Girls generation has been a very successful girl group among the K-pop groups following Hallyu’s grow and expansion in the worldwide. Their songs and works became especially popular and was a pioneer in leading the K-pop’s direction. One of their famous song “Mr.Mr.” has bring the audience a whole new concept through style switching and showing a strong independent women image. They had gained acceptance and were viewed as role models which allowed more opportunities to reach to more fans and expand their market.
One of the factors people are attracted to Hallyu is because the music videos since they are storytelling and interesting. K-pop has narrowed music videos to a specific style and encourage public watching by visual and auditory stimulation, a problem is that female is objectified and there is an idealized view of beauty (Unger2015:25). In this particular music video “Mr.Mr.”, it breaks the traditional woman image and roles which is pretty, cute or sexy. The girls had dressed in men-like suits with ties, belt and boots when dancing which is different comparing to the other girl groups. This is a fresh new appearance indicate and redefined that women can be powerful, independent and capable without showing their skin.The music video had attracted audiences from different level with fascinating content and settings to refreshing dressing styles and eye-catching choreography. First of all, the music video had well used different colors included the cloth color contrast of pink and black and the whole black and white screen color change in order to express the theme. The nurse suit was in pink to represent love and cure, the black suits during the dance break shows they want the “Mr.” become more brave and tough. Additionally, they also used several props to help deliver their message. For example, candles, needles, stethoscope, diamond heart and apple.
Without social media platforms impacts such as YouTube spreading of the worksof girl’s generation, there is a limit for them to communicate and interact with their fans internationally (Jung 2015:74). In their live performance of the song “Mr.Mr.”, they had wear different kind of suits and the choreography was well designed for the members. Male dancers were dancing along and there was constant shifting formation and a dance break which is fast, energetic but complicated moves. The signature moves in the song was a hand movement, it is repeated throughout the song and was impressive. The group choreography and changes of position provides pleasure sensory feedback for audiences, this is an important factor in K-pop. Girl’s generation as a group had showed Korean-ness of K-pop, industries provide music not only consider about the sounds but about the whole image with singers’ presence (Lee 2006:132). Performing as a group is one of the typical characteristic in K-pop due to the ability to attract more fans and combine the different members’ strengths together. Furthermore, there were combination of English sentences and words in the song which create trends ofcultural hybridization and globalization (Jin and Ryoo 2014:116). There were several usage of English such as title “Mr.Mr” was repeated throughout the video. Also lines such as “let’s go”, “bad boy” and “rock this world”. This has built a chance for them to connect with international fans and it reinforces people to memorize the simple words.
In conclusion, “Mr.Mr.” brought a distinct value that woman should have, Girls generation lead the K-pop world by adding new elements which are modernized culturally and ideologically. With their energetic and motivating image, they encourage more and more women to become independent and change the outdated judges of women. They are contributing their influence to change the society’s value and perspective to become better. As a result, this explains why they had lured fans from different gender and all over the world.
Bibliography
Jin, Dal Yong and Woongjae Ryoo. “Critical Interpretation of Hybrid K-Pop: The Global-Local Paradigm of English Mixing in Lyrics.” Popular Music and Society 37, no. 2 (2014): 113-131.
Jung, Eun-Young. “New Wave Formations: K-Pop Idols, Social Media, and the Remaking of the Korean Wave.” In Hallyu 2.0,edited by Lee, Sangjoon, Nornes, Abé Markus.73. Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 2015.
Lee, Hee-Eun. “Seeking the ‘others’ within us”. In mediasia: Global mediation in and out of context, edited by Todd Joseph, Miles Holden and Timothy J. Scrase. London: Routledge Taylor and Francis Group, 2006.
Unger, Michael A. “The Aporia of Presentation: Deconstructing the Genre of K-Pop. Girl Group Music Videos in South Korea: The Aporia of Presentation.” Journal of Popular Music Studies 27, no. 1 (2015): 25-47.