Scribblings of the Metropolitician

Rambo Rocked! (Very Minor Spoilers Herein)

As I suggested it would back in July last year.

Of course, this makes it look like I was far more likely to be biased in favor of it rocking, since I'd be setting myself up to kinda contradict myself if it didn't. Well, I think I'm spared the conflict-of-interest because the movie actually did knock my socks off.

Actually, that's not true. It reverse spinning back-kicked my guts out.

Man. I saw Rambo IV at the press screening last Tuesday, and let me tell you – it delivered. It was Rambo.

What does that mean, really? Well, it whisked me back to the days when the first Rambo came out, which was called "First Blood" and was actually received as a well-made movie with a lot of heart. It had something to say, it was smart. The reactionary work of pornographic violence that was the second movie (where he goes back to Vietnam and basically wins the war this time) hadn't been made yet.

Frickin' evil Brian Dennehy. No wonder Rambo cracked.

That first movie told the story of a Vietnam veteran who returned home, whose experience at being abused by a bunch of local yokels recapitulated all the real and perceived slights to the honor of returned veterans' sacrifices made for a country that had forced them to go over there in the first place.

The desire to see certain people die very painfully, very slowly was the perfect example of unadulterated violence-in-context – it was graphic and frickin' over-the-top, but somehow it wasn't gratuitous. All that would come out in the second Rambo film, which more resembled the Super Nintendo game Contra II than any military reality. But the thing is, Contra was a really fun game. Really fun.

See, Rambo II was nothing short of a pornography of violence. One can't say it was anything other than that. It lacked any of the auteurship of the first film, a real plot, or even a point. It did, however, channel the frustrations about the Vietnam war, though, as Rambo is as much betrayed by duplicitous characters on "our" side as he is threatened by faceless Asian bad guys and menacing Soviet infiltrators.

When Rambo squeezes the microphone after being left for dead by his American military handler, the line "I'm coming to get you" – the biggest one of the movie – is importantly directed at the betrayers "back home."

Hey! Ain't that Victor Maitland from Beverly Hills Cop? Anyway, as a Russian, he has the worst commie badguy accent in the history of Cold War-era movies.

But that's nearly beside the point. The violence in the Rambo movies is a force unto itself, and if there's anything maturity and a study of history has taught me, it's that violence really is a thing unto itself. And that's what Rambo IV delivers.

See, what I realized from the first 10 minutes of the recent film was that movies these days seem to have forgotten what violence really is. They've forgotten the nature of the thing itself. At worst, violence in post-PC, post-Columbine, post-9/11 America is stylized and a function of the emotional payoff contained within the logic of the standard Hollywood plot – it's fun to watch, while kids and dogs and blondes never get killed, nor does the good guy (you can do your own tally of how the above fare in the Rambo movie – tell me how surprised you are later); conversely, in the standard Hollywood use of violence, the black guy or the private who just got married and has a kid on the way would always buy it so that the violent payoff at the end – i.e. killing the man baddie in an extremely painful way, fully depicted in slow-motion closeup while the main character says something way fittingly cool – would really be satisfying.

At best you get the hyper-real depictions of violence (Saving Private Ryan is the best example) in which the work seems to pat itself on the back for "accurate" and "unflinchingly" depicting. Meh. It's still a visual thrill and very fetishized – think overcranked high-speed shutter shots and self-conscious "Look! The horrors of war!" that Spielberg manages to make look somewhat preachy and annoying.

But violence in the real world doesn't work that way. It doesn't skip kids and dogs, nor loving mothers and sons, or even good people with good intentions. No, under the influence of "revolutionary armies" and petty dictators and the forces of "ethnic cleansing", people die every day, they die like dogs, and often die unavenged. It doesn't make sense; it just is.

When faced with the first sequence of major mayhem in the film, I was surprised that I was very surprised by it. I actually wanted to look away, because it was just very fucking horrible. I mean it – I'm kinda scarred. And it seemed to do one thing exceptionally well: you were captivated by the corporeal, morbid thrill of the violence-as-spectacle, but you aren't let off the moral hook, so to speak, even as the film is obviously setting you and the Rambo character up so you give him carte blanche to kick major Burmese army ass; because watching a cute little kid get it in the chest with an automatic rifle without a cutaway shot and a splash of blood on the wall, or an innocent and beautiful young girls being raped by soldiers and not being saved, or a mother being blown into nothing but chunks of flesh...wow.

You don't sign off on the blank check for moral retribution easily. You gotta pay the price, and it's your pampered sensibilities.

For those of you with weak stomachs or who have nightmares easily, this movie isn't for you. You have to earn your right to demand retribution by sitting there and bearing it. You just don't get to watch cartoon violence while you sit there eating your popcorn; you're too busy being sick to your stomach.

Somehow, I appreciated that.

Somehow, the pornographic violence of this film, the fact that it comes as a relentless, merciless onslaught of sudden and senseless mayhem – made a sort of sense to me. The reason I don't have much interest in the Friday the 13th-style slasher films I used to giggle over, or the much-over-hyped Saw series, is that I look at such things and think, "Owwww! That looks painful" or "my, that's really, really horrible."

In short, now that I'm older, fear death a bit more, and don't have health care, watching people die cruel, stylized deaths doesn't really make me giggle or half-hide under the covers anymore. I just shudder and want to watch something else.

The present Rambo is an orgy of violence, but it feels like it has a point. I was really glad to see some really bad people picked as the "really bad people" in this movie, and not "Rambo Hunts Al Qaeda" or some other variation of "Rambo sticks it to swarthy Muslims with bombs strapped to their chest."

No, this one keeps the motive for ass kicking, gut ripping, and machete gripping bounded in the realm of the moral (Burmese army regulars do horrible things to innocent villagers), rather than in the ideological (America takes out its angst and anger on some specific group of people in the US who have it tough enough already). Stallone was smart to keep it simple, to keep it apolitical – him pumping lead into the face of an Arab terrorist or North Korean guard to a missile complex just doesn't seem right or necessary these days, because 1) it's cliché, and 2) the mainstream news and entertainment media is already doing that, hence, it being irresponsible on top of it being as cliché as it already is.

What's being worked out here is really an excuse for Rambo to kick ass one more time, of course, but it's also a chance to come full circle with the character and seemingly finish what Stallone had so successully started. By the end of the movie, you'll see what I mean, at which point it will be clear that we won't have to fear a Rambo V. In a way, I think no one wants it, because Stallone so obviously said what needed to be said in this one, but nothing more.

This last Rambo movie feels like the extension of the first, with the stuff that happened in between (I actually forget the details of Rambo III, actually) except it being explained by John Rambo himself in the film with the quip, "It's complicated." Yeah. That's all we needed to know. Rambo was rejected by his country. Bad stuff happened. Now, the wounded vet finds a place for himself, but in the process, has a last violent hurrah that is, importantly and in such post 80's fashion, not just about one man's rage, but done ostensibly for the sake of helping others, righting wrongs, doing some good in the world.

Rambo doesn't become Mother Theresa, but neither can he allow himself to live in a state of selfish nihilism, no matter how badly the world has fucked him over. Strangely enough, that's the sign of a Rambo who's finally grown up and gotten over himself, and finally reinstate himself as a full human being in a world that is, to him, essentially shit.

Somehow, I was a relief to see Rambo realize that there's a bit more to the world than that.

The Moral Cowardice of Glib Historical Comparisons, or Why the JoongAng Ilbo Uses History Like a Bunch of Frickin' Pussies

9/11...Auschwitz...the Warsaw Ghetto...Cambodia's "killing fields"...Hiroshima and Nagasaki...and...wait for it...

Namdaemun!

So says the JoongAng Ilbo in a pearl of infinite dizzdom:

"Unlike trips made for recreation or tourism, these trips to the scene of a tragic disaster are made for self-reflection and edification. Representative examples of this kind of tourism are Ground Zero; the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland where Jews were slaughtered; the Killing Fields of Cambodia; and Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, the sites of atomic bombings." [HT to Korea Beat]

WTF? Again...not only an insult to the sheer horrificity of the historical nightmares of other countries, but to an ignorance of Korea's own history.

Where's Kwangju?

Oh, I know where it is. It's nowhere, since deep down, there's still a lot of confusion and denial going on within Korean culture about what that moment means – it's not a quick and easy historical horror card to flip out for the purposes of glib comparison.

But Auschwitz or Hiroshima certainly seem to be.

See, they wouldn't dare put Kwangju on the list, since despite the fact that it would actually be a better fit since it would technically fall into the category of horrible mass slaughter (albeit perhaps not really making the cut, in my opinion, in terms of sheer scale), people from Kwangju might actually be pissed off by having a case of arson (as much of a loss as it was, no one died) being compared to MACHINE GUNNING UNARMED CIVILIANS IN THE STREETS.

So, in a way, it's easier to just whip out Nazi death camps, Cambodian death squads, and the use of atom bombs on civilian populations.

In an ignorant way, it make a certain bit of sense.

But in the end, the level of self-importance given to a place that until last week didn't even have the security of the 7/11 store downstairs from my apartment and where homeless men had ramen picnics all night before scratching their nuts as they stretched out for a good night's sleep on the second floor of the structure...that simply boggles the mind.

Hey, JoongAng – newsflash: The burning of Seungyemun is NOT Auschwitz. It's insulting when you can't even bring yourself to put Kwangju on the list, lest you offend someone's sensibilities actually from there, or who lived through it.

So why do it to other people's symbolic memories of their respective historical horror shows?

Moral cowards.

Hello?! Is there anyone with a sense of history manning the newspapers in this country?

Getting the Word Out through OhMyNews!

Me and OhMyNews haven't always been friends. Sometimes we have. And I've been very critical of the Korean news media in general in the past.

Yet, they are a major newspaper here, and are defined by the citizens reporters who contribute most of its content. Rather than see OMN as a monolithic thing, when an OMN editor contacted me recently, I took the opportunity to get the word out, straight from the mouths of foreigners, something that I am always going on about as being very, very important. Readers of this site know this.

Although some people take my ranting and raving, focused criticisms and fiery broadsides as disdain for Korea, I have always maintained that I write out of an inherent optimism; no matter how frustrated or angry I sometimes get, one might simply ask the question: Why would I continue doing this if I didn't, on some base level, think it could make a difference?

Well, opportunities such as these don't come along often, that being the chance to reach an audience outside of foreigners, preaching to the choir.

So I've agreed to do a column over there, entitled "Michael's Point of View" (sounds better in Korean: "마이클의 시선"). No, I'm not becoming annoyingly narcissistic, either – the editor thought that a personalized title would be best, even though I kind of bristled at the idea of making it a function of my personality. Yet, I agreed with the logic that rooting things in a personal point-of-view would be far more effective, since I've also found in my personal life that challenging many Koreans on certain tough social or moral issues works best when linking them to someone to whom they have affective ties, as opposed to grandstanding on principle alone; that's something I'd tend to do as an American, whereas I've found that amongst Koreans, the reaction when I stand up for gay or women's rights is: "Why? Their issues don't affect you."

One could get all Martin Niemöller and start talking about "first they came" for the communists, then social democrats, then the trade unionists, and then the Jews before leaving no one left for me, blah blah – but I've found that to be not so effective in Korea, where issues of morality and interpersonal ethics tends to hinge on established social ties with real people, rather than broad-ranging moral principles and grandstanding positions.

Hence, making it personal, and keeping things grounded in the personal experience as much as possible while making larger critiques generalizable to the greater society.

I hope to make this weekly series as effective as possible, so to this end, I hereby fish for comments as to how to make this as efficacious as possible, while also taking suggestions for things you'd like to maybe see talked about.

Thanks, OhMyNews, for what seems like a great opportunity!

Ding Dong, HD-DVD's Dead!

For those of you who care, it's official – Toshiba has thrown in the towel. Finally, the war is over. Paramount and Universal even made the early confirmation that they're going to start releasing films on Blu-ray.

So, yes, this all means you should go buy a PS3 now. No excuses.

With Videos Like These...

...you don't need enemies.

Hip! Cool! Stuff the young people can GROOVE on! Hehe.

A sign of why Obama's doing better with young voters. This video elicits the same feeling as watching aunts and uncles get down at weddings to the one "young people's song" they heard from their grandkids and liked, e.g. "Baby Got Back" or any Will Smith song.

<SHUDDER>

내 검은 엿 먹으라, 조선일보

Lovely. I thought that a black man possible becoming President of the United States might get a nigga respect in the world, and even raise our standing in Korea, but apparently not.

Thanks, Korea Beat, for translating a recent Chosun Ilbo article about Barack Obama. The juicy part follows:

Because Obama’s mother is white, and he grew up in Hawaii with his mother’s family and speaks white people’s English, some people doubt that he is “100% black” and are considerably averse to voting for him.

Mmm HMM, chile! Lawd know dat Obama be'd done talking like a nigga wudn't fo' dat sweet old white mama o' his, God bless huh. He talk dat GOOD white folk talk, sho' do! Usin' dem big ole words, like da good Reverend da doctuh de Kang hisself! Lawd have MERCY and he got good hair, too. But enufa dis here talkin'! I'm fend ta git me some chitlins, girl, yes I am!

So, apparently, the Chosun Ilbo is reinforcing the belief that it's not as a black man that Obama might very well become the big POTUS, but despite his blackness that he succeeds. And no, Obama doesn't talk at all like a black man, right? Did they even get that part right?

The apparent fact of his "white talk" isn't even accurate. If anything, Obama has worked hard to cultivate a somewhat obvious MLK ring to his voice, to give him added moral authority and greater powers of rhetorical suasion. Whatever. I don't profess any intimate familiarity with the warp and woof of the man's blackness. But if you close your eyes and listen to the man speak, you're not going to mistake him for John McCain or any other white man.

Kennedy had a nasal Boston accent. What's the Chosun Ilbo's explanation for that? Billy Clinton's affected light Southern lilt? Maybe it wasn't affected – perhaps Clinton was really just surrounded by too many dumb black people. It happens, I guess, when you hang out in states with too many swarthies, I guess.

Chosun Ilbo, what century is this? Where you been? Do you still not have anyone on staff who speaks English well enough to hear that Obama isn't even "talking white" as mentioned in the article? Can the writer of that story even tell the difference?

I've included the reply I wrote to post in the comments section of the newspaper article n question, but after going through all the hoops of their "real name system," (to the Chosun llbo's credit, it did recognize my foreigner identification card), the period for open comments had already passed.

Anyway, here's my "Korean mode" reply – indignant and a bit haughty, with school names thrown in for good measure as a rhetorical club. When in Rome, argue as the Romans do, I say. Well, it's the only reason most Koreans would listen to a black man in Korea, anyway – if I went to enough good schools, I might get the same amount of respect as a white person who just stepped off the plane with a degree from "Harvord University":

조선일보, 너무 실망이다. 너무 화를 나는 거고. 역시 인종차별주의자의 의식에서 벗어나기 힘든 한국.

전 주한미국인이고 또 '흑인'이에요. 그리고 그냥 무식하게 쓰인 신문기사인데도 꼭 내 컬럼으로 한마디를 하고 싶었어요.

Barack Obama는 "백인 외조부모와 함께 자라나 백인의 말투를 사용하기 때문에 그를 '100% 흑인'으로 볼 수도 없어." 진짜 토하고 싶다. 진짜 한국을 떠나고 싶어요. 정말.

우리 나라(미국)은 대단하고 역사적인 시점에 왔는데 역시 한국에서는 위대한 바락오바마를 보고 "백인 때문에" 성고했거나 또 "말투가 흑인아닌 말투라" 말을 잘 통하는 걸로 끝까지 주장하는 거네요. 그러면 재미교포이면 영어를 못 하는 건가요? 아아아. 맞다. 한국사람들이 아직도 그 생각하는 거예요. "한국얼굴이면 영어 제대로 못 한다." 문화는 혈통으로 내려오는 것처럼. 맞다맞다. 아직도 단일민족이란 의식에서 안 벗어난 것같네요.

그리고 '사대주의'에서도 아직도 빠져있네요. 그래서 아무래도 "흰" 피부를 보고 선하다고 생각하고 '깜은' 피부를 보면 너무 싫어하는 거고요. 원래 그 "黑"의 한자에 들어가있는 의미처럼 솔직히 말하면 "흑인"이 아직도 많은 한국인들의 마음속에 "흙인"으로 생각하는 거네요.

하인스워드의 얘기가 너무 지겨워서 안할게요. 무슨 말씀하는지 아실 거아니에요. 그리고 그 조선일보의 기사를 보면 오바마같은 아프리카계 미국인이 아무리 대단해도 아무리 높이 올라가면 그 사람의 능력때문에 된 일로 생각 못하는 거고 꼭 백인의 은혜 덕분이죠. 그 것도 지겨워요.

그래서 오바마같은 사람의 환경에 여러요소를 보지 않고 (예: 학교, 선생님, 책, 언론, 친구들, 주변의 사람들) 그리고 자기 능력/노력으로 좋은 "말투"를 생긴 걸로도 보지 않고 그 사람의 "백인 어머니" 밖에 없는 거예요? 그래서 한국에서 너무 무식하게 재미교포를 보고 "진짜 미국인아니다"고 생각할 수 있겠군요. 똑같은 논리로 흑인을 보면 "바보"로 보는 거군요. 피에 써있는 것처럼.

그리고 이 기자도 너무 무식하네요. 오바마의 말투는 '흑인'의 말투를 꼭 들릴 수 있거든요? 정확하게 따지면 오바마가 Martin Luther King, Jr.의 고급스러운 미국의 남부 흑인 말투를 조금 일부러 키우려고 하는 것같은데 무슨 "백인처럼 말할 수 있으니까 반갑나봐"같은 헛소리 하는 거예요? 잘 들리면 분명히 멋진 *흑인* 말투로 얘기하는 건데요?

아직도 한국에서는 "흑인" 말투 조금이라도 들릴 수 있으면 "무식"으로 생각하는 거네요. 뭐, 저 원어민으로써도 알아듣기 힘든 호주, 뉴질란드, 스코트랜드, 아얼랜드 사람들이 막 한국에 와서 마음대로 영어강사로 너무 쉽게 일할 수 있는데 아주 미묘한 '흑인'말투 있을 가봐 흑인이면 수준이 낮은 학원에서도 일짜리 구할 수 없는 거잖아요. 아무리 자격이 있더라도 아무리 저 아이비리그 대학에서 나왔더라도 (제 고등학교는 Phillips Andover Academy이고 대학은 Brown University이고 대학원 UC Berkeley) 저는 일반 학원에서 일하기 힘들어요.

그래도 자기 박사학위논문의 연구하면서 어떤 유명한 외고에서 미국사를 가르치는 일짜리를 신청했는데 나중에 거기서 취직이 되서 들은 소문이 "사실 여기서 떠어질 뻔했어. 교장선생님이 학부모님들이 흑인이 있는 걸 싫어할가봐"라고 얘기해줬거든요. "근데 이력서 때문에 어쩔 수 없이 뽑힌 거야"라고도 말해줬어요. 근데 웃긴 사실은 기분이 특별히 나쁜 거아니었어요. 한국의 사실을 알고 왔으니까요. 역시 그 일짜리를 다른 선생님의 추천 받았고 제 이력서도 거부할 수 없었겠다. 근데 일반 사람였으면? 제 이력서를 방배처럼 이용안했다면...?

그래서 제가 일을 신청하면 먼저 email로 이력서 보내는 다음에 꼭 전화로 먼저 인터뷰하도록 노력하는 거예요. "우와! 한국말 잘하시네요!"이란 소리를 꼭 듣고 실제로 간다는 말이요. 그래도 약속한 시간에 도착하면 "네. 어떻게 오셨어요? 아...혹시...마이클...맞으세요?" 그렇게 제 얼굴보고 종이보고 다시 얼굴보고 확인하는 식으로. 왜냐하면 전 백인인 줄 알았으니까요. 그래도 이력서, 통화로 좋은 첫인상을 만들었으니까 금정적으로 생각하나봐요.

요즘에도 많은 한국인들이 마음속에 역시 백인 피부를 끝까지 예배를 하려고 하는 사실을 그껴지고 있어요. 아무리 우리 미국이란 나라가 흑인 대통령이 생길 수 있는 가능성이 있더라도 한국에서는 꼭 "백인 어머니"때문이라고 생각하는 거네요. 만약에 콜린파울였다면? "피부색 그렇게 안 깜해" 그랬을 거죠, 조선일보? 콘딜리자라이스는? "자세히 조사하면 나타나지 않은 백인 조상의 유전들이 많다"고 하나요?

오바마는 미국 대통령이 될 수 있는데 역시 한국에서는 오바마는 학원강사도 될 수 없겠네요. 이런바 "흑인 말투" 때문이죠.

조선일보 진짜 대단한 신문이예요. "오바마, 미국인의 색안경 벗기다"고 말은 맞는데 한국은 아직.

대~한민국!

I just emailed the link to this post to the reporter who wrote the article. I wonder if they'll reply to my cheeky, overwrought, and impertinent broadside.

"Korean Sex Perverts Threaten American Youth"

Oh, were but turnabout really fair play...

A fantasy editorial from The American Herald, the USA's #1 newspaper:

RESTRICT KOREAN MALE STUDENT VISAS NOW!

"We join the Party Pooper in calling for IMMEDIATE changes to the visa regulations that allow low-quality and deranged Korean youth into the United States, without criminal background checks, without mental health evaluations, without any regulations at all.

South Koreans come from a country of low social mores, where the culture accepts practices such as "wonjo kyojae", where young girls are the objects of sexual desire, as found in groups such as 'The Wonder Girls' and 'Girls' Generation.'

In South Korea, a virtual living hell for children, with its inhumane college entrance examination, beatings and other bizarre punishments by teachers that anyone can find on YouTube, where suicide is the #1 cause of death for people in their teens and 20's, is it any coincidence that Korea has also become the #1 sender nation of students to the United States?

Why does the United States allow itself to be used as the trash bin for another nation's mentally unstable children? First, there was Cho Seung-hee, and now Hanse Park, who has admitted to molesting two small children, ages 4 and 6 years old. There is also Sung Soo Kim, who is a prime suspect in the disappearance of a college student and was found with thousands of "trophies" stolen from women, along with automatic handguns and semi-automatic rifles.

Obviously, South Korean culture is one that treats children as study machines and sexual objects. Understandably, in a culture such as this, they crack. That is South Korea's unique problem to solve.

But why should we accept the export of their problems to the United States?

The American Herald calls for the immediate embargo on visas to South Koreans wanting to come to the United States, as well call for a mandatory criminal background check, preliminary mental health evaluation to be conducted in the US Embassy in Seoul, and HIV tests for any Koreans wishing to obtain a study visa.

Without these restrictions, South Korea will continue to export its mentally ill youth to the United States, where their actions will bring harm to good American children everywhere.

South Korea has already tightened its visas in response to an American who did not even commit a sex crime in South Korea. However, Korean exchange students continue to molest, kidnap, and even kill American children.

Does the USA really need to continue to accept this indignity? This ongoing insult?

RESTRICT KOREAN MALES STUDENT VISAS NOW."

Ahhh. The irony. The un-funny thing is that this is EXACTLY the logic and rhetoric used by the South Korean press to vilify and target foreigners, painting us with a single, big brush. And the real ironic thing is that the child molester in question didn't even molest Korean kids – he just made his money here so he could go and sow his oats in the child prostitution market in Thailand.

What's the Korean press so darn worried about, then? And where the Korean press coverage of Hanse Park, which extends the actions of an individual to an entire group of people?

Although I could lie and say that I wished the US changed its visa regulations to unfairly and unreasonably restrict access to Korean students and subject them to undue scrutiny, I'm glad the standards of American journalism tend to have risen above those of blatant and unapologetic racial scapegoating.

Even if you don't buy that, at least somebody's out there crying "foul" on such bullshit.

So where are those people in South Korea? Ah – right. Believing everything the Korean newspapers say about the "dangerous foreigner."

[And I would love it if someone actually bit this particular piece of bait and confused it with something that actually didn't have tongue firmly in cheek. I'm ready to stir the waters – won't you help the cause? Hehe.]

"Conversation with an American Soldier"

Here's a Bomb English episode you all might be interested in, the first in our "Deep Conversation" series. In it, we talk to Mark, a major in the US Army, about his life and views on Korea. We think this to be a good conversation for many Korean listeners since most Koreans don't get the opportunity to hear directly from American soldiers,even though they are often very much talked about in the Korean media and over the proverbial water cooler.

Head on over to www.BombEnglish.com to take listen, download the file yourself, and get a transcript.

Goddamn Right!

Sorry to take the Lord's name in vain, but this is the response I've been waiting for. "Just words?"

Take that, Billary. Their nihilistic cynicism is just the kind of stuff that keeps politics down in the dirt, rather than as something lofty and that can actually make changes.

Dammit, our country needs this man. Does ANYONE talk this way? Does anyone have this much rhetorical sway these days? And CNN's feeble attempt to call this a "cult" is actually sad. What about a candidate being able to INSPIRE is "creepy?"

Wow, the attack is now on the fact that Obama can inspire – Billary's cynicism and venom in pulling out all the stops to stop Obama will backfire, in the same way it has been. Advice to Billary if they don't sweep the final few states is to quietly step aside and save their political legacy, rather than engage in futile, scorched-earth politicking that actually proves Obama's point, and him the "better man."

"아가야, 한번 더 날 때려줘!"

Yes, "hit me baby one more time" makes about as little sense in Korean translation as allegedly "non-sexual" Lolita references do.

This post is in reference to the conversation going on about this in this post and others related to girl groups in Korea...

In reference to Korea Beat's comment, far from giving Britney a free pass, my point has only been to point out that her "I'm not that innocent" thing with the stylized schoolgirl outfit, obviously lascivious dancing, and openly suggestive lyrics defined a style that totally played up on the Lolita fantasy. And it was done in such an overt and smart way that it actually made her dumb ass interesting, and her one-time quote "I'm no one's Lolita fantasy" all the more ridiculous, especially after the Rolling Stone piece on her, which had her dressed up in scandalously risque babydoll clothes and totally played up on the whole Lolita thing all the more.

Her managers/publicists were all much smarter than her, since Britney kind of didn't "get" herself...umm, herself. That first video was then followed up by the infamous red jumpsuit and more of the same. Britney wasn't a gay male favorite because she was playing her Lolita role "straight," to make a slight rhetorical pun.

However, Girls' Generation is a bunch of girls doing the same, while people maintain they're pure, clean, and cute, and everyone tries to erase and deny the blatant fact of their sexualization in that curiously Korean way that college freshman can click-clack to class in 5-inch hooker heels and a leather skirt and when asked if that might not to be too risque for class, people get defensive and indignant and call the gazer the pervert, while letting the main parlayer in and of the male gaze (the women totally subjecting herself to it) off the hook.

I'm saying, in other words, if you're going to truss up girls in miniskirt, white boots, thigh-hi stockings, pigtails, and lollipops, at least frickin' acknowledge what you're doing. Because 40-year-old ajussis – both here and in the land of Britney – are ogling the same kind of girls, using the same kind of imagery, but at least in the US, we admit it. Britney veritably defined the "Lolita figure" in an overt way, weird, but in the end, fun way – that's why a crossdressing man could enter win a Britney look-alike singing contest and win.

Trying to pass off the Wonder Girls and GG as "good, cute, and clean fun" while Korean ajussis are spanking into the Kleenex just as much as any American ajussi who had one hand on the remote while really trying to "hit it one more time" – that strikes me as disturbingly disingenuous, which is my point.

In Korea, it's an uphill battle to even prove the point that these girls are sex symbols at all (before even getting to the question of how appropriate that is for a flat-chested 15-year-old), whereas at least in America, we tend to admit our shit.

If we're going to be comparing Britney and Korean stars, that is, which people seem to tend to want to do.

I think it parallels the notion in idea that in Korea, people are all good, clean Confucians who don't do dirty things (but just save it for the love motels and leave that "skeleton bone" there – hehe, yes, I meant for a double entendre to be read there!), while Americans apparently hump everybody, according to everybody not American.

Just saying to Korean folks, RE: the Wonder Girls et al: why ya playing? Come on. Let's call a spade a spade, a Lolita lascivious. That's all I'm saying.

Yeah, I wouldn't kick any of the Wonder Girls outta bed, but I'd at least feel guilty for thinking so. Except So Hee – umm...jail bait? Ewww?

[source]

Koreans tell me, "But you have to admit she's pretty!" Yeah, she is. But yeah, I've met a lot of girls who, at the ages of 5, 9, 12, and 15 could be recognized as probably being "pretty" – when they grow up. But there's gotta be a line between "She'll be pretty when she's older" and "Man, that chick is hot. I wanna do her." I'm just saying that 1) So Hee being so obviously young amongst women doing pretty sexually suggestive dancing, and 2) the fact that she's apparently a "favorite" among many ajussis, coupled with the fact that 3) I haven't seen any criticism (perhaps I missed it?) in Korean public discourse of these disturbing facts – that all doesn't sit well with me.

Especially in a culture in which wonjo kyojae ("compensated dating" or less euphemistically, paying a middle/high school girl for sex while her motive is apparently usually spending money, not desperation) is such as clear problem, especially with the tastes for young girls apparently growing, if you read the Korean newspapers (it's an older reference, but a good example of when this problem has started being recognized as a major social problem – here's another discussion of the issue).

I'm saying that this kind of guilt at sexually gazing at young girls is what keeps the line between appropriate and inapproriate CLEAR. It's the blurring of that line that keeps social practices such as wonjokyojae going – not only do the men sexualize the girls, but the girls – at an earlier and earlier age – sexualize themselves.

And when people start thinking that videos such as these are OK...that's when I get worried. Because, if you believe lines should be drawn SOMEWHERE, videos such as these are simply NOT OK.

Of course, I'm displaying a typical American Puritanism about sex, but at least mine is thought out, whereas the parents who just think a 6-year-old gyrating in hoochie clothes on YouTube don't seem to have thought about their inherent rationale very much.

Yes, my puritanical skirt is indeed showing. As an American, Cotton Mather is my daddy, too.