Cloud USA

~Cloud Cover by Terri :-}, Managing Editor

I seldom write reviews on anything.  I don’t write them, because most of the time, I feel like reviews of entertainment are completely meaningless.  Different people are entertained by different things.  So, to tell someone that something is bad just because you don’t like it has always felt somewhat absurd to me.  So, most of the time, I don’t put much stock in anything critics or reviewers say.  However, after I watched MBLAQ’s newest music video, I really felt compelled to say something about it myself.

But before I do, before I start talking, you really need to watch the music video.  Otherwise, you won’t understand my refererences.  So, please watch the full music video of MBLAQ’s It’s War below, courtesy of J.Tune Camp’s YouTube channel.  And then we’ll talk.

Now.  Before I say anything else, let me first say that, overall, I did find this music video reasonably entertaining.  Really, I did.  The music was well crafted.  The costuming was spot on. Their choreography was some of the best I’d seen out of them in a long time.  Even the love triangle story, although not very original and adolescent in concept despite the stark backdrop was well-delivered by all of the players.  So, the boys totally had it going on.  Yes, they did.

In spite of all of that, though, I still had a problem with it.  My problem with the music video wasn’t with the contrived, adolescent love triangle story.  My problem wasn’t that I had trouble suspending my disbelief that a man might be able to point a gun at his friend and lover and then manipulate time and space to actually shoot himself in the neck.  My problem was I don’t understand why it had to end that way in the first place.  Why did the director and producers of this video think that the only result of this scenario was for someone to save face by committing suicide?  I just don’t get it.

Thinking that I had missed something somewhere, I scoured the Internet for an English translation of the song.  I finally found it here:

That didn’t help a bit.  The translated lyrics told me that the song was exactly what I thought it was:  a boy’s response to his friend’s and his lover’s betrayal.

Some commentors on J.Tune Camp’s YouTube have suggested that Joon didn’t really shoot himself in the neck, that some unknown, hidden assassin shot him instead.  Please.  If that is the case, then why did the director go to great lengths earlier in the video to show Joon’s expertise at redirecting a bullet’s path?  From a writer’s perspective, that doesn’t make sense.  The foreshadowing in earlier scenes tells the viewer that Joon was an expert enough shot to shoot himself while pointing the gun at someone else–and in my opinion, that’s exactly what happened.

The only time a mystery assassin was present was at the beginning, when the girl got shot and Joon shot the assassin to protect her.  So the idea that a mystery assailant abruptly appears out of nowhere to shoot Joon at this very moment in time doesn’t work.  Besides, you can clearly see the bullet with its special markings shoot past the couple, pass behind and around them, and then head back towards Joon.

Here in the U.S.A., suicide is the third leading cause of death among our teenagers. (1)  So, it’s not something we find entertaining or amusing.  In South Korea, suicide is the number one cause of death for those under forty years old. (2)  So my question is this:  Why in the world would a South Korean music producer as adept as JYP decide to make suicide the focal point of such a talented group’s new music video?  It simply boggles my mind.  It’s also incredibly sad to me to think that, because of its sensitive subject matter, this music video will likely have no chance in hell of ever being played on television in South Korea.

But maybe it isn’t sad to MBLAQ’s management.  Maybe that wasn’t what the producers were going for in the first place.  Maybe their South Korean fans don’t matter.  Maybe, instead, they were going for other K-Pop fans in other countries, who are less likely to take the time to dissect the content of the piece than I am.  Who knows?  I certainly don’t.  After all, this is the second video that contained a love triangle shooting scene.  The first one was Y, which faced great controversy and eventually had to be re-edited.

I understand that suicide does not have the moral significance in other countries that it does in my country.  I know that in some countries suicide is often used as a way to protect one’s dignity or honor.  But I also know that even in the foundation of Confucianism, suicide is not considered the best alternative.  So, as far as I’m concerned, for music producers in Asia to continue to perpetuate the idea that suicide is the best or only way out of a bad situation is simply unconscionable.

To the millions of teenagers who will be watching over this video.  I hope you understand that in real life, suicide is a hell of a lot uglier and a lot more final.  Just because one of your best friend steals your lover from you doesn’t mean that you need to kill yourself over it.  You will survive.  Life does go on and things will get better.  Frankly, it’s the much stronger person who walks away.  I should know.

In my humble opinion, the stronger story choice would have been to have Joon shoot past the couple because he didn’t have it in his heart to kill them, put down the gun, and walk away.  Why the powers-that-be in MBLAQ’s world thought otherwise will likely remain a mystery to me.

That’s not to say that suicide should never be used in any story–ever.  That’s not to say that stories that include suicide shouldn’t ever be written.  I’m a writer.  So, I really do understand the importance of being able to write about suicide if need be–both non-fictionally and fictionally.  However, I also am of the opinion that if suicide is a subject someone out there wants to write about, them they’d better have a damned good reason for doing so and they’d better do a damned good job of it.  Otherwise, in my opinion, the end result is simply pigswill.

Setting aside the issues I had with the suicide in this piece, here are some other things that bugged me:

• Even though it’s obvious from the English translation that the real war here is between the two boys, fighting over the girl, that story is played out against the backdrop of what appears to be a war-torn city.  So, I thought, okay, desperate times, desperate measures.  But what and whose call to arms is it?  The answer to that question was mysteriously absent.  Because we never find out what is going on around the boys, their personal story is less gratifying to the viewer.
• If you will listen closely in the first few seconds, you will hear the first part of a Malcolm X speech:  “We declare our right on this earth to be a man, to be human being, to be respected as a human being, to be given the rights of a human being in this society, on this earth, in this day, which we intend to bring into existence by any means necessary.”  Huh?  What in the world was the director going for with that one?  Maybe this voiceover made everything crystal clear to others, but to me it simply muddied the waters.  Was anything in this music video about a race war?  Anything at all?  Did I miss something somewhere?  If not, then surely the producers could have found a more meaningful English voiceover.  Did anyone involved in the production of this music video even understand what Malcolm X was saying?

I don’t know what I was expecting from MBLAQ next, but this certainly wasn’t it.  Like I said, although I enjoyed the music video, I would have enjoyed it much more if it had been a little more socially responsible.

Maybe next time.

Terri :-}

Posted in Asian Culture, Asian pop, Hallyu Korean wave, Korean Culture, Korean pop, mblaq, MBLAQ News, Uncategorized
Tags: mblaq, mblaq music video, mblaq projects