From Factory Girls to K-Pop Idol Girls

Cultural Politics of Developmentalism, Patriarchy, and Neoliberalism in South Korea’s Popular Music Industry

Gooyong Kim - Foreword by Douglas Kellner

Focusing on female idols’ proliferation in the South Korean popular music (K-pop) industry since the late 1990s, Gooyong Kim critically analyzes structural conditions of possibilities in contemporary popular music from production to consumption. Kim contextualizes the success of K-pop within Korea’s development trajectories, scrutinizing how a formula of developments from the country’ rapid industrial modernization (1960s-1980s) was updated and re-applied in the K-pop industry when the state had to implement a series of neoliberal reformations mandated by the IMF. To that end, applying Michel Foucault’s discussion on governmentality, a biopolitical dimension of neoliberalism, Kim argues how the regime of free market capitalism updates and reproduces itself by 1) forming a strategic alliance of interests with the state, and 2) using popular culture to facilitate individuals’ subjectification and subjectivation processes to become neoliberal agents. As to an importance of K-pop female idols, Kim indicates a sustained utility/legacy of the nation’s century-long patriarchy in a neoliberal development agenda. Young female talents have been mobilized and deployed in the neoliberal culture industry in a similar way to how un-wed, obedient female workers were exploited and disposed on the sweatshop factory floors to sustain the state’s export-oriented, labor-intensive manufacturing industry policy during its rapid developmental stage decades ago. In this respect, Kim maintains how a post-feminist, neoliberal discourse of girl power has marketed young, female talents as effective commodities, and how K-pop female idols exert biopolitical power as an active ideological apparatus that pleasurably perpetuates and legitimates neoliberal mantras in individuals’ everyday lives. Thus, Kim reveals there is a strategic convergence between Korea’s lingering legacies of patriarchy, developmentalism, and neoliberalism. While the current K-pop literature is micro-scopic and celebratory, Kim advances the scholarship by multi-perspectival, critical approaches. With a well-balanced perspective by micro-scopic textual analyses of music videos and macro-scopic examinations of historical and political economy backgrounds, Kim’s book provides a wealth of intriguing research agendas on the phenomenon, and will be a useful reference in International/ Intercultural Communication, Political Economy of the Media, Cultural/ Media Studies, Gender/ Sexuality Studies, Asian Studies, and Korean Studies.

Lexington Books

Pages: 196 • Trim: 6½ x 9

978-1-4985-4882-3 • Hardback • December 2018 • $117.00 • (£90.00)

978-1-4985-4884-7 • Paperback • July 2020 • $47.99 • (£37.00)

978-1-4985-4883-0 • eBook • July 2020 • $45.50 • (£35.00)

Series: For the Record: Lexington Studies in Rock and Popular Music

Subjects: Music / Genres & Styles / Pop Vocal, Music / Genres & Styles / International, Social Science / Popular Culture, Political Science / World / Asian, Social Science / World / Asia

From Factory Girls to K-Pop Idol Girls

Cultural Politics of Developmentalism, Patriarchy, and Neoliberalism in South Korea’s Popular Music Industry

Hardback

Paperback

eBook

Summary

Focusing on female idols’ proliferation in the South Korean popular music (K-pop) industry since the late 1990s, Gooyong Kim critically analyzes structural conditions of possibilities in contemporary popular music from production to consumption. Kim contextualizes the success of K-pop within Korea’s development trajectories, scrutinizing how a formula of developments from the country’ rapid industrial modernization (1960s-1980s) was updated and re-applied in the K-pop industry when the state had to implement a series of neoliberal reformations mandated by the IMF. To that end, applying Michel Foucault’s discussion on governmentality, a biopolitical dimension of neoliberalism, Kim argues how the regime of free market capitalism updates and reproduces itself by 1) forming a strategic alliance of interests with the state, and 2) using popular culture to facilitate individuals’ subjectification and subjectivation processes to become neoliberal agents. As to an importance of K-pop female idols, Kim indicates a sustained utility/legacy of the nation’s century-long patriarchy in a neoliberal development agenda. Young female talents have been mobilized and deployed in the neoliberal culture industry in a similar way to how un-wed, obedient female workers were exploited and disposed on the sweatshop factory floors to sustain the state’s export-oriented, labor-intensive manufacturing industry policy during its rapid developmental stage decades ago. In this respect, Kim maintains how a post-feminist, neoliberal discourse of girl power has marketed young, female talents as effective commodities, and how K-pop female idols exert biopolitical power as an active ideological apparatus that pleasurably perpetuates and legitimates neoliberal mantras in individuals’ everyday lives. Thus, Kim reveals there is a strategic convergence between Korea’s lingering legacies of patriarchy, developmentalism, and neoliberalism. While the current K-pop literature is micro-scopic and celebratory, Kim advances the scholarship by multi-perspectival, critical approaches. With a well-balanced perspective by micro-scopic textual analyses of music videos and macro-scopic examinations of historical and political economy backgrounds, Kim’s book provides a wealth of intriguing research agendas on the phenomenon, and will be a useful reference in International/ Intercultural Communication, Political Economy of the Media, Cultural/ Media Studies, Gender/ Sexuality Studies, Asian Studies, and Korean Studies.

Details

Lexington Books

Pages: 196 • Trim: 6½ x 9

978-1-4985-4882-3 • Hardback • December 2018 • $117.00 • (£90.00)

978-1-4985-4884-7 • Paperback • July 2020 • $47.99 • (£37.00)

978-1-4985-4883-0 • eBook • July 2020 • $45.50 • (£35.00)

Series: For the Record: Lexington Studies in Rock and Popular Music

Subjects: Music / Genres & Styles / Pop Vocal, Music / Genres & Styles / International, Social Science / Popular Culture, Political Science / World / Asian, Social Science / World / Asia

Author

Gooyong Kim is assistant professor of communication arts at Cheyney University of Pennsylvania.

Table of Contents

Foreword by Douglas Kellner

Introduction

Chapter 1: Popular Culture as A Strategic Field of Neoliberal Intervention: Developmentalism, Neoliberal Social Policy, and Governmentality in Post-IMF Korean Popular Music Industry

Chapter 2: K-pop Idol Girl Groups as Cultural Genre of Neoliberalism: Patriarchy, Developmentalism, and Structure of Feeling/ Experience in K-pop

Chapter 3: Between Hybridity and Hegemony in K-Pop’s Global Popularity: A Case of Girls’ Generation’s American Debut

Chapter 4: Genealogy and Affective Economy of K-pop Female Idols: From Cute and Innocent to Ambiguous Femininity, to Explicit Sexualization

Chapter 5: Elusive Subjectivity of K-pop Female Idols: Split-personality, Narcissism, and Neo-Confucian Body Techniques in Suzy of MissA

Chapter 6: Resilience, Positive Psychology, and Subjectivity in K-pop Female Idols: Evolution of Girls’ Generation from “Into the New World” (2007) to “All Night” (2017)

Chapter 7: The 90s, the Most Stunning Days of Our Lives: Cultural Politics of Retro K-pop Music, Nostalgia, and Positive Psychology in Contemporary Korea

Conclusion

Reviews

In it's examination of the sociocultural conjuncture between a patriarchal Korean society and the commodified femininity and sexuality of Korean cultural industries, "From Factory Girls to K-Pop Idol Girls: Cultural Politics of Developmentalism, Patriarchy and Neoliberalism in South Korea's Popular Music Industry" occupies a key position in the emerging critical conversation calling for a feminist perspective in K-pop studies. This book purposes a better way of understanding not only the nature of feminist activism among young Korean women but also the radical feminist movements against traditional social values.

— Pacific Affairs

Gooyong Kim has written a bracing book on K-pop girl groups. From Factory Girls to K-pop Idol Girls is replete with insights and information not only about K-pop, but also about South Korean economy, society, culture, and psychology. No one interested in a serious study of K-pop should ignore it.
— John Lie, University of California, Berkeley

With the recent global popularity of K-pop, much has been written about K-pop. Unlike previous works focusing on a micro-scopic and celebratory manner, From Factory Girls to K-pop Idol Girls places K-pop in the wider socio-economic context. It is timely and a landmark study of K-pop. It will be of interest to scholars and students who are eager to read more about critical music studies and cultural industries.
— Kyong Yoon Yong Jin, Professor, School of Communication, Simon Fraser University