Representation
K-pop influence a lot of people in Korea including people in the middle ages, people in the 20s, college students, teenagers, elementary schoolers, and even kindergarteners. Idol groups frequently show up on TV, which people always watch. Korean girl groups always appear on TV wearing really really short pants or skirts or sometimes just the top. I don't think they are good enough to be singers, but they just emphasize their cuteness and body lines to be singers. To me, they are just sexually appealing to the people to gain popularity. In Korea these days, people think of sexual appeal as an obvious thing to be popular.
These girl groups have caused teenagers to follow the fashion that’s not suitable for teenagers. When I go to Myungdong or Daehakro, I see a lot of people wearing really short skirts or shorts with leggings inside them. Those people, who think they look mature enough to wear clothes like these, looked really young to me. Just by looking at their faces, I could notice that they were middle school students. Not just their clothes, but also their make-ups indicated that they were imitating girl groups’ make-up techniques. What I think is that they are young and young means beautiful. Teenagers are beautiful without the short skirts and make-ups. They are spending too much time on their looks, when they have to spend time on their studies.
Secondly, what these sexual appeals in TV have caused is more sexual abuse in society. When I look at the internet news, at least one news article each day is about sexual harassment. A man rapes a woman walking down the street, father rapes his daughter, teacher rapes his student, and students sexually assault their female teacher. I cannot believe all these can happen in our society. I think sexual crimes increased when there was an increase in the number of girl groups on TV. Men watch these girl groups wearing sexually appealing clothes, become sexually active, and commit sexual crimes. I still cannot believe that K-pop singers have led to such result like this.
My conclusion is that the media needs to have limits on girl groups' clothes. This way, I think teenagers can focus more on their studies and the number of sexual harassment could be decreased.
You make some very good points, but do you think that the answer is censorship or is there something that needs to change about society and its vision of beauty and sexuality?
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