Not What I expected, & Not What I'd Hoped For...
BESTie debuted as my favorite new girl group for their year, and I've enjoyed a lot of their releases since then, but this one is definitely not my favorite. The track is actually hella catchy. The bright brassy notes of the instrumental play well with the sass in the girls' voices. It's well-spatialized and beautifully energized and it moves well over the beat. I really do like it. And I LOVE the styling and the set aesthetics of the music video. It really is quite gorgeous. Which makes the fact that I don't really like the message a bit tragic.
Admittedly, I usually try not to say that political or social standpoints are 'wrong' per se. I only make a big deal about things if what's perceived as an 'opinion' is actually an attack. The difference being fairly simple: a basic opinion is something like I don't like cats, a politicized opinion is something like I hate people who don't like cats, and an attack is I think it's okay to kick people who don't like cats. Both are technically opinions, but can you see how one's a problem? Things like JYP's recent awful MV are attacks, promoting Rape Culture. Things like this are just opinions, but politicized opinions. The lyrics themselves are saying that the narrator is straightforward in being entirely dismissive of people who like her because of her appearance, and that such shallow attraction isn't worth her time. The lyrics make the statement softer, by explaining that this opinion has come about after a long string of empty relationships where appearance was everything. The lyrics depict a frustrated girl with an unfortunate track record with romance so that now all she sees is the sort of thing she doesn't want.
The MV is not quite so forgivable. The MV takes the idea of dismissing people for their base-attraction to the narrator and takes it one step further to actively rejecting them. The girls are in search of true love and the glasses they find show them the lecherous fantasies of all the men that they encounter. I find fault with this for two reasons, first of all, the glasses are showing fantasies, internal wants and inappropriate yearnings that DO NOT SURFACE IN THE BOYS' EXTERNAL BEHAVIOR. Punishing someone for their thoughts is bridging into Brave New World or 1984 type dystopian insanity. The second reason I'm not a fan is that it shows literally every male presence as having such fantasies, and absolutely none of the female ones, because obviously all men are pigs and all women are pure and innocent. Yeah, Sexism might still be a thing... just maybe. --_--'
Women, believe it or not, can like and want sex. And men are not horrible, inhuman creatures with purely lecherous intentions, not even the ones that indulge in daydreaming about putting their hands all over a pretty girl they just met. Fantasy is not something that should be policed. No one is a bad person for wanting sex. It becomes inappropriate if that desire for sex leads to the doling out of unwanted attentions. The ONLY guy that behaves even remotely like that is the blue-suit dude that buys them drinks. That could make someone uncomfortable and could genuinely be considered a breach of personal space. Unfortunately for people who are made uncomfortable by it, buying a drink for the person you're interested in is a basically universal flirting convention... Of course, refusing a drink that someone's bought for you is becoming more acceptable. Every other guy in the MV is just going about their lives, being generally decent people for what limited context we see of them.
Other than that, I love the choreo, if fabulously fun and playful. I've already mentioned that the styling is gorgeous, but it's just so true that have to bring it up again. The track is incredibly catchy and very well-produced. Additionally, I enjoy that the gay couple is represented just like any other set of guys save for the fact that their fantasies are focused on each other instead of on the girls. My final comment is just a small thing, the menu in the outdoor cafe is selling hot dogs for more than 8 bucks... so either that is a DAMN good hot dog, or that's one hella over-priced processed-meat-product. Maybe it'd be okay if you got a few of them in one order, because even 3 bucks is already pushing it for a wiener in my opinion.
Back on point: I want to like this release. I REALLY want to like it. But I just vehemently disagree with the main message being conveyed. I'm knocking it back at least two points. It's kind of tragic, honestly. Also, I really want to see a straight choreography video! The choreo looks like a TON of fun, but it's hard to get a good look at the whole of it in the MV and when the only practice video released so far is the Eye Contact Ver (which I don't approve of as a whole... that sort of sexiness fantasy is better left to the MV dance-versions, when I get I practice video, I expect it to be a straight shot of the practice session... that's not BESTie's fault, and they are certainly not alone in having this sort of release, but still...).
Admittedly, I usually try not to say that political or social standpoints are 'wrong' per se. I only make a big deal about things if what's perceived as an 'opinion' is actually an attack. The difference being fairly simple: a basic opinion is something like I don't like cats, a politicized opinion is something like I hate people who don't like cats, and an attack is I think it's okay to kick people who don't like cats. Both are technically opinions, but can you see how one's a problem? Things like JYP's recent awful MV are attacks, promoting Rape Culture. Things like this are just opinions, but politicized opinions. The lyrics themselves are saying that the narrator is straightforward in being entirely dismissive of people who like her because of her appearance, and that such shallow attraction isn't worth her time. The lyrics make the statement softer, by explaining that this opinion has come about after a long string of empty relationships where appearance was everything. The lyrics depict a frustrated girl with an unfortunate track record with romance so that now all she sees is the sort of thing she doesn't want.
The MV is not quite so forgivable. The MV takes the idea of dismissing people for their base-attraction to the narrator and takes it one step further to actively rejecting them. The girls are in search of true love and the glasses they find show them the lecherous fantasies of all the men that they encounter. I find fault with this for two reasons, first of all, the glasses are showing fantasies, internal wants and inappropriate yearnings that DO NOT SURFACE IN THE BOYS' EXTERNAL BEHAVIOR. Punishing someone for their thoughts is bridging into Brave New World or 1984 type dystopian insanity. The second reason I'm not a fan is that it shows literally every male presence as having such fantasies, and absolutely none of the female ones, because obviously all men are pigs and all women are pure and innocent. Yeah, Sexism might still be a thing... just maybe. --_--'
Women, believe it or not, can like and want sex. And men are not horrible, inhuman creatures with purely lecherous intentions, not even the ones that indulge in daydreaming about putting their hands all over a pretty girl they just met. Fantasy is not something that should be policed. No one is a bad person for wanting sex. It becomes inappropriate if that desire for sex leads to the doling out of unwanted attentions. The ONLY guy that behaves even remotely like that is the blue-suit dude that buys them drinks. That could make someone uncomfortable and could genuinely be considered a breach of personal space. Unfortunately for people who are made uncomfortable by it, buying a drink for the person you're interested in is a basically universal flirting convention... Of course, refusing a drink that someone's bought for you is becoming more acceptable. Every other guy in the MV is just going about their lives, being generally decent people for what limited context we see of them.
Other than that, I love the choreo, if fabulously fun and playful. I've already mentioned that the styling is gorgeous, but it's just so true that have to bring it up again. The track is incredibly catchy and very well-produced. Additionally, I enjoy that the gay couple is represented just like any other set of guys save for the fact that their fantasies are focused on each other instead of on the girls. My final comment is just a small thing, the menu in the outdoor cafe is selling hot dogs for more than 8 bucks... so either that is a DAMN good hot dog, or that's one hella over-priced processed-meat-product. Maybe it'd be okay if you got a few of them in one order, because even 3 bucks is already pushing it for a wiener in my opinion.
Back on point: I want to like this release. I REALLY want to like it. But I just vehemently disagree with the main message being conveyed. I'm knocking it back at least two points. It's kind of tragic, honestly. Also, I really want to see a straight choreography video! The choreo looks like a TON of fun, but it's hard to get a good look at the whole of it in the MV and when the only practice video released so far is the Eye Contact Ver (which I don't approve of as a whole... that sort of sexiness fantasy is better left to the MV dance-versions, when I get I practice video, I expect it to be a straight shot of the practice session... that's not BESTie's fault, and they are certainly not alone in having this sort of release, but still...).
I Give it a 6/10: Good Job. |  |
RSS Feed
