Queerness of Hallyu 2.0: Negotiating Non-normative Identities in K-pop Music Videos

This paper discusses the visual encodings of non-normativities in the selected K-pop music videos and seeks to establish them within the aesthetic of gendered desirability that deviates from what is considered a social norm in South Korean culture. The first part presents a short history and current boundaries of Korean pop music and the construct of gender and its (inter)relation with sex and rhetoric of desire are discussed. The next section maps out the changes in the understanding of normativity and the concept of queerness. The final part of the paper relates the theories and practices of non-normative identities to the visualities from post-2007 K-pop music videos, using examples to illustrate and contextualize them. The authors focus on the representations of masculinities and show how selected texts can be read as spaces of liminality defying normative cultural and social rules.