Hey, what's up? So, this video is pretty, um, fine most of
the time but there are some mentions of things like sexual assault. I will put a timestamp and stuff if you wanna
skip it. I get it. Just wanted to let you know before you go into it without expecting anything because
there are things and there's also stuff. I don’t like using the word underrated. I think it’s pretty much lost its meaning and some people apply it to things that aren’t
at all underrated. That being said, White: The Melody of the
Curse or Melody of Death depending on who you ask
is, well kind of underra-- It’s a 2011 film following members of the
Pink Dolls, a K-pop girl group that has become increasingly
unpopular and whose members are fighting for relevance. Not only is it a creative horror movie but it also provides a lot of interesting
and daring commentary about the music industry, specifically the K-pop industry, as a whole. From the hunger for fame, fanbases that border on dangerous and the higher ups in the industry who take
advantage of and exploit young talent. Ten years ago, when this movie was released into theaters, I’m not sure that many people saw it as
anything more than a horror movie that just happened to take place in the K-pop
world but even back then, behind ghosts and blood-curdling deaths, the movie was a scathing critique of the entertainment
industry. So, let's talk about it. When I first saw this movie, I thought it was the most scathing critique
of K-pop and the music industry that I had seen in
a mainstream film and fast forward ten years and it’s still the most scathing critique
of the K-pop industry that I’ve seen in a mainstream film. The movie starts with the Pink Dolls, a quartet girl group, preparing to perform on one of those music
variety shows like Music Bank or Inkigayo. They’re pretty nervous because at this point in their career, they know that people have not really enjoyed
their music, their cute concept has come to be detested
by many (we’ll come back to that later) and they’re up against an incredibly popular
group Pure. By the way, if you look at Pure, you can see that it’s made up of members
from After School. Love that for me. The leader of the group Eunju is the oldest member and used to be a backup
dancer, facts that no one in her group will let her
forget. She’s also been a trainee longer than anyone. For the uninformed, in K-Pop, usually people don’t just sign with a record
label and start to release music right away. They undergo years of rigorous training, honing their dancing and their singing before they’re even considered for a musical
debut or even to be in a group. In many cases, people will go into a company as a trainee and never actually have a debut at all. So, getting attention and signing with a label doesn’t really guarantee anything. After the Pink Dolls lose the competition, they move into a new studio and start to prepare
their plan to improve as a group. They have one more shot before they’re relegated
to hosting the shows that no one watches anymore, a death sentence for idols fading in popularity. A showcase of has-beens, could-have-beens
and never wases. It’s in this studio with an eerie past that
Eunju finds an old videotape. A distorted and low quality video of an old
girl group performing a song that’s as creepy as it
is memorable. There’s something forbidden and hypnotizing
about it, the allure of a distant past. The song is a bop though. So, of course, they end up stealing it. The Pink Dolls prepare for an entirely new
image, no longer cute but deadly. They perform the song at one of those music
shows and the crowd loses their shit. For the first time in a while, the Pink Dolls
are relevant. Not just relevant but important. They’re famous again. People are screaming their names again. People are looking them up again. The attention satiates a long-lasting hunger. But as the members fight over who gets to
be the lead for their new single, some weird shit starts happening. Whoever is chosen to be the lead ends up harmed
in a super violent way until there’s only one person left well
enough to perform the single alone. The song is cursed. Three of the members end up in horrible accidents
that leave them hospitalized and their label is like, “What do you mean
she can’t perform after breaking her neck, what the fuck are you on about?” Eunju’s really the only one with sense so
she’s convinced early on that some shit is about to go down and she does her duty to figure out exactly
what that shit is, aided by her best friend and ex-girl group
trainee Soonye. And, uh, okay, fine I don't wanna spoil the ending much. Now that we’ve established what the hell
is going on, let’s appreciate what the hell is going
on. There are a lot of movies about the music
industry but White is one of the few that appropriately captures the horrors of being
an idol, of being famous, specifically in the K-pop industry. If you’re even vaguely familiar with the
music industry, or any entertainment industry, you know that oftentimes, it’s exploitative as hell. Not just in K-pop. Music labels are notorious for trapping young
artists into what has been dubbed a slave contract. Which is exactly what it sounds like. It’s not uncommon to hear stories, whether from the doowop era of the ‘50s
or the hip hop and pop eras from the ‘90s and today, about young people from underserved communities
being plucked out of obscurity and out of poverty, given a record contract then being held in artistic or financial prison. It’s also common to hear stories about record
labels and managers leeching off of artists who are effectively treated as products, taking all of the money they earn and giving them like twelve cents for everything
they’ve achieved. The moment that TLC made their own trouble
with their record label public knowledge, after winning their Grammys no less, is still incredibly iconinc and still, sadly,
relevant. Chilli: I'll tell it. We're not gonna sugarcoat anything anymore. We've been quiet long enough. Can I get a amen? T-Boz and Left Eye: AMEN! Chilli: Alright! Chilli: We are the biggest selling female
group ever. Chili: We have been in this business for five
years. T-Boz: Five years! Chili: And we are broke as broke can be. In the K-Pop industry, music stars are not called artists or musicians. Instead, they’re called idols. And under their contracts and the companies that represent them, they become things to sell, not human beings. As a product, they have to maintain one image
of the ideal heterosexual sex object. A lot of idols are put under these intense, dangerous diets to maintain a very thin or
lean frame. Labels often ask their trainees to undergo
plastic surgery; some idols will even do so beforehand, knowing their physical appearance is just
as crucial, if not more so, than their talent. To maintain slim body figures, idols are subjected to restrictive diets and
intense exercise regimen. Once forced to lose 7 kilograms in one week, Momo, a member of Twice, only ate one ice cube while keeping up with
exercise and training. Many idols have also fainted during concerts, only to be carried off stage by managers who expect them to resume the same intensity
of activities after recovering. When a person becomes a trainee of a company, they not only practice every day and night, they not only go on strict diets but they move into dormitories owned by the
record company. They’re kept watch over while the company
goes about grooming them for debut. It’s a very intense thing to undergo and it’s not surprising that many Kpop trainees
decide it, the fame and the money they don’t actually
have access to until after they debut, is no longer worth it. Every single one of these things is expressed
in White. At the time, it may have just sounded like, oh cool, a horror movie about K-pop girl groups but I think the people involved, especially the actual idols like Eunjung from
T-ara, knew what it was about. From abusive management, unrealistic expectations, wasting years of your life as a trainee, the competition for fame, the abuse of fame and even something as subtle as the industry’s
hatred for femininity. The Pink Girls and the disdain for them and
their concept is a nice portrayal of Kpop fandoms and their
disdain or hypercriticism of girl groups. Like with literally anything, K-pop fandoms can be very harsh on the girl
groups. Boy groups tend to get a pass for pretty much
anything but girl groups? Not so much. And don’t let the girl group be hyperfeminine because people have an even bigger problem
with that. They want their girl groups to be feminine but not too feminine so cute concepts like these are often dismissed. Spend a little bit of time on WaybackMachine, find an archive of a Kpop fanpage on Tumblr and you’ll quickly see how many fans, even young girls, hate anything that’s happy and cute. It’s not because these fans have a disdain
for things that are upbeat and adorable, they love the upbeat songs made by boy groups but if it’s a girl group being cute, they will not hesitate to tell you how much
they hate it. And it’s not because cute concepts are inherently
negative. People may claim that a cute concept infantilizes
the group but that’s not always the case. I’d say it’s rarely the case actually. A cute concept is just bright clothes, bright set design, things that are considered girly like lots
of pinks and lots of glitter, and sometimes frilly dresses. Cute isn’t about dressing like a little
girl, it’s about bright colors and lots of energy. Like, Orange Caramel was all cute concepts but they were also kind of weird. I mean, they’re food in this video. God, I miss Orange Caramel. What was I saying? Oh yeah. Internalized misogyny sucks. Girls and women are taught to be feminine,
but at the same time things that are traditionally "girly" or feminine are made fun of, which is why a lot of women try to distance
themselves from that stuff. With the Pink Dolls, everyone stops cheering during their first
performance. And then when they come back with this badass
song, they don’t enjoy the performance just because
of the song but also because the cute concepts, all that girly shit is out of the way. Now they’re tough and edgy and sexy -- but not too sexy because if you have a concept that’s too
sexy, they’ll call you a slut and ban your music
video. Cannot stress enough how this is not just
prevalent in K-pop and how we see it all the time in other entertainment
industries in the west, even. I feel like oftenti-- [interrupting microwave] Sorry, that's my microwave. I feel like oftentimes, when people critique
K-pop and the exploitative nature of the industry, there's, um, a hint of xenophobia in the way
they discuss it. They kind of ignore all the problems that
exist in western entertainment industries and they tend to just put it off on, "This
is what they do *over there*" Um, as if Britney Spears, Prince and Metallica
don't exist. Or Chester Bennington, even. Chester: I don't know if most people have
seen long form contracts. They're insane. And there's all these little... These little things thrown in. It's kind of like legislating, you know, like,
legislature for a government. They put up this big issue but underneath
that issue, there's, like, seventeen other little laws that they threw in that they're not talking about. So, when you say yes to this one thing, you're actually saying yes to, like, forty-five
other things. All the people who have ever said anything
about how... soul-crushing the music industry is -- from western artists, I mean, uh, they kind of just ignore that and say,
like, it's *just* K-pop So I want to be clear: it's not. Um, entertainment industries are kind of extremely
exploitative. In White, the leader of the group The Pink
Dolls, Eunju is friends with a music teacher who used to
be a trainee but gave it all up. She also has a really important line here
about the lifespan of an idol, So, idols spend all of this time and money
training for debut and sometimes their debut and sometimes if it does happen, especially for female idols, their career is quickly cut short the older
they get. 27-year-old female Kpop idols are treated like their senior citizens. The contracts that idols sign, sometimes when they’re as young as twelve
or thirteen, dictate that they will not make money until
after they debut or, in worse cases, until they’ve paid off
all of their “trainee debt” and sometimes then, they still don’t get
paid enough to make ends meet. Idols will work for years post debut before they even see a paycheck and sometimes idols barely make any money
at all, regardless of their debut or success. Girl group AOA famously received income for
their work three years after their debut despite seeing so much recognition and success. And on top of all that, sexual abuse and exploitation is far from
being unheard of. In July of 2020, a rookie girl group named Yellowbee was disbanded and dropped from their company. Their agency claimed that a member was being
too promiscuous and that's the reason they had to disband But a member of the group, Ari, wrote a lengthy
post on her Instagram account detailing the truth of what was
going on behind the scenes. In 2009, the
Korean entertainment industry was tremendously shaken by the sudden death of
a very popular drama actress Jang Jayeon. She passed at the age of twenty-six. But before her death, she had spent days drafting
up this very lengthy letter, pages and pages long, detailing the abuse that she experienced at
the hands of her agent. According to her note, Jayeon's management
forced her to have sex with a significant number of higher ups in the industry. Pretty early on in the movie, Eunju is told
by her manager that the reason they got this new studio and dormitory was because of someone
called Mr. Choi. Initially, we don’t know the details of
what they’re discussing until Eunju goes to see Mr. Choi and we realize what her manager has been talking
about this whole time was the prospect of Eunju having sex with
the group’s sponsor to guarantee them more fame and more money. This is definitely not the first time the
topic has been broached and definitely not the first time Eunju has
refused. A lot of the members have animosity for her because she’s the oldest and she's the leader and she’s been a trainee for the longest but when their fame starts to wane, they also resent her for not sleeping with
their sponsor. It’s so commonplace that the girls are actually angry at her thinking she’s in the wrong. They pile on and pile on and it’s emotionally exhausting just to
watch. It’s not just representative of the very
real bullying and emotional abuse that happens in dormitories and within groups but it’s a precursor the abuse idols often
receive from their own fans. And, of course, anti fans. Whether it’s the companies representing
them or the “fans” supporting them, idols deal with a lot of emotional and physical
abuse. Some trainees have told stories about having
their phone taken away upon arrival to the dormitory, of being abused if they couldn’t keep their
weight down or if they didn’t train hard enough and of being harassed by their managers and even fellow trainees. In White, Shinji is hit more than once for
asking for time off and then later for insulting the manager, the abusive manager. In the Kpop industry, trainees sometimes experience abuse from people
within their company and this abuse often goes unreported because people are afraid of “biting the
hand that feeds them” or appearing ungrateful for the opportunity. People will often take in stride for the chance
to be an idol. It’s really tragic the way these trainees, again, they’re often kids, are manipulated and harmed so frequently. And this abuse, be it physical or mental, doesn’t go away when someone becomes an
idol and gets the fame and the acclaim they’ve been wanting. No, it quadruples with fans and anti fans. Fandoms are fine, fandoms are fun, it’s nice to talk with a bunch of people
about something you all enjoy. But there’s a point, as with any sort of
group, when a fandom becomes so big that it becomes
insufferable. It’s not the grandiosity of the fandom that
makes it a problem but the amount of horrible people within the
fandom who become quite vocal. These... Okay, ugh, i’m gonna say it -- toxic. These toxic people are a minority within the
fandom but they’re really vocal which makes it
seem, especially to people who aren’t in the fandom, that the entirety of the fandom is as toxic as the vocal minority. A high celebrity status creates fans who go
beyond being a fan into being a stan, yes I’m using Eminem’s definition of Stan. I even got a tattoo of your name across the
chest Where they become a danger to themselves and
to others. In the movie, you see some of this horror
play out when Shinji takes part in this reality, survive the night TV show. She runs outside and is immediately swallowed
by a group of fans. Then a freak accident causes her to be lifted
out from the crowd by her hair and while she’s hanging there, instead of trying to help her, they all clamor for a piece of her almost
like a souvenir. And something happens in the very end that I won’t get into but it also involves fans and it’s scary that’s all. I’ve been pretty mum on the specifics of
what goes on in White because my hope is for at least three people
to leave this video and check it out if they haven’t already
seen it. It’s a neat little horror movie with a ghost
story at its center and a great song at its center. I also think it captures a lot of the commentary
we're seeing about K-pop today. Not every single facet of it. But the sexual exploitation, the abuse, the madness of fame. Along with a great story, it offers great
commentary and I just think everyone should watch it. This is the end, bye.
