“Korea is a Conservative Country”
Not to be overanalysed, but it turns out that my last post on Han Ji-hye (한지혜) may prove to have been quite prescient on my part(!), for her commercials for the Korean clothing company Bang Bang (뱅뱅) with So Ji-sub (소지섭) have taken a decidedly raunchy turn recently. Yes indeed, what would one expect from a company with a name like that, but then Korea is rife with accidentally lewd English company names and phrases of which the originators are blissfully unaware, and in fact there’d never been so much as a single reference to the double-entendre in any of Bang Bang’s commercials and advertisements up until now, and not even in the first in this new series (0-0:14 below) from last month either. Moreover, while of course I’ve seen plenty of Korean commercials with actresses and models just so happening to fall into awkward sexual poses (most notably this classic one with Lee Hyori), and it’s nigh impossible to avoid the numerous lingerie infomercials on cable here, this second commercial in the video below (from 0:15) is definitely the first time on Korean television at least that I’ve seen anyone lounging around in their panties for the sake of selling jeans, let alone such a well-known actress:
Why? Maybe this is exhibit A in the predicted shift to sexier and/or more shocking advertisements as companies get increasingly desperate during the recession? Maybe just coincidence? Either way, So Ji-sub and the youthful Han Ji-hye look quite unlike a married couple, who have generally learned to have more pride than to wear matching “couple clothes,” and so regardless of whether or not the commercial is merely a reflection of (or a catalyst for) wider public acceptance of cohabiting couples, I heartily approve of the general…er…thrust of Bang Bang’s new advertising campaign.
For anyone further interested in why Koreans generally live with their parents until marriage, see my most recent post (of many) on the subject here, and a brief follow-up here.
Bang Bang With Han Ji-hye?
Maybe it’s a sign that I need to take a break from the blog this weekend, for the instant I saw the picture of actress and model Han Ji-hye (한지혜) on the left (source), this advertisement on the right with American singer Mark McGraph came to mind, a pretty reliable find if one types in “sexist advertisement” in an image search (as one does).
The picture comes from a news report about Han Ji-hye’s new year-long modeling contract with the Korean clothes company Bang Bang (뱅뱅), a name which also never fails to bring certain images to mind, but ones which I’d wager the company is completely unaware of given the absence of any tounge-in-cheek references to the double-entendre in any of their advertisements or commercials so far (most recently with Ha Ji-won {하지원} and Kwon Sang-woo {권상우}, the former of whom I guess Han Ji-hye is replacing). Meanwhile, the advertisement with Mark McGrath you can read about on this Univeristy of Minnesota “Feminist Film and Media Studies” course blog here, and while many of the students’ interpretations of sexism in various advertisements are entirely in their own heads (this one is so far off the mark, it’s almost a satire), I concur with their basic (if somewhat unoriginal) take on this one. Pretty asinine of Candies to post the same ad in men’s and women’s magazines though!
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