[08.10.09][News] Where's the future of "Freedom of Expression" ?

From G-Dragon "69" to JunJin "Bullshit"Where's the future of "Freedom of Expression" ?

Member of the current best idol group BigBang G-Dragon (Kwon Ji Young) has received coutless criticism over his costume in Mnet 20's Choice Awards aired on August 23rd.

Wearing a shirt with provocative phrases "69" (oral sex slang), "I ♥ SEX", "Fuck you too", G-Dragon and his performance for Mnet Choice were hot for a while in the Internet.

However, the issue of his costumes soon generated a conflict, while some voiced "it is not suitable for broadcasting", and the others go with "one should just focus on the performance itself". The Communications Committee with the televised scene filtration function decided to pay special attention to MNet. This phrase is exposed to the deliberation of Item 44 (acceptance level) and will be possibly judged as a violation of Sector 2.

Recently, singer JunJin has been in a "similar" experience. His new song "Saying I love you" didn't pass KBS review team criteria and the decision of not broadcasting the song and the MV was made. The problem occured when Eric's rap part in the song includes the word "Bullshit".

Due to the nature of "popular music" genre, it is very difficult to judge individuals based on subjective views which range from vague to ambiguous.

Since 1995, KBS has banned 418 songs and artists, including Park Sang Min, Cho Yong Pil, Seo Tai Ji, and very recently, JunJin. The public and the entertainment companies are expressing their disagreement with some decisions as they cannot understand the review process and on what basis the decision was made.

From the costumes to the the lyrics, Korean music industry is facing the issue of "Freedom of expression".

For example JunJin's song, if it was sung by a US hip-hop singer, might it have received the same result? At least, in the US, it's certain that no one will ban JunJin because he has "bullshit" in his song. The same goes for G-Dragon, who is a rock singer.

In Korea, it's totally different. We are affected by various factors, such as a rituals. G-Dragon costumes received many complaints from the audience. However, the view, though being clear, varies from case to case. The development of consciousness has made a great impact on the culture and people's mindset, and forced the regulators to revise their "Deliberation" or "Sanctions". They cannot simply ignore the points of view of the general audience. And that's why the world should be transparent and accurate.

Credit: MyDaily
Korean/Eng: LetSayEden @ Shinhwa.biz