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[Editorial] Hyomin's "Nice Body" Is The Most Dangerous Song K-pop Has Produced
9yr ago
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Monday 30 Jun, 2014 - 07:30pm UTC
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Aysohmay
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1 upvote ·
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![[Editorial] Hyomin's](http://i1.jpopasia.com/news/4/16652-o54dsckh6r.jpg "[Editorial] Hyomin's")
Hyomin has released her debut mini album today, accompanied by the lead single "Nice Body". The song's music video and overall message is the most dangerous thing K-pop has ever produced and released to the public.
For those who haven't seen the music video yet, the opening shot shows an overweight girl seeming to enjoy herself as she eats without a care in the world. She plays around and is shown to be happy. Then a seemingly magical golden donut rolls by. She eats it, and the next shot shows a thin woman. Hyomin is then featured for the majority of the video singing about having a nice body, then ends with more shots of the overweight girl as she comes back to reality.
The message of the song is simple: if you want to be loved by men, you have to be thin, or as the song puts it, have a "nice body". If you want to be like other women, you have to diet, because everyone does it. If you want to be worthy, you have to suffer through the pain of starving yourself, because men "deserve it".
The message the song is sending is the wrong message we should be sending women. Women do not need to change themselves to please the men around them. Hyomin sings, "I will change, you will see, you do deserve it." No! Don't accept this notion that you have to change who you are and make yourself fit into society's narrow definition of what beauty is. If a man doesn't accept you because of your looks, that's not the type of man you want to attract anyway. There are plenty of guys in the world, and someone is bound to be attracted to you just the way you are.
The idea that women need to change themselves for men is even more damaging by the fact that Hyomin encourages women to suffer to reach an acceptable state. "I endure all the pain. I will look pretty," she sings. The words sound completely deranged. There is no need to obsess so fully on your looks that you would hurt yourself. Encouraging such behavior is reckless. It teaches girls that self harm is acceptable and expected when in reality it's not.
There is a big difference between dieting and exercising for your health, and starving yourself and pushing yourself to physical exhaustion for the sake of being stick-thin. The former is healthy and should be encouraged. However, the latter, which is what Hyomin seems to insist upon to reach unrealistic beauty standards, serves only to harm yourself. Would you tell someone to physically harm themselves and suffer painfully on a daily basis? Probably not. Then why is ok for Hyomin to tell women to do so? The answer is that it's not.
If the song itself wasn't problematic enough, the music video only makes things worse by giving a visual representation of what's considered beautiful. Hyomin shows off her stick-thin figure in a sexual manner, showing people that it's women like her that are sexy. The words "Nice Body" are displayed numerously, including on a weight scale when she gets on it, and on the clothing she wears. This imprints a message that there is only one type of nice body, and it's hers. This is of course not actually the case. There are many kinds of bodies that are nice, not just those that are stick-thin. Being voluptuous is widely considered sexy, and yet its not represented or marketed at all to the Korean public, making curvy girls feel as though their bodies aren't nice, but rather they're wrong. This is not an ok message to be transmitting.
Even worse than the brainwashing imagery equating thinness with being the right body type is the juxtaposition of the overweight girl at the beginning and end of the music video. At the beginning, she seems so happy and carefree. At the end though, the shot is much darker in tone. After imagining herself as thin like her barbie doll, when she returns to reality, she's shown as depressed about her weight. Again, this is sending a dangerous message to viewers. It tells people you can't be happy when you're overweight. You'd have to be thin to enjoy life. But does starvation, suffering and pain really sound like a happy life? I hope not, because enjoying your life sounds much more appealing to me than suffering through it.
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Agree or disagree with the article? Let us know below, or send the author a tweet @Aysohmay to let him know your opinion.
For those who haven't seen the music video yet, the opening shot shows an overweight girl seeming to enjoy herself as she eats without a care in the world. She plays around and is shown to be happy. Then a seemingly magical golden donut rolls by. She eats it, and the next shot shows a thin woman. Hyomin is then featured for the majority of the video singing about having a nice body, then ends with more shots of the overweight girl as she comes back to reality.
The message of the song is simple: if you want to be loved by men, you have to be thin, or as the song puts it, have a "nice body". If you want to be like other women, you have to diet, because everyone does it. If you want to be worthy, you have to suffer through the pain of starving yourself, because men "deserve it".
The message the song is sending is the wrong message we should be sending women. Women do not need to change themselves to please the men around them. Hyomin sings, "I will change, you will see, you do deserve it." No! Don't accept this notion that you have to change who you are and make yourself fit into society's narrow definition of what beauty is. If a man doesn't accept you because of your looks, that's not the type of man you want to attract anyway. There are plenty of guys in the world, and someone is bound to be attracted to you just the way you are.
The idea that women need to change themselves for men is even more damaging by the fact that Hyomin encourages women to suffer to reach an acceptable state. "I endure all the pain. I will look pretty," she sings. The words sound completely deranged. There is no need to obsess so fully on your looks that you would hurt yourself. Encouraging such behavior is reckless. It teaches girls that self harm is acceptable and expected when in reality it's not.
There is a big difference between dieting and exercising for your health, and starving yourself and pushing yourself to physical exhaustion for the sake of being stick-thin. The former is healthy and should be encouraged. However, the latter, which is what Hyomin seems to insist upon to reach unrealistic beauty standards, serves only to harm yourself. Would you tell someone to physically harm themselves and suffer painfully on a daily basis? Probably not. Then why is ok for Hyomin to tell women to do so? The answer is that it's not.
If the song itself wasn't problematic enough, the music video only makes things worse by giving a visual representation of what's considered beautiful. Hyomin shows off her stick-thin figure in a sexual manner, showing people that it's women like her that are sexy. The words "Nice Body" are displayed numerously, including on a weight scale when she gets on it, and on the clothing she wears. This imprints a message that there is only one type of nice body, and it's hers. This is of course not actually the case. There are many kinds of bodies that are nice, not just those that are stick-thin. Being voluptuous is widely considered sexy, and yet its not represented or marketed at all to the Korean public, making curvy girls feel as though their bodies aren't nice, but rather they're wrong. This is not an ok message to be transmitting.
Even worse than the brainwashing imagery equating thinness with being the right body type is the juxtaposition of the overweight girl at the beginning and end of the music video. At the beginning, she seems so happy and carefree. At the end though, the shot is much darker in tone. After imagining herself as thin like her barbie doll, when she returns to reality, she's shown as depressed about her weight. Again, this is sending a dangerous message to viewers. It tells people you can't be happy when you're overweight. You'd have to be thin to enjoy life. But does starvation, suffering and pain really sound like a happy life? I hope not, because enjoying your life sounds much more appealing to me than suffering through it.
-
Agree or disagree with the article? Let us know below, or send the author a tweet @Aysohmay to let him know your opinion.
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