All I needed was to hear “Genie”. Six hard hours of standing on the pavement before the song finally played. The only song whose chorus I wholeheartedly memorized, it also was one of the few chances I had to sing-along with the thousands of fans and bleed my voice out. In between the grooves of the packed crowd, where I forcefully found for myself a temporary enclave, the opening bars of “Genie”, smooth murmurs swelling into the song’s booming heartbeat, conjured up a chaotic domino effect which surged upon the electrified audience, so down we went cavorting, flouncing, soaring, obliterating everyone’s need for a little private breathing space (including my own), given that the tiniest inch of separation among strangers is the highest form of sacrilege to the fleeting, communal rapture of concert lore. Channeling the night’s ecstasies, nine enchanting girls would set us on fire.
Girls’ Generation make you feel the heat. They were the last group I’d ever thought I’d dig, but I was falling for them. Maybe I got in touch, for an odd instant, with what most die-hard K-pop fans are encountering on a moment-to-moment basis, namely the nascent transformation of a capital commodity into a religion. Commodity, because K-pop, just like any other music trend, is a string of products made by the industry for profit; religion, due to its millions of ardent followers all around the world. Needless to say, capital normally benefits from the consumers’ idolization of its products, and, for some, this is enough reason to eighty-six K-pop (or pop music, in general) completely. But as Richard Dyer, mounting a defense of disco in the late ‘70s, noted: “... capitalism as productive relations can just as well make a profit from something that is ideologically opposed to bourgeois society as something that supports it. As long as a commodity makes a profit, what does it matter?” Perhaps, then, the extreme pleasure I experience from K-pop is born from this profound contradiction, whereby industry’s profit motive agenda is outstripped by what these pop songs genuinely express. And in the case of Girls’ Generation, what is potentially manifested, in some of their songs (particularly “Genie”), fills a deep social need: the possibility of a redeemed world.
(Although what follows focuses primarily on Girls’ Generation and the Dream K-pop Fantasy Concert* held last January 19, I dare not omit all the other wonderful K-pop stuff I’ve been listening to during the past few months: 2NE1, T-ara, Big Bang, Wonder Girls, Miss A, 4Minute, songwriters Sweetune (!!!), etc. Judging by this list, I know I’ve only scratched the surface of K-pop --- recommendations are welcome.)
Any mention of a redeemed world hopelessly invokes the impossible in-between separating our unjust and oppressive world from the superior realm, the utopian promise, the paradise of angels --- I’d to like to argue that Girls’ Generation present themselves as symbolic figures of this divine sphere (of course, this is not the only iconography that the group assumes; in “The Boys”, they went for a chic and edgy style that seemed awkward to me, once I realized that, ever since “Gee”, these nine girls will always be the reigning queens of aegyo). This angelic vision is marvelously affirmed in the lyrics (they may not have written the words, but what’s important is that they have the ability to embody them), wherein the girls seem to possess an almost mesmeric, otherworldly power over imperfect humanity. In “Genie”, “even if your heart bursts and flies in the wind”**, the girls promise that “the world is yours”; they secretly enjoy the supernatural gift of “Telepathy”; and, in a verse that made me swoon, all of them swear that they will “affirm any possible contradictions” right before they make “The Great Escape”. These lucid words profess a sweetness and tenderness too dreamlike for our real world to duplicate, and, consequently, the metaphorical rift between these nine divine girls and our scant existence is tragically reinforced. Having no magical powers to commune with these angels, to feel their warmth, to find a safe passage through the immense void separating us and them, we may fall back on good ol’ pessimism, or delude ourselves into thinking that our exhausted and dreary lives is the one and only way to really live, or cry out and despair. We might not be able to reach a redeemed world, however, luckily for us, this world and its celestial inhabitants, doting smiles and gentle hearts, beckons from beyond.
Right at the cusp of the blissful “tell me your wish” refrain, a beckoning motion materializes in the M/V for “Genie”. Seen in and outside of the choreography for the M/V, this graceful gesture --- arms outstretched with supine hands, followed by the fingers fanning inward --- performed by the girls suggests three figural possibilities. First, it embodies the febrile moment when the girls above reach out towards us below, the brief but miraculous intrusion of their heavenly world into ours. Second, it reproduces a contemporary version of the Abhayamudra, the sacred Hindu hand pose which banishes all fear and grants the devotee divine protection and bliss. Lastly, the gesture functions as the supreme prototype for almost every other existing gesture in the M/V. Nearly all of the girls’ actions are expressed as welcoming, alluring, inviting, another stylized form of reaching-out. Further complicating matters is the unusual way in which these actions are outlined. Through the neat sleight-of-hand of the M/V, the girls’ playful interaction with a thoroughly subjective POV camera (coupled with hands and arms suddenly emerging from behind the camera, i.e. our side of the screen) gives the impression that we are actually making contact with these angels. Taeyeon guides you by the hand through the ersatz discotheque; Jessica, luring the camera towards her, directs your eyes so that they meet hers; Sunny literally pulls you in, via your gawky necktie; Tiffany, with her eighteen karat smize, lets her delicate, nail-polished hands clasp yours, in a grip so soft you’d never want to let go; Hyoyeon cordially teases you, smearing icing on the aperture; donning pigtails, Yuri blows you a sweet kiss; mischievous Sooyoung wallops the birthday cake in your face; Yoona, cruising at abstract miles per hour, allows you to ride shotgun with her; and maknae Seohyun, sporting off rosy angel wings, lends an open ear to all your deepest desires and passions --- tell me your wish.
Such modes of direct address towards the camera, of subtly breaking the fourth wall are not uncommon in music videos. They indicate to us that what we are watching is a music video (and not just another short narrative film --- although music videos are sometimes erroneously classified as such), whilst simulating that special gaze, in every concert, between the onstage performers and the entranced audience below. In these instances, there lies an enormous potential for opening up and enriching our characterization of breaking the fourth wall, far from the cozy definitions of simple distancing effects. In lieu of estranging the spectator, music videos set up, via the screen, an enticing and, ultimately, tragic interface between beloved superstars and spellbound viewers. Enticing, because the minute our idols turn their eyes towards us and reach out, we possibly will return their bewitching gaze and respond to their beckoning. Tragic, since this reaching-out will always be delimited by the screen in front of us, the very same interface that made this illusory communion possible. We won’t be able to reach them and they won’t be able to reach us --- a scenario similar to the way front-row audiences, in desperate futility, outstretch their arms up in the air, so that they might have the chance to make tangible contact with the superstars performing on the elevated concert stage. Breaking the fourth wall potentially relives this very tension, this illusion of tangibility, wherein two different, separate worlds, the onscreen world and our real world, attempt, in a tragic sense, to come together. We see this logic play out in Lav Diaz’s recent epic Florentina Hubaldo, CTE: Florentina (Hazel Orencio), physically and sexually abused, raises her fragile hands towards the screen and implores to us for a deliverance that will never come. The final gesture of the M/V for “Genie”, which shows Sunny slamming her palm on the camera lens and across the screen, visibly exposes the impossible boundary separating our somber appeals for a better world from the beckoning angels onscreen.
Illusions, angels, and the world beyond --- whimsical language usually associated with a concept that is nowadays maligned: escapism. At its most regressive, escapism implies a lack of engagement with the real world and the horrors enmeshed in it, but whenever people begin to desire radical change in these material conditions, to envision a better world, to realize things differently, what is this longing motivated by other than escapist thinking. So that the concept of escapism will be vindicated, perhaps we need to resurrect the original urgency of the word “escape”--- that is, to elude something dangerous or undesirable; to break free from confinement or control (a life and death struggle is more or less implied). Escapism tears us out of the exitlessness of this wretched world, sends us to the stars for a brief dreamy glimpse of paradise, and gently brings us back down to earth, which no longer appears to be immovable, unchangeable, but renewed with hope. By potentially providing the impetus for change, escapism ultimately fulfills a deep social need. Of course, escapism doesn’t replace reality (to think so would be fatal), but through movies, stories, and songs it offers us a vision of an ideal world which we constantly long for in our daily experience --- without this vision, it would be impossible to imagine an alternative to this unjust world we are currently stranded in. (The escapism I’m talking about is not synonymous with the cynicism of today’s Hollywood blockbusters, after all those films, nowadays, rarely represent the dreams for a superior world). “Aren’t you tired of boring days/ Are you buried in ordinary life / Now stop and wake up” --- Tiffany and Sunny articulate in “Genie” our profound desire to escape the misery and drudgery of everyday life, but they also command us to “wake up”, since they know all too well that the redeemed world we dream of, no matter how many times it gives us signs of its possible existence, will only grant us the motivation to find heaven on earth, while, in the end, the heavy burden is on us to look for a real escape out of the darkness and into someplace better. In this sense, real action potentially starts with a vision that takes us out of our exhausted selves; a desire that is delirious, uninhibited, and uncompromised; namely something that we ought to talk about “without hiding anything”, the words Taeyeon belts out over the lovely final chorus of “Genie”, right before the song echoes into silence and recedes back into the skies.
She lives in space, man. In the universe of pop music, fantasy abounds. Indeed, fantasy has been with us for centuries and thankfully it is showing no signs of ever disappearing. By endlessly opening up imaginary worlds and situations too fanciful for us to imitate, this escapist experience may well hold the power of revealing that which is fatally absent in our impoverished reality; for as long as we continue to feel that there is something missing in our world --- whether it’s love, justice, honesty, etc. --- fantasy will live on and grow in significance, because it forever renews our shared awareness of what is lacking in our lives. The angels of Girls’ Generation, insofar as the divine realm they symbolically inhabit emulates the terrain of fantasy, will continue to address the throbbing lack we feel, even though they sadly cannot rectify this lack in reality, for that work falls on us. Industry constantly shoves down our throats the clever lie that this world and its abundant products are enough to bring us happiness, but the fantasies expressed in pop music can tear down this cruel myth by making us feel how the world might otherwise be. And the vision Girls’ Generation gives us of this possible world is a place where desires are finally fulfilled and passions roam wild and free --- unthinkable in our present world founded on oppression and injustice. Taking a trip with these girls, we can “… go anywhere freely/ that’s right, even to the end of the universe” (Mr. Taxi), where “… the stars are within our reach” because “together we will be unstoppable” (Genie, Japanese version); what’s more, regarding your unfulfilled “dreams and passions”, the girls “want to give them all to you” (Genie, original version), for all their love’s for you (All My Love is for You); and once this sweet reverie concludes, the angels aren’t through: cause “even when you open your eyes in the morning/ your dream will continue” (Twinkle, TaeTiSeo). To go anywhere freely and to experience unqualified, unconditional love is obviously impossible in a tyrannical world whose survival largely depends on the brutal repression of these sensational dreams. But no matter how many times the world desensitizes us into believing there is no other world possible, literature, cinema, and music, as long as they never die away, will keep on reigniting those dreams for a better, redeemed world, and, as Girls’ Generation reminds us, “these feelings that were beyond our imagination can’t be wrong, right?” (Bad Girl).
In the 3-D version of the “Genie” M/V, a man and woman fail to make any kind of meaningful connection, until, from up above, the nine angels, gazing at their troubles through a crystal ball, magically bring the two separate souls together, granting them their unspoken wishes. The magic from above transforms us down below: this figural arrangement emerged once more at the Dream K-pop Fantasy Concert. At the exact moment when “Genie” shifted from its lilting pre-chorus to its sonorous refrain, Girls’ Generation, radiant onstage, began to channel the angelic emotion of their song onto the thousands of screaming fans, who, upon hearing the first notes of the anthemic chorus, started to sing, choir-like and no matter how hard it was for each of them to reach the notes or the same emotional intensity of the song, the main melody with one voice, and in that instant a shared community, formed from some kind of secret agreement linking everyone to each other and as fragile and fleeting as a bolt of lightning, a woman’s smile, or a pop song’s chorus, was wondrously created. I joined in, and I could’ve been mistaken but wasn’t this a glimpse of a redeemed world, its microcosmic, ephemeral dimensions, as bright as the blinding lights of the “Genie” M/V and as momentary as a perfect pop song, immanent in our material world like the genie in a bottle? The things worth fighting for are the things that never last… but besides all this, my experience with Girls’ Generation remains so precious and important to my personal life, because miraculously it has washed away my cynicism.
* Also part of the concert were Infinite, Tasty, U-KISS, Tahiti, and Exo-M-K.
** All following lyrics translations are fan-made.
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