Changing Attitudes Towards Sex in Korea
One can read the title of this story in the sense of either a noun or a verb, but were one to take it in the active sense, this story would be about how some people are working to change ideas about sexuality in Korea in an embodied way; by putting their bodies on the line, flesh into the game.
This is the cover to the online magazine that I am quietly operating as a way of focusing our art/photo/gender performance/marketing experiment into one digestible form. It is one sandbox that allows me to make contact with interesting cultural characters and subcultures around Seoul using my camera as a literal, actual lens through which to get a closer look at some hidden figures and cultures worth knowing about.
The inspiration for the cover is Starlight Productions’ own logo graphic.
The problem with an image like this is that it’s a graphic, as well as a logo that relies on abstraction. It conveys the point of the group through well-executed semiotic argument that brings in the subjects of woman, sexuality, and kink quickly and effortlessly so you know what’s being talked about, before you even get to the meat of the matter and forming an opinion. Here’s what Starlight Productions and Starlight Burlesque want to say here:
“We stage a Season of neo-burlesque plays under Starlight Burlesque. A Starlight Burlesque show is a production where theatre meets burlesque. We create experiences that offer high audience interaction within story driven performances. All influenced by the greater narrative, the burlesque aspects take on many forms: chair dance, fire spinning, aerial silk, pole, a-ring, hoop, and live Shibari rope tying (and more). Because our shows are originals, we find that giving context to the world of our burlesque plays is part of the interactive nature of our productions.”
So, one might ask, what’s so great (or even good) about that? I’ll let the group tackle that directly:
We are destroying the patriarchy by daring to define what it means to be Femme. We are feminine, masculine, nonbinary queer, allied, strong, empowered, bold, and beautiful creatures of creation. We seek to invert — both literally and metaphorically — body and burlesque expectation. We grab our phantom cocks, decorate our beards, own our high heel footwear, and defy gravity in aerial dances and production designs. Our bodies have soft curves and hard lines. We are aerialists, royalty, poets, performers, art and visionaries. We use lipstick, lighting, steel and silk to renegotiate our spaces from here to the stars.
You can read more at their site.
In short, I find the Starlight (and also, drag) Girls interesting precisely because, in challenging dominant role-norms (in both appearance and behavior) for women here in Korea, they break down those binaries and other rules that tend to force most people in society into certain patterns of pre-programmed behavior. They’re trying to change the program to allow a broader range of personal and social choices. They’re helping change the programming language of society in the most powerful ways humans know how to affect the thinking of their fellow humans —through art and performance. And if, as I’ve been talking about in this column, identity is indeed performed, then what better way is there to do this, outside of actual performing the performance of identity, especially if one of the goals is pointing out the fact of identity’s performance?
Dear readers, you should really go avail yourself of one of these group’s shows. They are thoughtful and a true sight to see. And they’re a damn sight smarter than standard spectacle show such as the Maze Runner series. Even if you don’t feel too familar or even comfortable with what they’re doing, their shows will give your cerebrum something worthy to process for once. And hey, ain’t that how actual art works?
And back to the cover — how successfully do you think the picture works on the level of abstracting the issue into something that can be discussed/considered without getting bogged down by the distracting details that photographs inevitably present as part of their very form?
CREDITS AND NOTES
Models (L to R): Sacre Bleu and Flowerbomb Suicide
Makeup/Hair/Dress: The models themselves
Shibari Rope Tying: Michelle Louise (Instagram @imichya)
Location: The Rabbit Hole
Photographer: (Instagram @datrigganigga)
Photoshop/Retouching: Robert Michael Evans
Photo intern/assistants:
Fabiola Almodovar
Nitzah Vazquez
Seol Yubin
Read more about gender performativity, fashion, and other cool things at The Girl Act (www.medium.com/the-girl-act) and also at our Instagram @girlact_official.
Dr. Michael W. Hurt (@kuraeji on Instagram) is a photographer and professor living in Seoul. He received his doctorate from UC Berkeley’s Department of Ethnic Studies and started Korea’s first street fashion blog in 2006. He currently explores gender and fashion at The Girl Act (Instagram @girlact_official) and also writes on Visual Sociology and Cultural Studies at Deconstructing Korea.
