MELONTALKS - Chapter 2: Censoring in Korea.

Okay, someone needs to say something about this, so I am taking the gory and heinous task upon myself. Needless to say, I’m a Gryffindor. Actually, I’m a Slytherin, but that’s a story for another time.

What is UP with the Korean standards of appropriate and inappropriate?

With all my years of experience with the Korean entertainment industry (as a fan of course), the time has finally come for me to pop this question into the open.

As deemed by the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, banned songs and videos cannot be sold to minors, nor can they be played before 10 pm.

Songs were always banned. Let’s start from Rain (because I highly doubt any of you know anyone earlier than him). One of Rain’s most famous songs, ‘Rainism’, was banned because of the reference to a ‘magic stick’. DBSK’s ‘Mirotic’ was also banned for obvious reasons (‘I’ve got you, Under my skin’).

Here comes my problem. I can understand why ually explicit songs and videos must be banned, as well as those referring openly to crime. But where do we draw the line? When can we say that this is inappropriate and this is basically, in lack of better terms, soft ?

Let me explain myself.

Trouble Maker’s ‘Now’ (or ‘No tomorrow’) features Hyunseung and Hyuna basically having dry .

I have nothing against this sort of representation in music videos because I strictly believe that just because something doesn’t suit your taste doesn’t make it ‘bad’. I do have a problem with this song simply being banned when others that are significantly less at fault also have to suffer the same fate due to one line with a really weak double meaning (MBLAQ’s ‘Y’ – “Cry hard, I’ll chew you to pieces and spit you back out”).

I can list so many songs that went down similarly. In fact, here’s a few (from an allkpop article):

- Beast’s ‘On rain days’ – Banned for alcohol references

- MBLAQ’s ‘Again’ – Banned for representation of violence

- X-5’s ‘Fantasy’ – Banned for ‘use of slang and offensive businesses’. Same with 4Minute’s ‘Heart to heart’.

And last but not least the one that annoyed me the most:

- Song Jieun’s ‘Going crazy’ – banned ‘for encouraging crime’.

Look, the Korean entertainment industry is grisly. They have a tendency to ignore issues until absolutely necessary, which is apparently when deaths start occurring, because death threats have long been happening.

In case you do not know what I’m talking about, ‘Going crazy’ is a song about getting stalked by someone. Clearly, the media choose to ignore the fact that celebrities are stalked every day in real life and instead ban songs from even talking about these issues.

‘On rainy days’ mentions being drunk. This, in my opinion is completely unacceptable. Koreans drink all the time; so much so, alcohol is basically a part of their culture. Banning a song from mentioning it is not proper reasoning.

However, this is not aimed just at Korean media. Someone still needs to explain to me why SBS Popasia can play Trouble Maker's 'Now' but not the shooting part of MBLAQ's 'This is war'. When 'Oldboy' is only in Korea (with good reason), and only MAV in Australia, and SBS thinks they can play it on movie night (Saturday nights), there's something amiss.

The media and authority really need to steady their reins on what is appropriate and not appropriate for younger audiences. While, I can understand their good intentions, unless they tidy up their act, nothing is going to change around here. Basically, get your act together people.

If you think I'm wrong or right or simply have an opinion, put it down there in the comment box and let me know what you think about this :)

Melon.

PS: If you have any recommendations as to what you want me to talk about next Monday, let me know. I'm beginning to run out of topics to rant about.

Links to all above mentioned:

Rain: Rainism

DBSK: Mirotic

Trouble Maker: Now, Now (uncut)

MBLAQ: Y

Beast: On rainy days

MBLAQ: Again

X-5: Fantasy

4Minute: Heart to heart