Sexualized Pop and Language

When The Grand Narrative linked back to a couple of the posts on YAM Magazine, I ended up spending my late night reading their selected posts on Gender & The Korean Media — yes, I read the entire list.

One specifically caught my eye — besides the one about age of consent. It was entitled Reading the Lolita Effect in Korea, Part 2: The role of K-pop and the Korean media in sexual socialization and the formation of body image.

I’ll let you read it before continuing.

As someone who grew up with television and music, I wondered what effect sexualized pop culture had on me. I also wondered what is it with parents and their kids’, specifically their little girls’, sexuality. However, I realized something was different… I grew up with a pop culture I didn’t really understand!

Not only because I didn’t actually understand what the point of Baywatch was when I was 6 or 7 — all I saw as a kid was people at the beach and the beach was always fun for me back then — or because I caught glimpses of that funny Spanish softcore series called La Serie Rosa — that apparently featured Penelope Cruz in one of the episodes.

Yes, I have just confessed to that. I don’t even know how I got away with that.

It was because, at least with music, I just didn’t know English at all. My parents don’t speak much or any English at all either, so they were also left in the dark as to what I was exactly listening to.

amy

YAM Magazine editor, photographer, blogger, translator and part-time web designer. Film junkie, music junkie… and lately series (a.k.a. TV) junkie.

4 Responses

  1. Rodrigo says:

    Pedro, lol. Most of his songs are sex-related, but people don’t care about it since he always sounded fun. But when I heard “Amazonas”, I was kinda shocked to see him unleashing a song not related to sex or women.

    “I’m not even a parent, and I worry about this! I have four nephews (but one is really old, so he feels more like a cousin) and three young nieces between the ages of two and nine years old — I just can’t even begin to imagine what pop culture will do to them.”

    Oh, pop culture… just imagine exposing them to premium cable stuff. Inevitably, they’re going to be exposed things that may be deemed inappropriate to them. I’d suggest guidance for kids in case they stumble upon inappropriate stuff (music, tv or film) rather than blocking their enjoyment, but that’s just me.

    • amy says:

      @Rodrigo, the thing is you got parental control xD but kids nowadays are much more in tune with technology than their parents, so parental control is skipping a generation.

      When cable had their premium showcase and the channels were open, I had to explain what softcore porn was to my mother. To tell you that it was awkward was a bit of an understatement.

      I think with kids it’d be a little less likely to find them with premium cable, unless they have a digital box in their room… which should be unlikely. With a tech savvy parent, they’d be able to admin the home’s network to overlook what their kids do with their computers.

      But I think, as a rule, new parents are usually way over their heads with their kids.

  2. Roxy says:

    Excellent Amy! I loved this. Right now I’m in a car on my way to the other side of th island. So when I get back home I’ll leave a proper comment ;D

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