Video Analysis: Hello

South Korea is widely considered to have low gender equality (World Economic Forum 2018). Korean women are generally expected to be submissive, fragile, pure, and innocent (Lin and Rudolf 2017: 28) in the patriarchal and androcentric society. Some scholars blame K-pop for reinforcing it with the reproduction of gender stereotypes, which is pervasive in K-pop content, and negatively influencing fans (Ibid.). However, the music video of Nu'est's 'Hello' seemingly sought for an unconventional portray of male idols, where some members of Nu'est are depicted as vulnerable and submissive and juxtaposed with female actors instead of other more powerful objects. Benjamin (2017), a journalist for Billboard, regards it, along with interviews and advertisement around the same period, as a move to challenge gender roles. In this essay, I will decompose the techniques in the video to create the submissive image and argue that this is an attempt of unthoughtful marketing choice that simply reverses the conventional gender roles rather than challenged it.

The song 'Hello' is the title track of Nu'est's second mini album. The lyrics are in a second-person narrative that explicitly expressing worry and care to their "girlfriend" and also showing an unsecured feeling with their relationship. It should be remembered that such a message can be easily noticed and comprehended by the audience.

In the video, one member, Ren, has a conspicuously feminine character. He appears with long golden hair and is dressed in a white fluffy cardigan in his individual scene. His individual scene setting is a bright living room with white and light color furniture. The color scheme is an obvious attempt to depict the pureness of Ren. Moreover, he is lying on the lap of a female character, and she is gently touching his hair while gazing at him with affection. The camera gives many close-up shots to his beautiful and androgynous face. Later, he is physically attacked by the female character in a quarrel scene without fighting back. In both scenes, Ren remains almost static and is reduced to the object to be acted upon. After the girl left him, a shot resembling fragmentation is used to emphasize his teardrop. The camera only captured his lips and half of his left cheek with a teardrop wondering down on his face. These scenes indeed portrayed an unconventional image of man, but it is achieved only by simply applying feminine traits to male actors and capture those traits with techniques that are commonly used for female actors.

Other camera manipulation in the music video further enriched the character of the domestic man. In Minhyun's individual scene, he is shot from a high-angle, showing worried look and seeing directly into the camera. According to Livingston (1958: 52), a high-angle shot gives the audience a feeling of strength and makes the subject appear weaker. Minhyun, therefore, is portrayed as a submissive person that is dominated by his "girlfriend" according to the lyrics. The effect is even amplified with the camera-mediated "eye-contact". At the end of the video, several members are posed together with the girl to imply their inability to surrender the girl to others even though she is cheating on everyone. The infidelity and dominance of the female character is repeatedly emphasized in order to contrast the vulnerability of Nu'est members.

In conclusion, it is obvious that the unconventional portray of gender in the music video is a simple reverse of gender stereotype traits, where women are dominant and disloyal and men are vulnerable and submissive. It does not encourage reflection on the negative side of current gender roles. On the contrary, if the audience is disturbed by such depiction, they may unconsciously form a positive conclusion about the current gender roles. Therefore, this music video concept is considered as an unthoughtful marketing attempt with the sheer interests of catching eyeballs with bold but errant concepts.

References

Benjamin, Jeff. "10 Reasons NU'EST Was Always Worth Your Attention." Billboard. October 17, 2017. https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/k-town/7998473/why-nuest-was-always-worth-your-attention(accessed 4/11/2019).

Lin, Xi, and Robert Rudolf. "Does K-pop Reinforce Gender Inequalities? Empirical Evidence from a New Data Set." Asian Women 33, no. 4 (2017): 27-54.

Livingston, Donald. Film and the Director. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1958.

World Economic Forum. The Global Gender Gap Report 2018. Geneva: World Economic Forum, 2018.