Miss Korea, released on May 5th, 2013. It had 1,559,957 views as of May 28th
and
Bad Girls, released on May 20th, 2013. It had 1,343, 397 views as of May 28th.
Overall impression:
Ruby: So for two music videos with such similar social
commentaries, Lee Hyori used fashion in completely different ways to emphasize
their points. Bad Girls plays on the sexy image of bad girls, while hinting at
the fact that most ‘sexy’ or ‘bad’ girls don't enjoy being overly sexualized
and many come from unhappy backgrounds. Miss Korea takes the opposite
stereotype of women and points out how society encourages women to have plastic
surgery and practice unhealthy habits to be prettier. Bad Girls uses pop colors along with black
and white, while the entire Miss Korea video is in black and white.
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| hyori and her bullies. |
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| plastic surgery. this is so how it works. |
Em: Both videos did communicate satire using fashion, Bad
Girls even more than Miss Korea. They used stereotypical, easily recognized
clothing styles to create a character for Lee Hyori that would enable her to
make a clearer point about society. The stylists also managed to make the
artist into two very different people using fashion, and both were believable.
Bad Girls was also in more of a comic style, which simplified the story-telling
to communicate better. Miss Korea was more typical, and some parts had the feel
of an old movie.
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| Comic book style and bastardized designers names. oh kpop. |
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| Very old movie like, almost james bond opener esque |
Other promotional Materials:
Ruby: Both songs use the clothing from the mv in the
teasers. For the stages, they continued to use the same clothes for Miss Korea.
The gowns made appearances, along with some of the skimpier leotards and
skintight dresses. But the dance is simple and it was more subtly sexy. For Bad
Girls, they switched it up a bit. Each stage featured heavy jewelry along with
skirts with huge slits up both sides. She wore heavy makeup with a strong brow
and extremely dark lipstick. This complemented the sexy dance, but kept her
appropriately covered. The styling was extremely consistent and simple, but
fresh and clean.
 |
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| swimsuit portion is 99% of your score~ |
Em: Some of the stages for Bad Girls deviated from the music
video in that they included things like a bright red dress, which still stayed
with the general style but mixed it up a bit. A lot of the promotions for Bad
Girls had knee-length dresses with slits on each side in black and white for
both Lee Hyori and the backup dancers. They often had highly detailed tops with
various sparkly things for the artist herself.
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| the red dress in question. |
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| leg slits and fishnets. NOTHING SEXUAL HERE. |
Continuity:
Ruby: Both videos excelled in continuity. For Miss Korea,
the black and white carry over helped. She portrayed different beauty ideals
throughout fashion history including a burlesque show, a supremes-esque singing
trio and a scene that was distinctly beyonce, single ladies, inspired. It was
very well thought through and didn’t feel scattered or disconnected even though
she switched outfits frequently. As for Bad Girl, she changed clothes as she
aged, as expected. As an adult she wears a few outfits that carry strong
statements, including the hyper-sexual animal print set and the kinky-cop
costume.
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| If you liked it then you should put..... Nope wrong song. |
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| burlesque-esque take on sexy |
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| Oh so kinky. |
Em: Agreed…for the most part these videos had great
continuity. They even were continuous with each other in some ways, despite the
differing specific styles. Though the ‘bad girl’ image and the ‘Miss Korea’ image
are very different, the idea was in the same vein. I was a little surprised
when Miss Korea did the disorienting black and white patterns on both outfit
and wall, but it made more sense in the context of the prison uniforms and the
change wasn’t too drastic due to the continuation of black and white.
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| Vacuuming and Ironing, Hyori's entry in the talent portion of the pageant. |
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| You are feeling very sleeeeeeepyyyyy..... |
Band’s Overall Image:
Ruby: Hyori is one of those artist who has been around for
so long that she’s had pretty much any concept you can think of more than once.
Between a long and successful solo career and her time with Fin.K.L. she has
explored aegyo, sexy, badass, good girl and many many other concepts. Even
aliens. Oh yeah. Go watch Chitty Chitty Bang Bang if you haven’t. It’s worth
it. She has often ridden the line between appearing sexist and making a social
commentary because of her sexuality and beauty. For me it tends toward social
commentary, but that's more opinion.
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| From Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, aliens have great fashion sense |
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| Oh Fin.K.L. oh dear. |
Em: The sexist vs. social commentary thing really depends on
your opinion, and it’s difficult to tell based on some of the videos. For
instance, U Go Girl could either be interpreted as a message to dress in a way
that will make you feel confident and that you can be beautiful too, or that
the only way to get the guy you want is to change yourself to be like the girls
on tv…slightly conflicted messages. I would like to be optimistic, though, and
assume she’s using her fame and sexiness to communicate legitimately good
messages. If so, yay!
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| I'm gonna go with empowerment! You can be any kind of sexy you want! |
Trends in K-POP:
Ruby: I really think Hyori focused on the point she wanted
to make rather than the clothing she was wearing and how it fit into the
current market stylistically. Hyori is beautiful and looks good in practically
anything, so its hard to say that sexy is a theme. Heavy makeup and messy hair
has definitely been prominent recently, however once again, I think the
stylists were much more concerned with communicating a point than fitting in
with both videos. Feminism is on the rise though, so I guess the empowerment is
a good message to take away.
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| Wind blown hair and lots of makeup |
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| Hyuna in Ice Cream, messy hair and heavy makeup |
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| From Miss A's, I Don't Need a Man |
Em: I thought it was interesting the way she portrayed some
trends in a satirical light. This especially happened in Bad Girls, when the
people who dressed up in outfits that could easily be the legitimate fashion in
another artist’s MV became the enemies of Lee Hyori.
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| Hyori on the right, silently hating her brightly colored antagonists |
Conclusion:
Ruby: It's a strong showing. The clothing and styling really
makes a strong point by adding to the lyrics and story lines. Her movement from
cute kid to stripper cop and just plain stripper in Bad Girls is really
effective while the contradiction between classiness and her actions in Miss
Korea are also meaningful. More than enjoying the clothing or feeling inspired
by it, I was transported by it. I think I believed her more because of it. All
I have to say is: U Go Girl. (GO WATCH THAT TOO, OKAY?)
Em: I enjoyed the layering of meaning, with the fact that on
the surface most of the outfits could just be “Lee Hyori being sexy” (which is
good for promotions) but also have an underlying purpose in the storyline and a
commentary (which makes it more interesting).
Either way, fashion was used cleverly and with intent and continuity, so
good job stylists.
Daily Dose of Daebak:
Enrgish and hello kitty boxers
Drag queens
In her mug shot in Bad Girls she’s apparently almost 7’
tall. Larger than life? I think so.
That old man sure likes checkers. Yup. Focus of a zen master.
Leave us a comment and give us some lovin'.
Or maybe even tell us, which do you prefer, Bad Girl-Hyori or Beauty Queen-Hyori?
Also keep an eye out for a post about Ruby and Em's trip to anime boston, because japanese street fashion is super cool too.
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