suuzaaa:

jyjsoul:

Note: This is Part 1 of an article written by Professor Lee DongYeon, who teaches cultural theory at Korea National University of Arts. We decided to translate this piece due to its strength of insight and its relevance to understanding how the situation between JYJ and SM is perceived by…

I’ll now make some comments on this first part of a text that’s longer, and so far untranslated (which means I don’t know if the author will elaborate on some of the things I’m commenting).

1. The first part doesn’t seem to be written by the professor, so I won’t go into that, simply becuase it’s written by an anonymous person who is trying to push his/her opinions by associating with the professor’s status and name.

2. Professor Lee starts off with a really bad metaphor. He compares JYJ with lawless outcasts, because they

can’t do what they want to do in their own country

Okay, everyone who can go out and do whatever you want, when you want, how you want, raise your hand.

So are we all lawless outcasts in our countries? I still don’t understand when it became a human right to appear on music shows on TV (JYJ are doing pretty much everything else: holding concerts and fanmeetings, acting in musicals and dramas, making CFs and photo exhibitions…).

I obviously don’t think it’s ok if JYJ are beeing blocked from TV without legit reasons, but I also don’t think it’s a good idea to compare JYJ with the real outcasts and people who are having their rights violated on a daily basis. Why? Because it detracts the value from having ‘rights’ and/or even ‘human rights’. You can feel sorry for JYJ not being able to appear on TV, but please also realize that they are still living a life in undeniable luxury.

3. Professor Lee then continues with a short summary of JYJ fans’ explanations, theories and conclusions. It seems some see this as evidence of those theories being true?? Let me remind you that the professor probably has gotten them from JYJ fans on the Internet. He is not an insider with factual knowledge (if he was, he would hopefully say so. Maybe he does in the next parts of the article?).

4.

I believe that with the production power SM holds, they can place any trainee group they debut into TVXQ’s position.

How does it feel to have the professor strip TVXQ of the members’ individual talents and personalities? Professor Lee clearly believes any trainee is as talented and charming as Yunho, Jaejoong, Yoochun, Junsu and Changmin.

I don’t know about you guys, but I (and many with me, including music industry professionals) acknowledge TVXQ’s musical talents and abilities, as well as their convincing star quality. Not anyone could sing TVXQ’s songs and give the same impact. Not anyone could make swarms of girls fall for them. That is the reason why not “any trainee group” could be as big as TVXQ.

Professor Lee fails to see that there is more to Kpop-fans than buying the perfectly produced and promoted group’s albums. He fails to see the thousands of reasons why girls and women like this male idol group, but not that one. I can’t blame him - he is, after all, a male professor - but that’s also why I personally can’t take his opinions and beliefs regarding this matter seriously.

Nevertheless, I look forward to reading the rest of professor Lee’s article.

I really do hope he’s an insider and knows things fans don’t, otherwise I’ll just shake my head at how a professor attempts to write a “scientific” article without any means to actually work with facts, just going by fan’s assumptions and theories. That would be all kinds of embarrassing …First thing I learned at university was “question everything”.