On idols
What is an idol? Why do I keep making a big deal about separating a male idol group from a western “boy band”? Will I ever shut up? (No.)
In episode 17 my friend brought up the idea of the “magic circle” from gaming. In professional wrestling they use the term “kayfabe”. What it means is “suspension of disbelief.” The idea that you, as an audience member, walk into a theater or concert hall, turn on a wrestling match or reality show, and can simultaneously hold in your mind two separate ideas: what is happening is not real; what is happening feels real.
Professional wrestling is not “real” in the sense that the heels are not all terrible people, faces are not all good people, and the wrestlers are not working out actual grudges in the grudge matches. But professional wrestling is “real” in that the wrestlers step into that ring and take their lives and health into their hands with every piledriver. The hate for the opponent isn’t “real” in that the wrestlers are not trying to genuinely injure each other and instead must trust each other to execute dangerous moves with skill. But what is real is the catharsis it whips up in the crowd. The feeling of joy when the wrestler you support wins her match; the release of the boos and jeers at her opponent when she doesn’t. Kayfabe, magic circle, suspension of disbelief. The emotion is real in that moment.
Idols are like this. Idols are real people. Idols are performers. Idols can whip up real emotion within the magic circle. Idols, like wrestlers, like theater actors, need to be able to drop character when they step offstage. Idols need us to understand that there is a divide between the public and private life.
This last week has seen a truly awful shitstorm for BTS and my favorite member Jungkook when images leaked showing him with a girl, who appeared to be a friend, possibly even a girlfriend. And fandom exploded. People were mad that he seemed to be dating, mad that he seemed to be dating a woman (and not Jimin/Taehyung, strike one), mad that the girl worked at a somewhat seedy tattoo parlor which isn’t where their darling baby boy should be seen hanging out, mad that the statement put out by Big Hit looked like a lie, mad that Jungkook himself didn’t say anything...
I’m not going to litigate “evidence” and “proof”; it’s really none of our business what their relationship is. As long as it’s between consenting adults I don’t care what idols get up to in their off hours because idols exist in the realm of suspension of disbelief. That is what separates them from a boy band, from plain old musicians. They have a magic that others performers can not access; they drive a loyalty that other artists can only dream of.
The danger with the magic circle or kayfabe is that not everybody understands it. Not everybody can hold the two conflicting ideas in their heads: this is not real but this feels real. When you insist an idol actually be the image they project, not just on stage but off stage. Back stage. In their private time. It’s dangerous for the idol and dangerous for the audience. Chaining an idol to the image, not allowing the person behind the mask to ever remove it. To allow their own personality to develop free of the responsibility of being, for example, “BTS’s Jungkook.”
Are we going to keep him as a baby boy forever? Is he never allowed to grow up?
This isn’t about encouraging public dating (which I continue to disagree with mainly because I think using romantic relationships for publicity is disgusting) but it is about letting a man step outside of the magic circle. About understanding that our own position as fans is also bound by that magic circle.
One of the biggest complaints I have with Big Hit Entertainment is that they haven’t allowed the members to grow beyond their initial image. This is what I mean. Jungkook has been the babied golden maknae since he was 15 years old. He is now a 22-year old man and yet at a recent fansign just months ago a fan gave him a baby bonnet to wear. What is he supposed to do? If baby boy is an image he can put on and take off, then there isn’t an issue. SMAP’s Katori Shingo still plays the nation’s baby boy on occasion and he’s 1) no longer in SMAP and 2) well into his 40s. It’s cute and silly when he does it but we, as fans, also know that he’s a 40-something man with a life and it’s just an act to make the fans happy. But if it’s not something you can take off? That’s a problem. Even professional wrestlers get to play with their image, going from heel to face, playing up a double cross and going back again. Being human means changing, means growing up, means maturing. To be stuck at 15 years old forever must be torture.
We, as fans, especially in the West, if we want to engage in idol culture have to understand that just because being an idol is an act, doesn’t mean it’s not real in the moment. And that being “just” an act doesn’t mean it’s not meaningful or that the emotion these idols generate is meaningless.
The literal minded insistence that ships are actual homosexual relationships, that the members must all live together in a dorm, must never tarnish the image we’ve built or it’s all fake-- this is the attitude that will burn you out as a fan.
Let Jungkook grow up. Let him change his idol image if he wants to. Do you think the abs flash in “Fake Love” was a mistake? That he wouldn’t love to pull a Lee Taemin (another baby boy) in 2014 and just go full sexy for a song or two?? Just to show that he’s not the eternal 15 year old in a baby bonnet?
Even if he does go full sexy for a song or two or gets an ill-advised hand tattoo, does it mean he’s not still the same Jungkook we know and fell in love with? What does it actually change?
(Originally posted 9/24/2019)