BTS
Back in April this year (2021), BTS was blatantly talked about in a racist and xenophobic way.
It was a group of Chilean actors that tried to bring them down with bad words.
In a sketch comedy segment belonging to the Chilean TV series Mi Barrio, this group had
pretended to be the ridiculous version of BTS by wearing a bunch of colorful wigs and
eccentric costumes.
For some reason, they decided that it was yet to be enough as a humiliation to the group
so for some icing on the cake, these Chilean actors also made jokes about Korean language
and hinted that the act was associated with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un.
Soon after this segment was aired, ARMY right off the bat rallied up on social media to
protest how racist the attitude of these actors were.
Within hours, the hashtag #RacismIsNotComedy started trending online and to prove how these
Chileans were messing with the wrong people, ARMYs also filed a formal complaint against
the broadcaster since they didn’t act quickly enough to handle the mess they created.
What’s even worse is that the broadcaster just responded in a sarcastic way, saying
that the only criticism collected from KPOP fans was how “overweight” the actors were
so they would just work on that.
Plus, they even promised there would soon be another episode and hoped people would
stay tuned because it’s gonna be way funnier than this one.
So, with such responses, they would certainly keep up with this attitude and never issue
a proper apology to BTS, right?
Well, the answer is yes and no.
Firstly, under the fierce pressure of ARMYs, the Chilean broadcaster did issue a statement
to acknowledge the mistake and promise to not let such things happen again.
However, the so-called apology post was also deemed to be just for show and unacceptably
insincere because in the statement, they didn’t said a word of sorry to neither BTS nor ARMY
and instead, everything written there was about thanking people for the heat, promising
to be more entertaining and how they would work harder to contribute to the industry.
Also for this stubborn attitude, this post had even gained more hate from people and
some believed that with such dirty tricks to draw attention, the show could never take
off well and achieved a bit of what BTS did.
BTS’ V & Jungkook, EXO’s Sehun, and Kang Daniel
Somehow BTS in general and certain members in particular were always the bull’s eyes
of questionable criticisms since back in January of 2019, besides EXO’s Sehun ang Kang Daniel,
V and Jungkook were also dragged into this mess despite having literally broken multiple
records in the West.
While even a little kid nowadays is already educated about how the definition of beauty
is diverse and varies depending on culture to culture, blatant insults and condescending
words were still spitted out by several hosts of the pretty well-known Greek programme Eutixeite.
Things all started after this TV show brought up the ranks of TC Candler’s 100 Most Handsome
Men in the World and blatantly discussed in front of thousands of viewers that they found
KPOP idols undeserving to be included in the list.
The first victim was Sehun—aka the visual that was widely recognized as the finest of
the fine in SM Entertainment.
Kicking off by saying that his face looked “terrible,” the hosts went on with things
like how he had “such an Asian facial structure,” looked too “Chinese,” and the red hair
looked absurd on him.
Then it was Kang Daniel—the national center, to be put on the scale.
After questioning his gender and implied that the thick makeup look made him less of a man,
the hosts continued to go extra miles and flagrantly claimed someone had misplaced him
on the wrong list and his position should have been on that of the women.
So V and Jungkook would receive somewhat less fierce
criticism because in 2019, BTS had already established quite a stable position in the
entertainment industry of the West, right?
Surprisingly, the answer is a big no [chèn meme này] since the hosts even mocked V’s
fans for having “terrible eyesight” when voting for him and as to Jungkook, they started
the tale as old as time about how Asians people all look the same and he apparently didn’t
deserve the second spot on the list.
BLACKPINK’s Jisoo
For some reasons, fans of KPOP always feel off when it comes to their idols’ interviews
abroad and by that, it means besides ARMYs, BLINKs had also felt uneasy with the way Jimmy
Kimmel pulled an alleged sarcastic joke on Jisoo back in 2020.
However, the array of opinions toward this matter was heavily polarized because while
many BLINKs thought that the MC was implicitly mocking Jisoo right in front of thousands
of viewers, others believed he was being mere considerate and thoughtful.
So, what exactly had happened in the interview?
Back in 2020 when BLACKPINK sat down for an interview with the late-night talk show host
Jimmy Kimmel, the whole thing started off quite well where he attempted to speak Korean
and quickly switched to English for the rest of the show.
Things after that also went smoothly as the girls comfortably answered questions about
their lives and the band, until one moment where Kimmel addressed Jisoo, telling her
that she was not speaking English as much as other members and proceeded to ask what
her favorite English word was.
Soon after the episode was uploaded on Youtube, Kimmel immediately received backlash from
BLINKs because he was implicitly pulling a stereotype on Jisoo that Asian people didn’t
speak fluent English and in case they did, they would receive compliments as if speaking
the language was some kind of a talent or skills that people outside English-spoken
countries honourably had.
Not only that, many also felt it kinda “painful” to hear such an awkward question from Kimmel
and believed he should have done more research on the girls instead of scratching on the
surface, repeating about the Coachella thing while BLACKPINK had just released their first
ever album and a whole documentary on Netflix.
However, there were many people believe that some BLINKs were overreacting since this question
was completely normal, and objectively speaking, the girls were enjoying themselves a lot during
the whole interview.
There was even an opinion saying that Kimmel was actually being quite considerate and careful
to include all the girls but because of his regular dad jokes and the US interview in
nature was quite shallow and more like a mutual exchange for ratings, people should stop overanalyzing
and being uptight about such a lighthearted thing.
EXID’s Junghwa
As all these mocking things happened quite frequently with internationally famous names
like BTS and BLACKPINK, apparently there was zero possibility that the Western hosts would
treat the rest of Kpop idols more politely and yes, that was exactly what happened to
Junghwa when EXID had a performance at Los Angeles back in 2015.
When the girls were having a small interview with TMZ’s reporters at the airport, the
whole thing was recorded and broadcasted on TV afterward.
However, instead of showing anything fun, the editors at TMZ just straight up published
a clip showing a reporter mocking Junghwa’s accent when saying “I’m happy,” which
was also welcomed by a bunch of humiliating reactions from people around that.
The worst thing was that, when an Asian-American employee spoke up to defend Junghwa, implying
she was actually quite good at comprehending, another Western girl there immediately clapped
back and questioned where her fellow was born, which was also a kind of mocking “Are you
defending her because you’re Asian who used to speak poor English?”
This incident was so messed up that even f(x)’s Amber had to take it on Twitter, criticized
TMZ for their childish actions and believed “all Americans face palm” for having such
personalities representing themselves on TV.
Even 2PM’s Taecyeon and Roy Kim also voiced about how rude the actions of TMZ was and
on Youtube, people also criticized the hilarious logic of these reporters.
Netizens also pointed out how funny the common sense of people that supported these actions
by saying “people in America get discriminated all the time and racist is a common thing
in this country anyway,” and believed that America would never get to be as diverse as
they claimed as long as these people still exist.
So, except for this blatant mock pulled on Junghwa, do you think fans were overacting
in other cases or it was the hosts to be at fault?
Let me know your thoughts by commenting down below.
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