The end of the Japanese colonial period resulted in a bloody civil war and separate paths of economic and social development in the two Koreas. The South resorted to strict, even draconian, control at the top to embark on rapid industrialization despite heavy costs in imported goods and ideas and culture from its patron, the United States. In 1961, the Park administration sought to curb population growth through sterilization campaigns one of the few developing countries to initiate a population policy to lower birth rates which had exceeded six children per woman in the early 1950s. For men, circumcision began in 1945 through contact with the American military. And the numbers dramatically increased through the 1960s with many articles in newspapers promoting it in the name of hygiene. While circumcision has declined in the United States over the past two decades. More than 83% of Korean men are circumcised today, the largest number of adult circumcisions in the world. Americans not only introduced circumcision but plastic surgery to Koreans during the Korean War. As doctors performed reconstructive surgeries on the faces of injured soldiers. Sex workers became clients of plastic surgery as well to appeal to American soldiers by altering their faces into more westernized features such as creating a crease in their upper eyelids, known as blepharoplasty, and high-bridged noses. Since the 1950s, the number of Korean women and recently a large percentage of men, have had plastic surgery. In fact, according to one survey, South Korea has become the country with the highest plastic surgeries per capita in the world. The 1960s and the 1970s has often been depicted as the dark age of democracy in Korea. In the South, the military regime's intrusive regulation of daily life, and strict surveillance over female dress to nightly curfews and social purification campaigns, created an atmosphere of repression for men and women. Despite these stifling laws, some men smuggled fabrics from Macau and Hong Kong to create trends during the period by wearing black dyed custom made suits like the so-called Macau gentlemen while women felt compelled to wear miniskirts, a symbol of resistance and emancipation. During the 1960s, the popular singer Yun Bok-hwi, with her Twiggy-like androgynous look featuring her bobbed hair and signature short A-line skirts, became a huge sensation among young women prompting the state to regulate appropriate skirt lengths. By the 1970s, the so-called fashion police patrolled the streets carrying rulers and measuring the lengths of women's skirts and arrested or fined those whose skirts were too short. The fashion police also targeted men on the streets often performing haircuts on the spot if they considered the hair to be too long. Some even had to serve time in jail. Despite the authoritarian state's initiative to curb decadence by imposing a social curfew, and closing down many of the go-go clubs, bars that played live American music, young Koreans influenced by the hippie and anti-war movement culture in the United States, started to wear denim, a fad seen as an embodiment of US imperialism in the North and banned, and an expression of dissent against the dictatorship in the south among the youth. It is no secret that South Korea since the 1970s has been spearheading the global cosmetic surgery market. South Korea has internalized the beauty myth to such an extent that it has gained a reputation as the plastic surgery mecca of the world. As I noted earlier, South Korea has the highest proportion of its population undergoing cosmetic surgery to achieve the perfect appearance. And Gangnam has become the most popular destination for plastic surgery in Asia. In the past decade, Korean models and K-pop stars have started to set the new standards of beauty at home and abroad with their physical appearance. Well, one can argue that people have obsessed over the perfect body types such as the hourglass figure, the trend among young South Koreans today is to alphabetize body lines. I want you all to now read this very interesting article from Slate Magazine and then watch a short clip by Arirang TV, an international English language network based in Seoul operated by the Korea International Broadcast Foundation, which criticizes female celebrities for having healthy legs. The way we profile them in the clip all seem to be normal by Western standards yet criticized for having reddish ankles and thighs. What are your impressions after watching the Arirang clip and reading the article on the alphabetization of female bodies where the letters that are aspirational, ones that are regarded as most popular, such as the curvy S and the slender X? What does this say about beauty ideal standards in contemporary Korean society? And the extreme lengths in which South Korean women go to attain or maintain such unrealistic standards? If Korean women have been beholden to unrealistic body expectations in the past five years Korean men have been bombarded images that blurred gender lines but often unrealistic and eye popping. The ‘Hwarang’ or ‘flower boy’ belongs to a cultural and military corps made up of sons of elites during the Silla Dynasty which dates back to 57 BCE to 935 CE. They were known both for their valor and physical beauty and considered idols of their era. Although I didn't mention this in my lecture on universal military conscription in South Korea a new identity has emerged in this K-Pop drama obsessed country, creating a new male cultural model, akin to the hwarang. These ‘kkot minam’ or ‘flower boys’ first appeared in the drama “Boys Over Flower” in 2009. They did not display the virile or warrior-like image idolized by previous generations but popularized the androgynous look, blurring gender lines possessing both male and female characteristics. For example in 2011, South Korean men spent a remarkable $495.4 million on skin care products, or roughly 21% of global sales. If the rise of the metrosexual gained prominence in popular culture and the fashion industry in the past decade the most recent drama, “Descendents of the Sun” in 2016, ‘Taeyang e Huye, which I mentioned in my first lecture offered yet a different ideal for Korean men which became an instant hit and received immense popularity across Asia. This drama has been hailed as a trendsetter for the new male image of the spornosexual male, a term defined by Mark Simpson to describe a cultural phenomenon towards buffness. men who strive to look like sportsman or porn stars, marking the next stage in the evolution of the preening mediated metrosexual. I'd like you now to watch the two trailers of “Boys over Flower” and “Descendants of the Sun” and tell me what you think about the hypersexualized, homoprovocative imagery of young Korean men. It's now a mix of beautiful metrosexual with a new frame of abs, biceps, and calves.
