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Do any of the people complaining that the mixtape targets other idols speak Korean? Because...
The most interesting point to me was how hard he goes after people for artifice, putting up a facade, and constructing expedient narratives for money, clout, fame, and clicks.
But this isn't really a super personal release (with one notable exception). And he's borrowing and freely playing with concepts from Korean history, creating a persona for his alter ego to play with.
While the song and the MV should stand alone, the MV plays with many interesting concepts that, like changing the focus on a microscope, bring different ideas to light.
For example, the MV is structured as a flashback. We start with him in power, and one of the first shots is of the king's proverbial path. (For those who aren't aware, Korean palaces often have a central path that only the king is allowed to traverse.)
That path turns into the simple dirt road in the village. While I don't love what some of his "squad" are wearing, I do think it's interesting that he's choosing to represent toughness visually with the scar rather than with fully elaborated "hood cosplay."
There's also an element of hilarity in him rolling down the dirt road rapping about private jets while farmers around him go about their business. I think he is fully aware of this and it is meant as self-deprecating, dry humor rather than arrogance.
I think it's also worth pausing to think a bit about some of the associations of "scar." It's just my perception, but I often feel a significant difference in how Koreans use the concept of scar vs English speakers.
In Korean, if I talk about how "he got a scar," it's usually causal. "He got a scar, so he did X later." Scars in English may be painful and / or psychological, but there is something fixed about them. They are marks, visual reminders, etc.
The scar is meant to symbolize the protagonist's hardness, but it is also meant to make us assume that something happened to make him like this. Because of the character's dress and the other visual symbols, that something is likely class-related.
After being introduced to the "poor ego," the MV cuts back to the king stomping and jumping all over the king's path in the courtyard of his palace. A lot of this video shows Yoongi treating cultural touchstones with comfort that more traditional people might find unseemly.
The comfort and even disregard is deliberate (the way he literally jumps on the back of a bowed person, who are arranged like a royal audience).
Even though he casts himself as king, he is also undermining the divine rights that kings claim. As a king, he is a little asshole. The dignity claimed by kings is ridiculous.
When he begins talking about feasting on what is his (and what is traditionally withheld from the poor), that is when the contemporary ego appears.
The references here are in keeping with the historical metaphors but also refer to very timely concepts: dirt spoons, drugs as weakness, and even bringing back the Korean tiger allegory.
Which I find interesting because tigers were both a symbol of Korea's economic miracle worldwide and then a deeply lazy metaphor for the economic recession of the '90s (paper tiger, for example). A member of the most financially successful K-Pop group ever is a bona fide tiger.
Again, as a common symbol in Korean culture, the tiger is both historical and contemporary in the song, just as the multiple personae in the song interact, taunt one another, and even sentence one of their "selves" to death.
I think it is noteworthy that the king jumps around like an asshole from on high while shouting the militaristic title of the song.
I don't think this is meant as one-sided critique; YG is taking full advantage of embodying the king persona to dunk on haters.
I don't think this is meant as one-sided critique; YG is taking full advantage of embodying the king persona to dunk on haters.
The execution is interrupted by contemporary YG in a dusty piece of shit car, literally smirking at the king while the king smirks back.
The contemporary ego is still talking shit even while blindfolded and on death's door.
The contemporary ego is still talking shit even while blindfolded and on death's door.
His arrogance is genuinely amusing in context, which again makes me feel it's a sly persona of arrogance rather than meant as full-fledged attack.
The scenes where the contemporary YG starts nodding on beat, causing the rest of the royal hangers-on to move with him, was funny to me and then became creepy.
The feeling that YG is controlling the bowed audience but also the king, who is doing all kinds of contortions alone in the darkened throne room. The king looks at the camera arrogantly, but the context suggests he is dancing to the beat of the prisoner and has no idea.
The executioner pulling a gun from the box suggests this was YG's plan all along. Everyone dances to his design.
At the same time, when he fires the gun, what exactly is he firing at and is he successful? The last time we see the king in focus, he's playing blade in his room.
At the same time, when he fires the gun, what exactly is he firing at and is he successful? The last time we see the king in focus, he's playing blade in his room.
When contemporary YG actually fires at him, the king is only a blur. Whether he is a hallucination, a metaphorical representation of history, or a petulant (useful, charismatic, even seductive) self, one ego shoots another.
The poor ego never returns. At the end, it is capitalist rich a-hole from the present against imperial rich a-hole from the past.
The villagers don't matter. The bowed, literally prostrate royal audience, doesn't matter.
The villagers don't matter. The bowed, literally prostrate royal audience, doesn't matter.
To me, this is a great example of when a work isn't about heroes or anti-heroes. It genuinely is an exploration, open-minded in the sense that I know what it means if contemporary YG misses and I know what it means if his aim is dead on.
All the YGs in this work are petulant, sneering, arrogant, foolish, funny, charismatic, and even attractive. They are meant to be watched -- visually consumed -- but not necessarily 'rooted for.'
To embed this in a military context is even more interesting and suggestive, both for what is about to happen to BTS and as a criticism of regimentation.
The reference to pills may be a swipe at another idol, but Seoul has had a drug subculture for years now, and that subculture crosses paths again and again with westerners, Korean diaspora, and Korean hip-hop.
Rather than being about idol culture, I see this MV as a broad attempt at iconoclasm. It doesn't always cohere, and it isn't always consistent, except in its disregard for worrying about hypocrisy.
However, I think it is aware of this quality. It is not trying to make a grand statement. There is no central thesis. It is what it is: dizzying, conflicting, and apparently a representation of a specific artist's cultural references, ideas, and identities. I enjoyed it.
