HyunA: The Nexus of Blackness, Feminism,

and K-Pop

ERICK RAVEN

LACKNESS IS THE ONTOLOGY OF THE UNDEFINED. IT ESCAPES

B defining by normative ontological discourse, which constructs

the black according to the social, religious, philosophical, and
scientific discourse most useful in maintaining hegemony. In Amer-
ica, the black is the indispensable antistandard, an object accounted
as deformed, dejected, and dismissed to make obvious the fully
formed, accepted, and embraced according to hegemony. According
to Calvin L. Warren, “the black body is nothing more than an anti-
black invention, an instrument of a destructive will to power” (160).
Thus, a black body is given life and made into a “person” inscribed
with the DNA of American hegemony, which defines the societal
roles and acceptable norms and expectations for the black “person.”
Therefore, within the lived experience of the African American there
is a constant tension between the expectations imposed by hegemony
and the reality of being human. This tension not only creates but
maintains a constant existence of disorder and rebellion against hege-
monic definitions. Fred Moten writes, “The lived experience of Black-
ness is . . . a constant demand for an ontology of disorder, an
ontology of dehiscence, a para-ontology” (187). Blackness, thus, is an
ontological site of rupture that has separated from and now exists
beside, outside of, and beyond that which is already defined by hege-
monic ontology. Out of blackness emerged a cultural response that
produced blues, jazz, rock and roll, soul, and hip-hop. The music that
emerged out of blackness accomplishes its transcendent social disrup-
tions through a dialogue that both creates shelters of endurance for

The Journal of Popular Culture, Vol. 53, No. 1, 2020

© 2020 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

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HyunA, Blackness, Feminism, and K-Pop 193

the undefined and tools through which they can challenge the
hegemonic ideology concerning race and gender.
George Lipsitz’s application of Mikhail Bakhtin’s concept of dialo-
gism to popular music helps explain the cultural impact of the music
that came out of blackness and its dialogue with the dominant cul-
ture to “re-articulate and dis-articulate dominant ideology” (102).
Lipsitz argues, “Popular music is nothing if not dialogic, the product
of an ongoing historical conversation in which no one has the first or
last word” (99). Black music artforms have dialogued with dominant
American culture from slavery times to the modern day. African-
American musical styles enact a social cut in dominant culture, and
within that cut, communities develop around that artform. Within
these communities, identities are formed, and through music and
dance, these alternative identities are performed. For black women,
the emergence of the blues as a popular artform in the early twentieth
century provided opportunities to exhibit blackness through the per-
formance of their bodies. According to Tricia Rose, “black music [is
linked] to black women’s racial, sexual, and political identities”
(153). African-American blues women, through their performances
and lyrics, challenged traditional gender roles for women in both
dominant white American culture and African-American patriarchal
culture. The early blues women’s, particularly Gertrude “Ma” Rainey
and her protege Bessie Smith, dialogic response to the dominant idea
of “woman” was blatant defiance through their performing bodies
and lyrics. In fact, their actions, attitudes, sexual mores, and even
body types were all typically associated with men. K. A. Hammer
writes, “Sexually libertine and outrageous, Rainey and Smith dis-
rupted gender/sex alignments and notions of cisnormativity embed-
ded in African American communities” (280). The blues’ first star,
the “Mother of the Blues,” was Ma Rainey, who, despite being
dubbed “the ugliest woman in show business,” confidently posed,
strutted, laughed, and moaned her way into the eyes and ears of a
black and white American audience (O’Brien 9). The unashamed per-
formance of her black female body, along with an attitude that had
the temerity to suggest that it was a site of glamor with its decor of
rhinestones, gold bracelets, and necklaces, showed the liberating pos-
sibilities of blackness and was a direct affront to the American patri-
archal ideal of true womanhood. The blues also provided an
alternative outlet for feminist expression. Angela Davis writes, “The
194 Erick Raven

female portraits created by the early blues women served as reminders

of African-American women’s tradition of womanhood, a tradition
that directly challenged prevailing notions of femininity” (37). As
black women were largely excluded from the white, middle-class-
dominated early feminist movement, music became a prime outlet
for them to express counterhegemonic definitions of what it meant to
be a woman. This defiant tradition first established by the blues
women went dormant after the 1920s, but re-emerged through
hip-hop.
Since the 1970s, the black music culture of hip-hop has emerged
as the most popular form of music in the world. It operates as an
oppositional tradition “deeply embossed within the past and present
lives of concrete historical subjects [and works] to undermine domi-
nant ideologies and to stimulate real and imagined alternatives” (Lip-
sitz 108). Hip-Hop has thus infused the influence of blackness into
individuals and groups, enabling them to develop alternative dis-
courses regarding ethnicity, gender, and identity. Female hip-hop
artists perform the female body in counterdiscursive ways that chal-
lenge conventional mores and preconceptions about femininity. In
the 1980s, pioneering African-American female artists, such as Queen
Latifah and Salt ’N’ Pepa, used hip-hop to address issues related to
the intersection of race and gender. These rappers “interpret[ed] and
articulate[d] the fears, pleasures, and promises of young black women
whose voices have been relegated to the margins of public discourse”
(Rose 146). Hip-hop provided a platform for black women to dia-
logue with past experiences, individually and culturally, to under-
stand and express their identities, struggles, and hopes for the future.
Black female hip-hop artists not only dialogued with American hege-
monic perceptions about race, but they also addressed issues of gender
as well. For example, Salt ’N’ Pepa sets the standard for female rap-
pers who desired to confront the unjust systems to which they are
subjected by proclaiming an alternative truth to that which is propa-
gated by hegemonic discourse. This bold confrontation and dialogue
with hegemonic assumptions about African-American females is on
full display in their song, “Negro Wit an Ego,” from their 1990
album, Blacks’ Magic. In the song, they address the propensity to
view African-American women as sexual objects who should only be
seen and not heard (Salt ’N’ Pepa). Contrary to social norms, Salt ’N’
Pepa intended to have their say in a social dialogue in a popular
HyunA, Blackness, Feminism, and K-Pop 195

culture sphere in which the voices of African-American women had

been traditionally dismissed or relegated to being mere mouthpieces
for the lyrical expressions of men. Queen Latifah routinely rapped to
proclaim an identity outside of hegemonic definition. In the song,
“Evil that Men Do,” produced by KRS-One and off her 1989 debut
album, All Hail the Queen, she defies how dominant American society
viewed African-American women by declaring herself a Queen
(Queen Latifah). This self-designation was conceived of in the para-
ontological world of blackness and expressed through hip-hop.
African-American/South Korean hip-hop artist Yoon Mirae (aka
Natasha Reid) grew up in America during the era that Salt ’N’ Pepa
and Queen Latifah were proclaiming alternative possibilities for black
women. That influence helped her pioneer female Korean hip-hop by
taking the inherent practice of artforms derived out of blackness to
contest dominant ideology in South Korea, where it is providing a
space for women to develop alternative conceptions about themselves.
Though male Korean hip-hop began as early as 1989 and was popu-
larized by Seo Taeji and Boys, female Korean hip-hop was essentially
nonexistent until Yoon’s emergence in the late 1990s. She influenced
a generation of female Koreans to use hip-hop to value and express
themselves in a way contrary to cultural expectations about feminin-
ity. Hyuna Kim is one of the artists in whom Yoon’s influence of
defying cultural norms is clearly evident.
Hyuna Kim, known as HyunA, through her rap and dance perfor-
mances has exhibited the influence of hip-hop in a Korean context in
her role as a “destructive, healing agent . . . a salve whose soothing
lies in the abrasive penetration of the merely typical” (Moten 186). In
an entirely different context, she continues a tradition of defiance first
established by the blues women in America a century ago. While
Yoon directly challenged color prejudice and racism in South Korea,
HyunA’s career has been all about redefining and exhibiting alterna-
tive social standards for women. HyunA’s style of hip-hop is unprece-
dented in the context of a historically male-dominant, Neo-Confucian
(hereafter Confucian) nation and has manifested itself through her
controversial music videos, her control over all aspects of her creative
career, and her defiance toward her agency, CUBE Entertainment,
who unceremoniously fired her in late 2018. In light of the negative
public perception of feminism in Korea, HyunA, through the black-
ness-derived artform of hip-hop, acts as a vessel of feminist expression
196 Erick Raven

and embodies the goals and ideals conventional (i.e., academic and
political) feminists cannot.
To those critics disgusted with the K-Pop industry’s draconian
control over the public and private lives of its performers, HyunA is
merely another K-Pop plastic doll promoted by an industry that
insidiously persuades young women to alter their physical appearance
and defy moral standards for the sake of profit. Overlooked by her
critics, however, is the manner in which she has personified Korean
feminist ideals by, for instance, being the primary decision maker in
all aspects of her performing career, a feat extremely rare in the (male)
producer-dominated industry of K-Pop. Whereas it is usually male
producers who come up with the concepts of songs and music videos,
HyunA is intimately involved in the decisionmaking process of what-
ever project she is to be featured in. Additionally, in Korea, a
woman’s self-perception is largely determined by her appearance;
those who are physically “appealing” are granted social favors that
other women are excluded from (Kim, et al. 25). Thus, due to the
disregard of other otherwise positive traits a woman might possess
unrelated to beauty, those who are socially favored and deemed visu-
ally acceptable must use that benefit as an avenue through which
other social injustices can be addressed. Therefore, HyunA uses the
highest regarded social benefit that she possesses, her body, to com-
mit feminist acts of subversion against traditional expectations for
Korean women in order to attract social attention and criticism for
the purpose of promoting positive change for women.
Traditional feminists might argue that HyunA’s performances do
little but satisfy the male gaze; that her shows are merely chore-
ographed to elicit an erotic response from her male (and female) fans
and certainly not to embody feminist ideals. Granted, especially in
the context of Western performance standards, there is a fine line
between exploitation and inspiration. Indeed, eroticism is almost
essential if a female performer hopes to become relevant in Western
popular music. There would be little to no social impact if HyunA
performed her customary stage show on Western music channels and
award shows. However, as Micha Cardenas writes about American
singer Ke$ha, to perceive HyunA as not political is to reject the voice
of a subjected sector of a particular society, thereby denying poten-
tially powerful ideas from ever reaching public consciousness (176).
Thus, to view HyunA as merely an object of male desire is to deny
HyunA, Blackness, Feminism, and K-Pop 197

her status as a conscientious, consciously provocative artist who has

deliberately performed feminist acts throughout her career. In her
performances, she does not submit to the male gaze as much as bait
it as a means to power within a patriarchal discourse. It is her hips,
so to speak, that stand in for her lips, providing her a platform
through which she can influence an entire generation of young
women.
To properly assess the impact of HynuA’s feminist acts, an under-
standing of the role of the female body in particular cultural contexts
is a necessity. In HyunA’s case, the role of her body is defined by
Confucian ideology, so considering her actions within that ideological
context determines the severity of her transgressive acts. Therefore,
Susan Bordo’s work about the role of the female body as a “site of
struggle” in a male-dominant society is appropriate when assessing
the body of HyunA. According to Bordo, the female body is a “text
that insists, actually demands, that it be read as a cultural statement”
(169). It is also a body “whose forces and energies are habituated to
external regulation, subjection, transformation, ‘improvement’” (166).
For nearly six centuries, Korean female bodies have been habituated
to the external regulation, subjection, transformation, and “improve-
ment” of Confucianism. Confucian conceptions of femininity regu-
lated women’s bodies into a pattern most suitable for a sphere of
domestication. HyunA, and other K-Pop female artists she has
inspired, is rewriting the rules of what is acceptable for the Korean
female body. With her lips and hips, HyunA subverts every rule con-
structed for women within Confucian discourse, accomplishing in one
decade what feminism alone could not do in five. In her, the ideals of
Korean feminism, hitherto compromised to ensure the passage of laws
designed to primarily protect women in the home, find fulfillment.
Although the phenomenon of K-Pop and the industry’s social and
cultural impact, both internationally and locally, has been examined
in numerous studies, the social impact of individual performers, partic-
ularly female performers, has not been frequently analyzed. Examin-
ing the meaning of HyunA’s body in the context of contemporary
Korean society emphasizes its role as a socially significant feminist
“site of resistance” to patriarchal hegemony. As Cardenas says about
Ke$ha, HyunA is “both inhabiting and creating norms, as nodes in
networks, which use lines of communication to form new assem-
blages” (180). In her article, Cardenas used Ke$ha as a means to
198 Erick Raven

highlight how “femmes and pop stars who have been presented as
lacking agency or self-awareness in feminist theory” can address con-
cerns with broad social and political implications (178). Similarly,
what could be perceived as an exploited, performing body in the case
of HyunA is in fact an access point to broad social change that could
impact Korean women in generations to come. Accordingly, in the
absence of more “respectable” outlets for female expression, HyunA
expertly uses her body, putting it in the line of fire for the social bet-
terment of Korean young women. Understanding the influence of
HyunA in the context of modern Korean culture locates her at the
vanguard of a new epoch of Korean feminism, one that combines
feminist ideals with pop culture sensibilities and strategies that help
Korean feminism advance past its current social limitations.
What exactly qualifies HyunA’s actions as feminist? While she
hints at sympathies with feminism in a 2018 Cosmopolitan photo
shoot in which she wears a shirt with the statement, “We Should all
be Feminists,” (D. Kim) she has never explicitly stated that she is a
feminist. What must be remembered is that, although feminism is a
global movement, the local form of feminism that exists within a
societal context largely determines whether an act can be perceived as
feminist or not. Moreover, there is a danger in applying a Western
concept such as feminism in a non-Western setting and expecting it
to evolve and impact the new setting in a similar manner as in the
West. To have this expectation is to follow the discourse that Edward
Said indicates is so prominent in Western scholarship, which exalts
Western perspectives on an issue while at the same time compressing
and marginalizing the Other’s view about the same issue (22). Thus,
to view HyunA solely through a Western, feminist/postfeminist lens
threatens to compress and consolidate, even dismiss, her impact on
Korean culture. Similarly, although Nicola Spakowski was writing
about Chinese feminism, her logic could be applied to Korea when
she states, “The ‘local’ here is not a ‘permeable’ local, a simple variant
of the global, but a concrete answer to a concrete situation, one that
is determined by differences within [Korea], shaped by [Korean] his-
tory . . . and impossible to assess by an absolute and universal stan-
dard of liberation” (46). The standards and ideals of the local feminist
movement must be considered to determine whether anyone is per-
forming specific acts in support of that movement. HyunA, therefore,
qualifies as a Korean feminist by reflecting (and transcending) the
HyunA, Blackness, Feminism, and K-Pop 199

movement’s ideals and by embodying an alternative conception of

femininity expressed through her performances and creative power as
a hip-hop artist.

The Confucian Construct

The role of the body is determined according to the cultural context

the body inhabits. The cultural context both constructs gender and
determines what actions are expected and acceptable for each con-
structed gender. Bordo asserts that the rules of femininity are learned
through the public actions of women demonstrated through media
and images approved of by epistemic discourse (170). While modern
Korean society is a cultural mix of both Western and Confucian
influences, the discursive foundation through which the bodies of
Korean women have been constructed is according to Confucian dis-
course. Though many young women do not live by its traditional
standards, it is still the standard by which the appearance of their
bodies, constituted roles in society, and behavior is determined. Since
the fourteenth century, the proper standard for Korean women’s bod-
ies has been determined according to Confucian discourse.
Women’s status within Confucian Korean society was affected by
the transition from a Buddhist episteme to hierarchical patriarchy in
profound ways. Young-Hee Shim states, “[Confucianism] calls for a
clear hierarchical order of the sexes, drawing a sharp distinction
between and requiring the separation and subordination of the
woman’s inner, or domestic, sphere and the man’s outer, or public
sphere. It thus accords women an inferior position” (135). Although
Confucian texts do not explicitly advocate the second-class status of
women, those who interpreted the Confucian scriptures in the context
of a new dynasty interjected their own brand of patriarchy into the
emerging kingdom (Koh 354). Another element of Korean Confu-
cianism that was fused to patriarchy was the Taoist view of nature, in
which universal harmony can only be achieved by the binary balance
of opposites (yin/yang). However, the only way to achieve this bal-
ance is for each member of the binary to operate in their proper
places. In Korea, this balance manifested as the patriarchal ideology
that exalted the social status of males over females. Once male supre-
macy was established, ideological roles for women were then formed
200 Erick Raven

that called for specific behavior according to age and marital status,
according to Jung-Soon Shim (137). This notion links to Foucault,
who argued that discourse produces both the subject and a place for
the subject (Hall 56). In Confucian Korea, the subject of “woman”
could only be placed in the following positions: young unmarried/vir-
gin, middle-aged woman/mother, and grandmother; those who lived
outside those roles were considered on the level of prostitutes (R.
Williams 397).
Confucianism remained largely unchallenged until the armistice
that halted the Korean War in 1953. Along with American military
aid came the introduction of Western cultural and ideological con-
cepts. However, those ideals contrasted sharply with the policies and
actions of the various military dictatorships that ruled Korea until
the late 1980s. With the emergence of democracy in 1988, the slow
erosion of Confucian ideological influence accelerated as Western
methods of advancement and economics came to the fore. The bene-
fits of democracy, however, applied primarily to Korean men, while
women’s Confucian-constructed expectations remained largely
unchanged. Thus, as Kim Heisook contends, Korean men wanted
women to “remain in their place,” even as they pursued the benefits
of Westernization (249). Yet, like the kisaeng centuries before, the
emergence of K-Pop presented a public space that allowed women
the opportunity to present an alternative version of “woman” from
the one produced by Confucian discourse.

(Post)Feminism in the West vs. Korean Feminism

In the West, postfeminism has superseded the perceived archaic con-

cerns and public image of feminists from the 1960s and 1970s, and
the primary sphere of postfeminist expression is pop culture. Angela
McRobbie argues, “this new kind of sophisticated anti-feminism has
become a recurring feature across the landscape of both popular and
political culture. It upholds the principles of gender equality, while
denigrating the figure of the feminist” (179). Postfeminism has also
been described as a neoliberal phenomenon that upholds capitalism
while it ignores numerous social inequalities (Martinez-Jimenez et al.
401). In short, postfeminism considers the feminist concerns of the
1960s and 1970s, namely women’s equality and patriarchal
HyunA, Blackness, Feminism, and K-Pop 201

subversion, as limited in focus and not fully embracing of those who

inhabit nontraditional gender roles. However, it has also been accused
of propagating traditional patriarchal standards by presenting a false
equality built upon overt sexualization of the female body, and the
main propagators of this “false feminism” are popular female enter-
tainers such as Beyonce Knowles and Lady Gaga. Critics, such as
Martinez-Jimenez, Galvez-Munoz, and Solano-Caballero, charge that
although performers like Beyonce intend to use their bodies as instru-
ments of female empowerment, they are actually being used as unwit-
ting tools by capitalism to both perpetuate racial stereotypes about
black women and establish new Western body standards (a curva-
ceous, tanned, large-bottomed ideal that has largely replaced the thin,
blonde, white ideal of previous generations) impossible to achieve
(411). Another version of feminism has been termed by J. Jack Hal-
berstam as “Gaga Feminism,” named after the pop artist Lady Gaga.
Gaga Feminism goes beyond only advocating for gender equality and
questions the very categories of “man” and “woman.” It has also been
termed “queer feminism” because of its embrace of the LGBT+ com-
munity within the umbrella of gender concerns. However, Lady Gaga
has been accused of advocating a new feminism while at the same
time minimalizing the struggle against racial injustice in a video
that, ironically, features Beyonce (J. Williams 41). Thus, in the
West, the very definition of feminism is mired in the shifting sands
of perception; what is considered feminism by pop culture artists like
Lady Gaga and Beyonce and what should be considered feminist by
social critics, such as Angela McRobbie, are completely different.
Korean feminism, on the other hand, is clearly defined and has
been consistently so for five decades. Though there were Korean femi-
nist movements prior to the 1960s, it became more structured and
organized in that decade. It developed concurrently with the feminist
movements in the West during the 1960s and 1970s and focuses on
“the question of [Confucian] tradition and the position of Korean
women in society” (Heisook 250). The form of feminism that evolved
in Korea was inspired by Western liberal feminist ideas, which
emphasized the equality of men and women, an idea directly opposed
to the hierarchical social structure of Confucianism. The movement
was sparked by the oppression of women experienced under the mili-
tary dictatorship of Park Chung Hee. The Park government initiated
mass industrialization, which transformed the previously agrarian
202 Erick Raven

Korean society into an urban one and helped lay the foundation for
the “Korean economic miracle” that would occur decades later. To
ensure social order, however, the government suppressed political dis-
sent and freedom of speech, giving rise to human rights groups that
developed a “discourse of humanization” (Suh and Park 333). The
humanization discourse, however, preserved the Confucian under-
standing of women being subservient to men. To combat this, an
emphasis on women’s rights, especially equality, was advocated by
women’s rights organizations. Their understanding of gender equality
was rooted in the egalitarian values of evangelical Christianity, which
spread rapidly in South Korea in the 1960s. In fact, the root of mod-
ern Korean feminism began with a women’s rights organization
named The Christian Academy in 1965. Thus, an understanding of
women from the perspective of the Christian religion was the main
oppositional force against the entrenched Confucian tradition. How-
ever, influenced by evangelical Christianity’s focus on the home and
because of the dramatic rise of domestic violence as a result of urban-
ization, the safety concerns for women within families assumed a greater
priority than the need for women’s equality in the public sphere.
Korean Feminism as a philosophical entity began with the estab-
lishment of Korea’s first women’s studies program at Ewha Womans
University in 1989 (Heisook 249). In 1993, the Korean Association
of Feminist Philosophy (KAFP) formed, the first overtly feminist
philosophical organization, which focuses directly on “the problems
that the Confucian tradition in East Asia poses [for Korean women]”
(Heisook 251). However, a tension developed between the ideals of
Korean feminism (developed from the discourse of women’s human-
ization) and familism, which is “a term indicating that supporting
and preserving the role of family dominates the values of an entire
social system” (Suh and Park 344). Thus, because Korean feminism
became primarily focused on immediate social issues that affected
women in the home, such as domestic violence, liberal feminist ideals
were compromised to ensure government action. The compromise
strategy proved effective when the Korean government passed a vari-
ety of measures advocated by feminists, including antisex trade laws,
the Act on the Prevention of Domestic Violence in 1997, and the
elimination of the hoju system (in which women were not allowed to
be listed as head of a family) in 2005. However, Korean society has
preserved the Confucian conception of motherhood as the highest
HyunA, Blackness, Feminism, and K-Pop 203

ideal to be achieved. Women unable to achieve this ideal, such as sin-

gle-mothers and lesbians, are thus largely excluded from governmen-
tal protection of law. Young-Hee Shim maintains that, while Korean
feminists continually criticize Confucianism, they also use Confucian
conceptions of sexuality to advocate for laws in support of victims of
sexual violence (134). Indeed, any form of sexuality outside of a
heteronormative context is considered “deviant” and unacceptable,
including lesbianism. In fact, because of the patriarchal Confucian
definitions of man and woman, lesbians are not even considered
women. As a result, Korean lesbians are not included, or even
acknowledged, in Korean feminist discourse. Soo-Jin Park-Kim
insists that lesbians are virtually nonexistent in the minds of Korean
feminists (168). In many ways, modern Korean feminism resembles
early feminism in the West, when lesbians were considered the
“lavender menace” (Tong and Botts 25). Perhaps, as Young-Hee Shim
suggests, the Korean feminist movement is experiencing a “delayed
re-play” of what happened in Western feminism decades ago (140).
While Korea is in the midst of dealing directly with what is gen-
erally considered (in the West) feminist issues from the 1960s and
1970s, a postfeminist attitude is prominent among Korean young
women, who generally want the benefits advocated by feminism
without the extremism attached to the name. Thus, feminist sympa-
thizers have had to devise ways to maneuver around the name while
at the same time trying to fulfill its goals. Therefore, avoiding the
label, as postfeminists in the West have done, has been one of the
strategies adopted. Additionally, radical groups, such as WOMAD
and Megalia (which emerged from WOMAD), have been associated
with the Korean feminist movement because of their overt publicity
promoting female issues at the expense of any sympathy with men.
According to Professor Lee Hyun-jae at the University of Seoul, “The
original idea of feminism is against discrimination and it unites with
social minorities, but Womad is based on female chauvinism” (J.
Kim). One member of the Justice Party political group added,
“Megalia is to feminism what North Korea is to opposition activists
—it’s a scarlet letter, a very useful tool for shutting up feminists”
(Steger). Several K-Pop artists, who otherwise believe in the objec-
tives of feminism, have been libeled by association. For instance, after
AOA member Seolhyun merely mentioned her interest in social issues
about women, she was immediately branded as a feminist by male
204 Erick Raven

netizens and received numerous death threats (Lubby00). Another

idol, Irene of Red Velvet, received similar treatment when it was dis-
covered that she was reading the feminist novel Kim JiYoung, Born
1982 (Herman).
Yet, the main difference between Western and Korean women is
that the former perceive themselves as having mostly achieved second
wave feminist goals, whereas Koreans have yet to realize them. In
their zeal to put the concerns of antiquated feminism behind them,
Western women are eager to consign the feminist label to the dust-
bins of history. Koreans, on the other hand, are hesitant to even evoke
the cursed label because of its denigrated connotations. It is in this
cultural context of public disavowal of feminism but private striving
after feminist goals that HyunA exhibits acts of feminism without
overtly claiming to be a feminist herself.

HyunA’s Body of Resistance

Some of the ideals of Korean feminism, such as female empowerment

and social equality, seem to find fulfillment in the most unlikely
package: the body of HyunA. Hyuna Kim was born in 1992, but the
creation of HyunA’s body began in the same “laboratory” as other K-
Pop artists. However, despite the fact that she underwent the same
regimen as other trainees, HyunA was able to escape the industry’s
manipulative control and has emerged as a woman with final author-
ity over how she presents herself to the public, the source and moti-
vation of her body’s construction notwithstanding. While HyunA is
not vocally outspoken concerning her views on women in Korean
society, like the African-American blues women and female hip-hop
pioneers, she uses her body as the vessel through which she makes
her feminist protest known. In other words, HyunA’s overt use of
sexuality as well as her actual power and influence offers new ways to
introduce new Korean feminism to young Korean women resistant to
the stereotypical image of “man-hating” traditional feminists. This
was given public recognition in early 2018, when HyunA was named
PUMA’s Women’s Campaign Ambassador because of her “trademark
confident charisma on stage and fearlessly expressing image changes”
(Jennywill). PUMA’s #DOYOU campaign champions “individuality
and the imperative need to defy inequality, expectations and
HyunA, Blackness, Feminism, and K-Pop 205

[acceptable body] standards” (Cahill). Thus, in the absence of an out-

spoken vocal advocation for feminist ideals, HyunA’s PUMA Ambas-
sador designation is the clearest profeminist public recognition a K-
Pop artist has ever received.
Appropriately, her first single as a solo artist was entitled,
“Change.” Although the lyrics of the song are by no means profound,
the meaning and attitude behind them reflect the sentiments of mil-
lions of young Korean women no longer content with the second-
class status to which they have been assigned. Although she did not
write the song, her decision to record and promote it as her first sin-
gle testifies to her belief in its message. In case there was any doubt
about whether she endorsed the lyrics she sings, HyunA makes it per-
fectly clear in the first verse, when she describes the song as her “own
slogan” and her “logo” (Kim and Hyung). Thus, with her first solo
song, she takes up a leadership mantle and beckons anyone who will
listen to follow her, swagger after her even, into an emerging dis-
course. Her use of the actual English word “swagger” is significant in
that it suggests an empowering motivation to use a language and
attitude associated with idealistic notions of freedom as the basis
from which she chooses to do battle. To swagger means not only
exhibiting confidence but a haughty confidence that is not intimi-
dated by an opposition or enemy that might get in the way. Thus,
the battle theme is especially appropriate, yet it is a conflict that will
be won by a body liberating through swaggering lips and hips. That
the theme of the song centers around a street fight could symbolize
the conflict inherent in the unmaking of centuries-old ideas and
forming new conceptions of what it means to be a woman in a transi-
tioning Korean society. To engage in battle is not for the timid; it
requires a disposition that repositions into a new establishment of
power and new power relations. “Change” was an immediate hit,
remaining in the top ten of the Korean digital sales chart for five
weeks (Shockimpulse).
On cue, the battle alarm sounded from the standard bearers of the
previous episteme through a string of censorship and public criticism
that has accompanied nearly every HyunA video since the beginning
of her solo career. In fact, the Ministry of Gender Equality and Fam-
ily, a government agency indicative of the limited effect feminism
has had on Korean society, slapped the video with a 19+ (mature
adult) rating. K-Pop songs are subject to arbitrary censorship from
206 Erick Raven

broadcast companies who are influenced by the Ministry of Gender

Equality and Family, a government entity that supports ideals consis-
tent with the familism aspect of Korean feminism and has thus
retained the conservative moral standards of Confucianism (Home-
page). The Ministry represents the Korean government’s stance on
what programs are considered appropriate and inappropriate to be
broadcast on television networks, including K-Pop videos and live
performances. Yoo Eun Lee writes, “[Television networks] have strict
guidelines against artists performing too sexually or ‘controversially.’”
Though the K-Pop industry is partially financed by the government
with a clear profit motive, it is clear that what is “morally accept-
able” is of greater importance than the potential popularity of a song
or performer. The fact that HyunA’s videos and live performances are
routinely censored or banned has undoubtedly hindered her ability to
reach a larger Korean audience, which has not only affected her musi-
cal success within her own country but has also resulted in a largely
negative public perception of her. In spite of this, HyunA’s defiant
refusal to alter her artistic vision is her clearest act of public feminism
in a Korean context.
HyunA’s influence within a male-dominated industry is the
embodiment of power of which most Korean women can only dream.
It is a testament to her tenacity that she was able to become an exam-
ple of Gramsci’s “organic intellectual” in the K-Pop industry by
emerging as an intellectual by virtue of her power and influence
within it. Her status within the industry started to increase in 2011
when the single “Bubble Pop” became the first video by a female K-
Pop performer to surpass 100 million views on YouTube (Ramirez).
But it was in 2012, when she appeared in a cameo opposite PSY for
his “Gangnam Style” video, that she became an international star.
The groundbreaking video expanded the West’s awareness of the
industry beyond niche status and HyunA was subsequently featured
in the female version of the song, “Oppa Is Just My Style,” thus
becoming the global female representative of K-Pop.
Her control over every creative aspect of her career reveals one of the
reasons behind her appeal to millions of female fans and accomplishes
what decades of compromised feminism has not. One of HyunA’s man-
ifested powers is as a writer (or cowriter) of her own songs, though the
standard K-Pop practice is for songwriters to be commissioned by an
agency. Lie writes, “K-pop producers seek to hire world-class artists
HyunA, Blackness, Feminism, and K-Pop 207

and professionals to do everything from writing lyrics and composing

music to choreographing and costuming” (142). HyunA, contrarily,
has written or cowritten over thirty songs for both 4Minute and her
solo career and is the fashion director (and sometimes cinematogra-
pher) of her videos. Her status as an icon of Korean fashion has only
added to her appeal. As she explains, “I am very into fashion. [For
example,] the sneakers that I wore during [the] ‘Ice Cream’ promo-
tions, I . . . re-designed myself. I am interested in stage costume[s] as
well . . . during photo shoots [my staff] always hands me the camera”
(Benjamin). Additionally, although she works with choreographers in
conceiving dance routines, she is ultimately the final authority over
her and her team’s steps. In Interview Magazine she explains, “When it
comes to making choreography for the song, I look at myself in the
mirror . . . until I find the [right] choreography that fits me perfectly
and that can project the performer HyunA in the right way” (Poole).
In other words, she answers to the dictates of her own muse.
HyunA’s dancing is just as much an expression of her hip-hop
influence as her rapping. It has been just as effective as her rapping,
if not more so, in challenging dominant hegemony. This is directly
seen in her 2019 New Year’s Eve performance on the MBC network’s
New Years Eve special (HyunA). In front of a national television
audience, solely through a hip-hop dance that HyunA performed her
most powerful expression of feminism, liberation, and identity with-
out uttering a word. The performance featured both HyunA and her
boyfriend, Dawn; their relationship was the reason why both were
fired from their agency, CUBE Entertainment. It opens with HyunA
locked in a white cage (the symbolism with her former company is
obvious) and is soon joined by Dawn, who enters the cage to be with
her. After a brief dance by Dawn, HyunA then pins him to the white
bars and twerks on his midsection. Their subsequent dance inside the
cage symbolizes the surreptitious relationship the two had while they
were under contract by CUBE. The reason for the clandestine nature
of their relationship was due to the well-known “no dating” policy
enforced by most major K-Pop agencies. In Fall 2018, tired of con-
stantly hiding their relationship, HyunA and Dawn publicly admit-
ted their relationship, prompting CUBE to first suspend and then fire
both of them. Later, CUBE tried to persuade HyunA to return to the
agency but she, after releasing a public letter detailing her experi-
ences and unrequited toil for the agency, declared her independence.
208 Erick Raven

A few months later, she signed with PSY’s (whose “Gangnam Style”
video made her an international star) indie company, PNation.
As the performance within the cage continues, they both dance as
if they are negotiating, even scheming, for a way out. After briefly
joining hands, HyunA proceeds to be the first one to find the exit
and break out of the cage, holding the cage door to allow Dawn to
follow her. This act in itself symbolizes the flipping (off?) of the tra-
ditional patriarchy dominant in Korean society. That HyunA was the
one who broke out of the cage first, with the male following her lead,
is another symbol of the power of hip-hop dance to challenge domi-
nant hegemonic standards. After their liberation from the cage, the
performance ends with the two lying next to each other in opposite
directions (suggesting a yin/yang balance), with a crew of male and
female dancers encircling them. Significantly, it is the female dancers
who stand prominently dominant in front of the pair, while the male
dancers are passively in the background.
The entire two and half minute performance summed up HyunA’s
career-long message without a single lyric rapped from her mouth. It
testified that hip-hop dance has as much socially rupturing potential
as any rap song. In front of a national audience, HyunA’s dance
writhed in the cut enacted by a black cultural expression and not
only challenged the business practices of the K-Pop industry, but
Korean patriarchy as well.

HyunA’s Blackness-Derived Alternative Identity

Although it may seem natural for men to be drawn like magnets to

her physical attributes, HyunA’s target audience is Korean women.
She has stated, “First of all, what I want is for women to gain more
confidence . . . [to] boost their self-esteem” (Yun). In a December
2017 interview, she stated, “I’ve always heard that I have a lot of guy
fans but the majority of the fans that have spent a long time with me
are girls” (Yckimm124). She specifically targets Korean women with
her frequent appearances on variety and music programs such as (Kor-
ean) Dancing with the Stars and The Unit (as a mentor and judge). The
final song off HyunA’s 2017 EP Following, entitled “Self Portrait”
(aka “Mirror”), seems to directly address the psyche of her Korean
female fans by modeling honest self-awareness in a culture that values
HyunA, Blackness, Feminism, and K-Pop 209

the superficially beautiful at the expense of internal reality. In the

first verse, she addresses the conflict between the body of HyunA, an
expression of an alternative identity constructed through a blackness-
derived hip-hop culture, and the woman constructed by Confucian
discourse, Hyuna Kim. When Hyuna Kim sings of her reflection, the
reflection she sees is HyunA. Hyuna Kim is beset with the psycho-
logical wounds inflicted by a patriarchy that has wounded scores of
Korean young women; wounds she tries desperately to hide from
fans. This is reflected when she sings about the “real you” hiding
beneath the exterior image of the self (Hyuna Kim). Thus, if
“Change” was about swaggering lips and hips intent on toppling the
established social order, “Self Portrait” is the emotional behind-the-
scenes revelation about the effects of the battle.
Hidden beneath HyunA’s call-to-arms bravado and idealized and
idolized skin is an accumulation of battle scars inflicted by the terror
of her own gaze. Susan Bordo argues that women inscribe on their bod-
ies a constant feeling of insufficiency (166). This seems to be the case
whether it concerns an unknown woman or one of the most popular
female performers in the world. A persistent body dissatisfaction has
existed throughout Hyuna Kim’s career, as she has always been self-
conscious about the body of HyunA, even though it is considered by
many as the epitome of the Korean beauty ideal. The body dissatisfac-
tion felt by Hyuna Kim is mirrored in many of her Korean fans. In
fact, Korean women exhibit more behaviors associated with eating dis-
order symptoms, such as bulimia and anorexia, than Western women,
which is a direct result of Korean young women feeling pressured to
conform to unrealistic standards of beauty (Kim, et al. 27). Hyuna
Kim, however, performs her greatest feminist act by showing female
fans how to combat this burdensome pressure in her lyrics. In the
fourth verse, she explains that the more one wants perfection, the far-
ther they find themselves away from it (Kim, “Mirror”). Perfection is
an ideal created by normative discourse; an ideal HyunA cannot
embody due to her embrace of alternative standards and definitions for
women. Hyuna Kim wants the body of HyunA to be perfect according
to hegemony, but she realizes that this is an impossibility. Hyuna
Kim’s struggle is to overcome the inadequacies she perceives in the
body of HyunA and accept what that body represents to millions of
young women who see it as a representation of defiance and power. In
the next verse, Hyuna Kim awakens to her undefined reality and
210 Erick Raven

embraces HyunA, imploring herself and listeners not to “forget what’s

important” and not to “be jealous of anyone.” There is no need for
Hyuna Kim to be greedy or jealous of anyone because HyunA occupies
a position of influence envied by her female fans. HyunA’s embrace of
an alternative identity that emerged out of an artform that arose out of
blackness has made her a feminist leader within Korean society. It is in
her performances through an artform made possible by blackness that
she serves as a psychological and feminist role model in showing young
women how to honestly face their own feelings of inadequacy and defy
the discourse that has shaped their identities.

Conclusion

Fred Moten writes, “[Blackness] is the victory of the unfinished, the

lonesome fugitive; the victory of finding things out, of questioning
. . . an undiscovered country” (202). To be clear, HyunA is not a rep-
resentation of physical blackness; indeed, part of her daily beauty rou-
tine is reflecting the Korean beauty standard for pale skin (“HyunA-
Ing”). However, she continues a tradition of abiding in and perform-
ing a para-ontological reality through an artform developed in black-
ness—hip-hop. Through that blackness-derived artform, she performs
feminist acts that point the way beyond the troubling perceptual
sphere Korean feminism is in now. As it now stands, Korean femi-
nism is hopelessly stuck in a position favorable to hegemonic uses. In
other words, it is conformed to rules established by Confucian hege-
mony. What emerges out of the influence of blackness is that which
cannot conform because it is constantly progressing, forming, and
transforming in the chaos of creation. Thus, a new concept of femi-
nism is the only possibility that can emerge out of the ferment of
chaos; it cannot come out of dominant hegemonic discourse. A dis-
course that emerges out of the “undiscovered country” of a para-
ontology is not subject to the rules of normative ontology. Whatever
“rules” that do emerge will be the result of “finding things out, of
questioning.” HyunA invites her fans into the undiscovered freedom
emanating out of blackness through her role as a “new” feminist role
model. In the final verse of “Self-Portrait” she sings, “I’m the you of
tomorrow,” the one that her listeners dream of becoming (HyunA).
What remains to be seen in the dialogue between blackness-derived
HyunA, Blackness, Feminism, and K-Pop 211

communities and Confucian hegemony is hegemony’s anticipated

answer and how blackness-inspired communities will, in turn, struc-
ture its answer in response (Bakhtin 280). The answer may well be
the first wave of a new Korean feminism infused and emanating out
of the influence of blackness. Whatever form the new Korean femi-
nism takes, HyunA’s role in it will continue a tradition established
by the blues women and hip-hop pioneers in challenging gender
norms through artforms that developed in blackness.

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Erick Raven is currently pursuing an MA in English at the University of

Texas at Arlington. He has taught in middle schools in Texas and South
Korea, and currently teaches first-year composition at the University of
Texas at Arlington. He plans to pursue his PhD after completion of the MA
program. His main research interests are related to cultural studies, femin-
ism, and popular culture, specifically the social influence of African-Ameri-
can musical genres in East Asian cultural contexts.