The apolitical politics of Gangnam Style and the Rubber Duck
Updated: 2013-05-11 05:51
By Jony Lam(HK Edition)
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When the roast pork was served, as the first dish, in a Hong Kong wedding banquet, a McDull song was usually played to announce the start of the feast. Recently, the K-pop hit Gangnam Style has begun to replace McDull to become the "roast pork song." One can only hope that this will soon pass.
In addition to being popular cultural icons, both McDull's story and Gangnam Style are infused with political meaning. Everyone is familiar with Psy's Gangnam Style, the popular Korean song accompanied by a signature dance, but we might not be aware of just how successful it is: as of April 29, 2013, the music video has been viewed over 1.6 billion times on YouTube, and it is the site's most watched video after surpassing Justin Bieber's single Baby. Not only is the original Gangnam Style music video a hit, but hundreds of parodies and dance imitation videos have also gone viral.
Gangnam Style is actually a satirical piece aimed at mocking the high-class South Koreans in Seoul who express their lifestyle through a particular way of dressing and presenting themselves: the "Gangnam" style. However, this message was lost in translation when it was transmitted from South Korea to other countries and from the original to parodies.
In order to promote the song, Psy did numerous interviews in the US. It is obvious that the favorable reception the song received in the US in the beginning was crucial for its eventual global fame. However, Psy went to those interviews and chose not to answer questions or explain the meaning behind the song. He was there to do the "silly" dance, so that the US audience can laugh at another "funny Asian".
Psy represents a type, and his predecessors are plentiful. One that comes to mind is William Hung, who gained fame in early 2004 as a result of his off-key audition performance of Ricky Martin's hit song She Bangs on the third season of the television series American Idol.
Ironically, Psy's attempt to criticize materialism was defeated by his very own success. It has always been an almost impossible mission: if he remains little-known his message does not matter; if he achieves worldly success his fame overshadows his message. When Gangnam Style was chosen as the "roast pork song" in a wedding it was certainly not self-mockery. Instead, the usage appropriates the song's fame to signify prosperity, joy and happiness.
Gangnam Style is not the only example of how mainstream values absorb and transform contents from popular culture. Another perfect example is the board game Monopoly, which was created to illustrate the negative aspects of concentrating land in private monopolies. It now becomes a classic, with each new generation of Monopoly players indulging in its cutthroat, ruthless, greedy impulses.
In the Monopoly game, players begin as equals. Luck - and a bit of strategy - eventually enables one player to dominate all others. That player ends up amassing a huge fortune in cash and real estate. All who play it think that the rule and the inevitable results are both fair and natural.
The most recent popular culture phenomenon in the city is, of course, Florentijn Hofman's "Rubber Duck". Interestingly, it is also a piece of decidedly apolitical artwork. Hofman even takes the trouble to mention in his website: "The Rubber Duck knows no frontiers; it doesn't discriminate ... and doesn't have a political connotation."
The duck is so apolitical that the Facebook page Speak Out HK posted a photo of it with the caption: "The big yellow duck is coming and it is going to occupy Victoria Harbor with love and peace." Knowing that Speak Out HK is an initiative of the United Foundation, which is organized by Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying's close friend Barry Cheung Chun-yuen, one realizes that this was a joke that went wrong badly.
Perhaps Speak Out HK wanted to leverage on the duck's popularity to ridicule "Occupy Central", but the sheer cuteness of the rubber duck neutralizes the phrase "occupy with love and peace" and makes it harmless, or even delightful. The more pathetic explanation is that the page did it out of a badly conditioned reflex system lacking the ability to decipher meaning in symbols.
Either way, it indicates that "occupy with love and peace" has become a standard phrase which we can use conveniently to express ourselves and arouse shared memory and meaning. One up for the duck that "doesn't have a political connotation," which therefore is also one that can be appropriated by any political meaning as long as it is the dominant one in the locality.
The author is a current affairs commentator. You may contact him at jony.lam.kh@gmail.com
(HK Edition 05/11/2013 page6)