Cultural Appropriation in “La Song”
Rain steps on the top of Hallyu in 2000’s with his albums and Hollywood movie before he did the military services. His ambition towards the global platform and preparing a new album Rain Effect when coming back in 2014. However, the music video of “LA Song” in this album has been complained by some audiences. Withe the increasing development of K-pop worldwide, the issue of stereotypes in music video is exposed. Incorrect perception of different cultures and cultural appropriation are shown in this video which promote negative values to audiences.
At the beginning of video, Rain appeared in a crowded, damp street delivering pork to a shop. His appearance attracted everyone’s attention. In this background, there are a group of black people gambling.It might tend to show the chaotic environment because there are full of dust, goods, and black people dancing. Rain might want to show the Hip-hop and American pop by utilizing color people who “represents” those images. In this situation, appropriation seems to be limited to a certain context while culture is more flex and complex (Tendai 2018: 2). Rain and his video producer failed to exhibit the background of hip-hop and send a inflexible image to people who hardly get into hip-hop culture. Jason suggests “a denial of the salience of race in their own lives, the strong majority of concertgoers use color-blind ideology to justify their participation in a local hip-hop scene” (2006: 646).
The most controversial example spread among audiences at 1.49: Rain kisses a black woman and her shadow shows her breast and butt enlarged suddenly. From his lyrics, what Rain represents in this video is a successful man who can lead anyone around him and his leadership in this case is activating the exaggerated sexuality of the woman. Richard pointed that tension exists between the culture of colonization and capitalism (Richard 2006: 474). According to the colonial history of Africa, it might contain the power of controlling and debasing black woman’s body shape. This action might encourage children watching this video to discriminating and bullying other people. Meanwhile, fans around the world will be disappointed about this video and ordinary people might have negative attitude towards K-pop.
In the rest of the video, there is a traditional Brazilian woman with face paint doing crazy dancing. With head twisting quickly, this Brazilian dancer’s movement tend to do a sacrifice. And people around Rain seems to become his courtiers. With black people dancing around, Rain stared to showing his hip-hop. He uses black people to build an atmosphere of Black culture in order to make this video more credible. “Korean rappers believe ‘If I use English or I say the N word, if I imitate this aspect of black music, or black culture, people are going to like me more’. However, people ‘lose respect’ for this ‘pure ignorance’”(Here 2017: 7). Brock finds that people value and comment on black people through media who should be responsible for the correct aesthetic arguments about their appearance and worth (Brock 2010:1058).
In conclusion, cultural appropriation and incorrect cognition about black culture shown in La Song reflects a series concern about the way of culture mixing and borrowing in K-pop.
References:
Mangena, Tendai. “Cultural appropriation and (mis) translation in Petina Gappah’s ‘Washington’s wife decides enough is enough’.” African Identities (2018): 1-13
Rogers, Richard A. “From cultural exchange to transculturation: A review and reconceptualization of cultural appropriation.” Communication Theory 16, no. 4 (2006): 474-503.
Rodriquez, Jason. “Color-blind ideology and the cultural appropriation of hip-hop.” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 35, no. 6 (2006): 645-668.
Hare, Sarah, and Andrea Baker. “Keepin’It Real: Authenticity, Commercialization, and the Media in Korean Hip Hop.” SAGE Open 7, no. 2 (2017): 2158244017710294.
Brock, André, Lynette Kvasny, and Kayla Hales. “Cultural appropriations of technical capital: Black women, weblogs, and the digital divide.” Information, Communication & Society13, no. 7 (2010): 1040-1059.