I’ve noticed that Korean celebrities are quite comfortable
with talking about hardships in their life, and even shedding tears on
television. In the world we live in, it can be quite difficult to disclose
intimate details about ourselves, and more so for men who are taught by society
to hide all their problems and maintain a macho front.
In my Health Science class, I learned about the concept of
hegemonic masculinity: the culturally dominant idea of what it means to be male
and how masculine, “manly” men are supposed to behave within patriarchal
society. I also realized that boys and men tend to keep all their problems to
themselves, even denying that there are any underlying issues, until they
finally explode, and in serious cases, do something violent and/or stupid.
From what I’ve seen in the K-pop industry, the men are just
as open as the ladies to expressing their emotions and discussing hardships.
The ones that come to my mind first are BTS’s Suga, Super Junior’s Leeteuk, and
recently EXO’s Kai.
First, Suga. The guy is the literal definition of “my
mixtape is fire”, because when I listened to Agust D, it really was fire. But
recently I listened to “My Last” and you could really feel the raw emotion in
his voice, the sheer truth in his lyrics. “Never Mind” and “First Love” have a
similar effect. Suga may appear as a guy who says “I don’t give a shit, I don’t
give a fuck”, the lazy, carefree one, but that’s because deep inside, he’s
holding in all this pain and anger from the past. Perhaps in his attempt to conceal all that
hurt as a member of the fun group BTS, he finally exploded, but thankfully he
did it through his music and not through something dangerous. He seems like an
emotionally volatile guy and I’m glad he showed us his mental health struggles
in his mixtape. And seeing him break down in tears recently at the MAMA Awards
after not showing that weakness for three years hurt me a bit inside. Suga’s
brutal honesty brought him near the top of my BTS bias list (although he won’t
replace my first bias, Jin and his heavenly voice)
Next is Leeteuk, the leader of Super Junior. I know he’s
doing a lot in the entertainment industry, which is really good because at the
same time he’s continuing to promote Super Junior even with their less frequent
group promotions. I can’t imagine the trauma and the heartbreak the man went
through when he discovered that his father had killed his grandparents and then
himself. When it comes to grief, every man should be entitled to cry and mourn.
But learning that he had depression (even before his family tragedy) and that
all his activities are meant to distract him from his condition… it was almost
relieving to see that Leeteuk is taking action to help himself cope with those
losses. But you wouldn’t expect the guy to hole up away from society for the
rest of his life, would you? Most heartwarmingly, he doesn’t resent his father
for abusing him or for killing his grandparents. I’m not biased towards
Leeteuk, but I can really see why he is so admirable. Kudos to you, leader-nim.
Finally, not long ago I discovered that Kai of EXO is also
going through depression…? Before, I knew Kai as the really sexy dancer… just
everything about him screamed “sex appeal”. Even when watching EXO on variety
shows, I didn’t pay as much attention to Kai so I couldn’t see that he was just
a playful young man who loves to dance and has the best stage expressions. But
at the same time, Kai admitted that he likes to be alone, and that he cries a
lot at home. Unlike most men in modern society, Kai “[doesn’t] make an effort
to ignore or try to escape these emotions”, and I’m glad he acknowledged this
human side of him that makes him more than the feisty sex bomb of EXO. Come to
think of it, Kai’s story sounds like mine and if we were ever friends, we’d
probably go to each other’s houses and just cry away XD
Bonus:
And they say men don’t cry… not only is Hoshi crying, he’s
fricking BLUBBERING. As bad as I feel for him, I can’t help but smile. He’s so cute and squishy and I'm sure all of us would have wanted to hug him in that moment.
Ah, the classic solitary man tear.
Thankfully, attitudes are changing to this day. A study at Penn State
showed that several people consider a man’s tears a sign of honesty, not so
much emotional weakness. Learning about Suga’s, Leeteuk’s, and Kai’s mental
health struggles didn’t break my heart more so than it did bring some humanity
to these highly admired artists. And knowing that they are fighting through
these issues every day makes me want to persevere through my hardships as well.
No comments:
Post a Comment