Western music such as R&B, Hip-Hop,
electronic dance was interpreted by Asian sentiments in Korea and developed a
unique style of pop music. Flawless good
looks, well-synchronised dance moves and catchy music tunes are the reasons why
Korean pop is taking down the world. The Korean pop also known as K-pop or Hallyu has spread not only in Korea
itself but Southeast Asia and Europe, and now even at America. According to
Korea Creative Content Agency (KOCCA), the entertainment industry had hit about
$3.4 billion last year (Rajeshni, 2012). Besides that, the K-pop also contributes
in tourism industry by promoting Korea as a tourist destination. Leading K-pop
group such as Wonder Girl, Girl Generation have been given recognition for
their contribution in promoting Korea to the eyes of the world. But sometimes when
it comes to K-pop music industry, people used to have this impression towards
Korean celebrities of not having real talent but just pretty face instead.
In order to push away this reputation of K-pop, the entertainment agency
started off casting internationally, it held not only in Korea but also at
Japan, China and America to recruit more talented people. Every audition there
are over hundred thousands of participants, every one of them wanted to be the
so called ‘K-pop idol’ but only 100 will be selected and till the end there
will be only few that can actually release a debut. Of course, once you are
selected, the journey to become a K-pop celebrity starts. A typical training
day start as early as 5am and ends at midnight. This training day held seven
days a week with hardly have any time to rest. The training session includes
singing, dancing and acting. They also require to learn foreign languages such
as English and Chinese.
All of the activities and training were good to shape those trainees
into a ‘all-rounded celebrity’ but when the schedule is too hectic, it will
cause exhaustion. There are few cases where several celebrities such as Park
JiYeon from T-ara and Sunny from Girl Generation were hospitalised due to
fatigue caused by sleep deprivation. I admire their songs; their determination
towards their career but then wasn’t it too ridiculous in term of the training
schedule? Those celebrities are normal people just like us, they are not robot,
and they need rest and holidays too. According to Hankyung, one of the members
of boy band Super Junior filed a lawsuit against his respective entertainment
agency SM Entertainment (SME) for their unlawful action. Hankyung’s side
representative stated that he was constantly doing things that not under the
contract and he did not get any single rest for two years. He is not allowed to
skip any of the schedules even if he is sick, they added. According to BBC
(2009) there was an event that he failed to fulfil his daily contractual
obligation, he was fined for 5,000,000 won (more than 4 thousand USD).
I could not believe that such a big company like SME is treating their
own artists so mean. They train those celebrities since they are 12 years old;
it took them seven years or more to train and ‘packaging’ them into an
all-rounded artist. In my opinion, they could just find a slightly old teenager
which already have basic skills in singing or dancing and provide training for
them for one or two years instead of recruiting children that age average of 12
and they are not mature enough to think what they want for future. Take Justin Bieber as an example, he was discovered through
YouTube, he was an untrained artist till he get signed by RBMG company and
within 2 years he becomes a popular singer all around the world, isn’t that much
easier? Back to topic, imagine if those trainees grow up and noticed that
they don’t like to be celebrities, they don’t have the passion to work for this
industry anymore, is a waste of time and the money goes down to the drain. Yes,
you might think that they already tied up with a contract; they could not
escape from it, they will be fined if they did not obey the rules. Also, they
have been forced to dance, sing and to entertain people all around the world
without any rest. Due to stress and pressure from the working site, the easier
way to relieve is to end up their life. There was a case in 2009 where famous
Korean female celebrities Jang Ja-Yeon committed suicide due to the pressure
and was being physically and sexually abuse when she refused to obey the
contract (McCurry, 2009).
In America, even the famous Canadian- singer Justin Bieber gets to rest
and has a holiday vacation with his girlfriend Selena Gomez. But why Korea
entertainment agency would want to ‘torture’ their artist this way.
The most surprising thing is that despite Korean artists are famous now
but they earn very little. In fact, most of them can only get their income
after the company regained the money spent training and promoting them.
Furthermore the piracy rate is increasing in every country, the Korean artist are
not able to gain revenue by just selling their albums. Therefore, they have to
constantly attend worldwide tour, concerts and fan meetings. Even they
successfully gained revenue from worldwide concert tour and endorsement of
products, they have to divide among themselves. Girl Generations has total of
nine members, the total revenue has to divide by nine people. Imagine how
little they paid. In order to get more popular, they have to compete with one
another, they have to work twice harder if they don’t want to be fade out.
No doubt that K-pop really has arises this few years, but still there is
long way to go. With all these bad news we heard of, we surely hope for a
better management for the celebrities. I honestly respect those celebrities
that can go through all the training and successfully release a debut. Nevertheless,
giving them a little bit of freedom probably will make them feel better. It is
a win-win situation as both parties are agreed and can work along together
rather than suing each other and get a bad reputation for themselves.
