"GANGNAM STYLE" deserves its own thread

There is a dark side of this code of humor as well. In the current day American pop culture, it is ok to laugh at Asians doing strange things. (Think Ken Jeong's character in the Hangover series.) On a certain level, PSY -- a pudgy, funnily-dressed Korean man -- is a comfortable target to laugh at. This is not to say that people who enjoy Gangnam Style all have a sinister, racist motive. This is only to say that people's motives as they approach a certain phenomenon are complex and multitudinous, and not all of them are necessarily positive.

this is a blazing otm and apparently difficult for people to understand

That last sentence hedges so much it's difficult for me to understand how it could be blazingly right or wrong.

it is more the general idea of the thing -- it is possible for individuals to enjoy this, but the nature of cultural phenomena demands introspection

chubby dorky guy doing silly dance is funny. pretty sure of zach galifinakis had done same song, it'd still be equally (and equivalently) funny and the greeks wouldn't be upset. of course, they probably can't afford to get upset right now.

because zach galifinakis definitely codes as nonwhite, and is a greek native?

i mean he's basically a minotaur

because americans have a history of stereotyping greek men as asexual clowns?

I don't think Psy comes across as asexual in the video - clownish, I guess, in that ridiculous things happen, but otoh he seems to be in control of the chaos around him.

don't get trolled, zach

the point doesn't lie in what's literally in the video but in how the video is treated by the same masses of americans who consider ken jeong in the hangover to represent the height of what asian men can offer the west

xp

again, the idea is that it's ok to find gangnam style awesome and funny, but it's important to wonder why IT is the k-pop song that crossed over rather than any of the previous of k-pop songs that went out of their way try to cross over. it sort of further cements the idea that asian men can't have success in the west unless they're making us laugh.

look, i'm being glib but not outright trolling –

the song is popular, as far as i can tell, because

1) it's got a funny, replicable, and immediately identifiable dance move
2) it's a sprightly song very much in the same (albeit non-greco but hanguk-in-ian) vein as 'party rock'
3) the accompanying video is bouncy, confectionary, surprising, and oddly lavish
4) the character is a delightfully doughy korean man-child surrounded by models, expensive cars, and gorgeous vistas that clash with his everyman/everyboy affect
5) as far as i can tell, it's entirely, unmistakably parodic.

<i>chubby dorky guy doing silly dance is funny. pretty sure of zach galifinakis had done same song, it'd still be equally (and equivalently) funny and the greeks wouldn't be upset. of course, they probably can't afford to get upset right now.</i>

Well we did have this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2bCc0EGP6U

I wonder if Daniel Dae-Kim is sitting in Hawaii on set going "fuck you, Ken Jeong"

nobody looks at zach galifniakis and thinks "hey look at this greek dude"

Greek ppl do

DD-K is a pretty exceptiony exception, no?

what i'm saying, maybe ineptly, is it's hard for me to believe that the HAHA SILLY ASIAN laughs trump (in cultural currency, or in ranking of people's motivating factors in watching the video) the HAHA SILLY CHUBBO laughs or the HAHA STUPID DANCING or the HAHA WTF ODDBALL laughs or the HAHA I ACTUALLY KIND OF LIKE THIS SONG audience

Oh I have no doubt that "lol funny Asian" is the cornerstone of this song's success; the important part is that this impulse is generating money for Psy and leading to a recognition of the song as a piece of cultural trivia that's going to be a hallmark of future VH-1 broadcasts for decades to come

I'm not sure it's analytically separable xp

it occurs to me at this late date that i haven't seen any translations of this song

― goole, Wednesday, September 26, 2012 12:27 PM (8 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

gonna be a bummer when it turns out to be "BEVERLY HILLS, THAT'S WHERE I WANNA BE"

IOW if the song didn't have anything going for it BUT "lol funny Asian", no one would actually care

I've always been disappointed at the fuss over Old Boy and the lack of love for Grandma Cop
http://pds19.egloos.com/pds/201010/27/03/b0007603_4cc82299e6a54.jpg

xp to soda: then you're an optimistic one. but all of those factors can coexist and they can all serve as major causes behind it becoming a potential #1 hit with a potential 300 million YT views. and if HAHA SILLY ASIAN is one of those factors, that is an important thing that demands commentary. and it's not like those other reasons all lack intersections with SILLY ASIAN.

i can plausibly imagine something similar happening with a non-English pop song by a white European, but there'd still be some element of otherizing 'lol other languages/cultures' element even if you took out race.

true (i remember listening to the streets in high school and certain friends could not stop giggling at the idea of a british rapper) but that doesn't mean that race isn't a big factor with PSY

-people's motives as they approach a complex phenomenon are complex and multitudinous
-not all are necessarily positive, some are sinister and racist
-the benign motives aren't separable from the sinister ones

Where does the commentary go from here?

yelling about it on the internet

i wasn't saying race isn't a factor, just disagreen with Dan's "IOW if the song didn't have anything going for it BUT 'lol funny Asian', no one would actually care"

i mean if an white american guy did basically the same (insane and expensive-looking) video for the same song w/ english lyrics, it might not be the meme of the year but it'd at least be the meme of the week

what's up rebecca black

anyway pretending to pull out discrete & separate reasons why it's a hit is nice and all but there's no denying that in reality, the success is probably due to the totality of all of those factors working together and race isn't really extricable at all

would it surprise me if a majority of americans who love gangnam style would also find this funny?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2f13chid8Y

(from an american tv show currently still in production as of 2012)

anyway pretending to pull out discrete & separate reasons why it's a hit is nice and all but there's no denying that in reality, the success is probably due to the totality of all of those factors working together and race isn't really extricable at all

would it surprise me if a majority of americans who love gangnam style would also find this funny?

i don't know that there are a majority of americans who love gangnam style. there are a bunch who appreciate it as flavor of the week, buut...

a lot of the so-called fans are <18 years old, and like the silly dance.

i still think SILLY CHUBBO IN EXPENSIVE OVERWROUGHT VIDEO is more motivating than SILLY ASIAN but then again, I'm an optimist on these things. (Otherwise I'd be mad about Sofia Vergara)

it really takes an optimist to believe that the truth is as simple as "America loves boobs"

Well, on the HAHA SILLY (ETHNICITY/RACIAL/NATIONAL IDENTITY) front, how come she gets waved under the bar while while chubby dancing Korean guy skips morosely at the back of the line?

i don't really care about this very much, except as it made me sad that i couldn't innocently enjoy the funny chunky-man skipping about like a two-dollar dingus on new year's day

I don't think his weight is a huge part of the video or its appeal either, you seem a bit fixated on it.

haven't there been plenty of lol euro trash memes over the years? I agree w/ remy, could see some eastern european or turkish or indian person doing this exact same song w/ the exact same video.

there's nothing particularly asian about it, even the music sounds like it could be from anywhere. trashy music videos are global.

i find all this discussion strange, he's got a roundish head but you guys are talking about him like he's ceelo or something

i'm not fixated on the weight, it's just that it's a funnier (and more noticable) component than the geographical component, for my money.

(i remember listening to the streets in high school and certain friends could not stop giggling at the idea of a british rapper)

smh at this clown

http://www.stompandflow.com/images/slick-rick-bling.jpg

the point has already been made (and far be it from me to add to this shitstorm) but psy is not overweight

there's nothing particularly asian about it, even the music sounds like it could be from anywhere. trashy music videos are global.

― iatee, Wednesday, September 26, 2012 9:53 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark

the point is that it slots really, really easily into preexisting ways in which asians are portrayed in american media

hyper sexed dancers?

I think his charisma is way more of a factor in the appeal of the video than anything HAHA ASIAN. He's got a great swagger about him and pulls of some really hilarious dance moves while maintaining an amazing deadpan.

lol the horsey dance = hyper sexed dance?

dude checking out a girl's ass = basically the polar opposite of how Asian males portrayed in American culture

and that's exactly the part of the video that everybody's miming

I can only speak for myself