How BTS is redefining art for the female gaze
For the Korean debut of their 2019 comeback single, Boy with Luv, BTS steps onstage wearing silky, loose-fitting suits in complementary shades of warm pastel. With playful movements and gentle voices, they beckon to ARMY, their global fanbase, to whom the song is a sincere and loving tribute. Their warm curiosity (“What makes you happy?” “Teach me everything about you”) is a far cry from an earlier work with a similar title, Boy In Luv — a plea for a girl to stop ‘playing hard to get’, performed with chest-thumping choreography and gruff schoolboy machismo. (The boys wore fitted black suits with ‘leather’ and chains.)
The shift in tone shows how much young men and their idea of romance can change in five years. At first, love is about using aggression to control an object of desire. But later, it flows into empathy, welcoming the small moments of vulnerability that reveal someone in all their splendour. Boy with Luv is a kind of multi-sensorial love letter, thanking ARMY with a knowing affection, and inviting them into a soft, rosy fantasy world, full of lush styling and spontaneous moments that showcase the members’ famous onstage chemistry. It is all for the fans, and it is exactly what they will love.
It is just this regard for the audience that critics of BTS — and ‘commercial’ artists in general — disdain. In Western tradition, true art comes from within, and any outside influence dilutes its mythic authenticity. ‘Pandering’ to the audience should thus be avoided; the artist is the authority, and the rest of us are mere witnesses to their singularity. Through that lens, it is easy to dismiss K-pop despite its monumental popularity. Popularity becomes another word for manufactured — and mainstream media uses the term as a stamp of disapproval, choosing instead to Other the Korean industry as a colourful curio with a uniquely disingenuous and exploitative ‘dark side.’
But the fans had other plans. When young girls helped drive digital campaigns against white supremacy earlier this year, they caused a media stir by flexing a sharpness and integrity that many had assumed they lacked (though this narrative has its own complexities). But in K-pop, fandoms had already proven themselves: they have long operated as grassroots organisations, regularly self-mobilising on behalf of their idols. They have protested unpopular agency decisions, supported charitable causes, and lobbied for publicity opportunities. Fans get closer to their idols across a variety of physical and digital touchpoints, designed to nurture an emotional bond that drives fans to strategise and promote the ones they love. The connection between fans and idols makes K-pop more than a musical genre, but a culture of world-building, in which the value of art is also measured in how it can foster relationships between people. The experience of emotional intimacy is the artistry itself, and fans relish the excitement that it elicits. Greatness in K-pop is thus a question of alchemy: it truly dazzles when, by design and/or serendipity, the sparks between its component parts create a sort of magic.
BTS are the current gold standard for their industry. They have won the trophies, filled the stadiums, and broken the records. It’s the ‘synergy’, they say — the reciprocal flow of adoration between ARMY and BTS, BTS and ARMY, that propels them towards their industry-shaking, culture-shifting achievements. And so at every turn, they thank ARMY for lifting them to dizzying heights.
It is no small thing to credit a fandom comprising so many young women. A lot has been written about dismissive cultural attitudes toward female fandoms. In pop music, female fans in particular have become the scapegoat for bad taste, ridiculed for an emotional ‘hysteria’ that is naïve at best, mindless at worst. Writer Savannah Cox attributes this to a subconscious fear of girls expressing sexual desire with abandon — provoking a patriarchal need to suppress their ‘chaos of feeling’.
In a male-dominated world, being young and female (and of colour) is still a daily struggle for dignity. The false clichés imposed on girls — including emotional excess — are then weaponised to shame and deride them, sometimes to the point where not even their own minds and bodies are safe spaces. But BTS’ world has different values: using Big Hit Labels’ “Music and Artist for Healing” mantra, the group’s artistic identity is centred around comfort and acceptance. In their world, pain is validated; vulnerability is welcomed; in fact, the underdog has won. It is a fantasy that bestows on girls a humanity that reality so often withholds. In helping their fans feel seen, BTS also enable ARMY to reframe the female gaze from a cause for mockery to a source of power. Rather than limiting artistic quality, the ‘girl gaze’ opens up infinite avenues for invention, as the reciprocal trust between ARMY and their ‘boys’ helps BTS achieve artistic heights that defy expectation. The girls get a say in where the story goes.
ARMY have inspired BTS from the beginning. When the group debuted in 2013, success was unlikely. But fans saw the group’s outsider status as a strength. Today, BTS have taken this to heart, using their position to challenge norms around what idols should look like, sound like, and be like. Journalists often point out their socially conscious lyrics as a differentiator, but rarely talk about why that consciousness is so essential to young women in particular. By taking on complex themes from politics, literature, and psychology, they create imaginative work that stimulates the intellectual potential of their audience. In 2019’s Map of the Soul: Persona, inspired by Carl Jung’s theory of identity, RM’s “Intro” sets the tone of self-questioning: “‘Who am I?’ is the question I’ve had all my life / And I’ll probably never find the answer”. He gives us new frameworks for understanding ourselves, accepts the uncertainty in this process, and invites us to find comfort by wondering alongside him. BTS’ spirit of exploration (which also drives their roles outside of music as UNICEF ambassadors and art patrons) constantly exceeds expectations of what a boy band can do. Part of this is their refusal to condescend to the female gaze, instead striving to delight and inspire their audience by constantly doing and creating better in their honour.
By now, ARMY’s work has broken world records, influenced pop culture, and garnered countless awards for BTS. Thanks to ARMY’s support, they have topped the UK Official Albums chart, won BBMAs, spoken at the UN, done carpool karaoke with James Corden, and filled the world’s biggest stadiums several times over. They wield immense influence across tourism, consumer goods, gaming, publishing, and charitable giving (donating a combined $2 million to Black Lives Matter). In a V Live shortly after their comeback on SNL, member Jungkook thanked fans for “making the path that I’m walking on right now.” As much as they are the group’s supporters, ARMY often behave as producers, translating their fervour into ambition. Inasmuch as BTS enables safe spaces for ARMYs, ARMYs have created spaces that did not exist before for a group like BTS — in which they are able to develop their creative prowess. But ARMY are a success story in their own right: they have realised a collective voice through BTS, resulting in unprecedented contributions to culture and industry. As the group reap the rewards of their own work, they enable their fans to claim actual power for themselves too — as one fan put it, “When BTS wins, I feel like I win.”
Despite their achievements, the artistic merit of BTS is still questioned by those who perpetuate the ‘singular genius’ myth of creativity. To them, artists must be kept separate from audiences to preserve the purity and originality of what they make — especially when it comes to young female fans. But when a boy band and their fangirls create things that the world has not yet seen, and when the quality of connection between the two enable the most innovation, we get a new model of creative excellence. BTS’ creative brilliance is reflected not just in their music, but also in their ability to build ecosystems of connection that invite other ‘outsiders’ to claim authorship. For them, art is not only in what is created, but also what their creativity enables. And for ARMY, their ‘girl gaze’ needs no gatekeepers — only great artists to show them what they can become.
