simple and unavoidable gender dynamics that go with an older man sitting in the arms of a beautiful, young woman. That factor is simply there.
In addition – that model is way too attractive. OK – now I'm being too arbitrary, too objective, just ridiculous, you say? Let's forget, I said, about the backstory that she is his "daughter." The image is made for the gaze and visual pleasure of the viewer, not as some documentary account of a "real" story. So let's be clear as to who this viewer is, made clear given the choice of female model, her relatively high level of attractiveness given other advertising/promotion I've seen of supposedly "everyday" citizens of Seoul or other images of the "everyman" and "everywoman." I highly doubt that it's a coincidence that this woman is "hot," as she was probably picked out of a group of professional models, or she was the "office flower" who everyone decided was the clear choice for the shoot.
Also, take a look at their stances and body positions. The man sits upright, while the woman leans in. It's clear who is being catered to, whether father, boyfriend, or client.
Then, take a look at her hand. Remember, we don't care about the byline after the fact, since she's not in actuality his daughter – she's pulling him in and the position is just – well...I'm losing my ability to express myself, since this is a monster post – somehow suggestive. It seems like they don't know each other well, as their closeness seems awkward, and for those of you still struck by the byline of the father-daughter relationship, they do not seem related. Like I said, it's the same kind of awkwardness you get even in a hostess bar, since there are two people who don't know each other now being forced into a semi-intimate position. It's natural to interact this way, but again, that's very likely what caused this shot to resonate with something in the mind's eye of whomever picked this picture out of the several dozen others that were produced in this shoot.
Now, enough having been said about this pose of awkward intimacy, look at the two eyelines. The man is looking at his ticket, while the woman is staring right at the man. It would seem to make much more sense and take down the suggestiveness of the image an entire notch if both of them had been looking at the ticket together, which would have much more strongly conveyed the sense that they were participating in the moment in the same way, thinking about the same thing. It's a much more natural – and less sexually charged – choice. But that wasn't what was chosen.
In any case, I hope this is a bit more illustrative of my point, even if you didn't quite buy it. I'd like to hear your responses to this final, deeper-level reading, as well as to the more obvious ones posted above.
This kind of thing is what make photography and academic analysis fun!
But does anyone else's brain hurt? Mine does, almost as much as my wrists do from my developing carpal tunnel syndrome.
