‘I’m an androgynous tomboy with tattoos’: Amber and (re)imaginations of gender and Koreanness in K-pop

Abstract

Alongside the transnational success of Korean popular music (K-pop), various idols have embraced androgynous looks. One case study I explore is Amber, a Taiwanese American singer-songwriter and former member of girl group f(x) who identifies as an ‘androgynous tomboy with tattoos’. In what ways does Amber challenge gender and sexuality norms in South Korea? Taking androgyny as an analytic, how might we rethink such norms and the flourishing of more diverse genders and sexualities? Since going solo, relocating to the United States, and leaving her Korean agency SM Entertainment, how does Amber also contest K-pop’s Koreanness, particularly its racial, ethnic and national hegemonic ideologies? To address these research questions, I draw on discourse analysis of Amber’s solo albums and YouTube video ‘WHERE IS MY CHEST? (Responding to Hate Comments)’ from critical media, cultural studies, and intersectional feminist lenses. I argue that Amber troubles K-pop’s heteronormative and homosocial spaces and unsettles its Korean/Northeast Asian exclusionary discourses, imagining new ways to be an idol. Through interrogating K-pop’s (female) androgyny and racioethnic dimensions, this article contributes to scholarship at the intersections of gender, sexuality, race, and ethnicity.