The once-respected theater director Lee Yoon-taek was imprisoned on sexual assault charges, and the poet Ko Un, once considered a candidate for the Nobel Prize in literature, was accused of sexual harassment by several younger female writers. Similar cases have rippled across Korean culture before, like actress Jang Ja-yeon’s death from suicide after claiming that several high-ranking entertainment executives abused her. The current scandal is shocking only because most people, including K-pop fans, are oblivious to the systemic problems in South Korean life, especially in matters of gender inequality and the widespread commodification of sexuality.” “K-pop stars are believed by many of their fans to be kind and gentle, unlike non-K-pop stars, and K-pop managers seek to maintain the myth. “This is a whole other beast, since it's not about one man's bad temper or sexual assault, but almost an industrialized state of things where many powerful men were enabled and bolstered up by their status to partake in illegal activities.” “K-pop fans are both shocked and dismayed, but I think for many it is almost cathartic since the visage of K-pop, and Korea's entertainment industry in general, is so tightly based on a sense of propriety and clean-cut personas,” said Tamar Herman, founder of the K-pop site KultScene and a journalist who covers K-pop for Billboard. It’s likely no coincidence that the Burning Sun allegations echo a larger problem with furtive spy-cam porn in South Korea. The modern K-pop “idol” management system first arose after the major label SM Entertainment ran damage control after a breakout star was caught with marijuana. The scandal has revealed a sordid underbelly in the strictly mediated industry, where K-pop stars’ personal lives are rigorously controlled by their record labels, with no room for dissent or screw-ups. Some messages allegedly discussed raping women at the club. Soon after, outlets alleged that several K-pop celebrities had shared sexually explicit hidden camera footage from inside the club in a private message group. Seoul police charged Seungri with mediating prostitution and other crimes. In late January, after closed circuit television footage of a man’s assault at Burning Sun circulated, South Korean news outlets published text messages allegedly from Seungri, one of the nightclub’s board members, asking staff to hire prostitutes for investors. It really disturbs me that some of the women spoken about in the chats between Seungri, Jung Joon-young and others may have been fans discarded and demeaned by the men they adored.”
The message seems to be that women are valued for being sexualized props.
“K-pop is choking with sexual objectification. “This scandal demonstrates how women are being treated as objects in Korean society,” said CedarBough Saeji, a postdoctoral fellow in Korean studies at University of British Columbia and a scholar of contemporary Korean culture.
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