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Cited by 17Asian Culture and Media StudiesGender, Feminism, and MediaCultural Identity and Representation

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Where All My Bad Girls at?’: Cosmopolitan Femininity through Racialised Appropriations in K-Pop

Garza, Joyhanna Yoo·2021·Gender and Language
DOI 10.1558/genl.18565
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Abstract

This article examines the polyvalence of racial(ised) representations in K-pop performances. The analysis of K-pop star CL’s (2013) song and video ‘Nappeun gijibae’ (‘The bad girl’) demonstrates how the artist projects an assertive femininity by embodying and localising the Bad Bitch: a sexually agentive figure of womanhood from US hip hop. CL’s use of African American English and conventionalised hip hop tropes helps resignify gijibae, a pejorative Korean term for women. By shifting between decontextualised styles invoking a different time and place, CL is able to build a kind of chronotopic capital that transforms fragmented styles into an empowered cosmopolitan femininity. However, although CL’s performance challenges Korean gendered norms in its use of local linguistic resources, her selective appropriations of US Black and Chicanx cultural signifiers reproduce narrow images of racialised femininities and reify a hierarchy of valuation along lines of gender and race.

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Metadata

Authors
Garza, J. Y.
Affiliations
University of California, Santa Barbara (US)
Corresponding author
Garza, Joyhanna Yoo
ORCID
Garza, Joyhanna Yoo
Venue
Gender and Language
Publisher
University of Toronto Press Inc. (UTPress)
Published
2021-03-25
Volume
15
Issue
1
Pages
11-41
ISSN
  • 1747-6321 (ISSN-L)
  • 1747-633X
DOI
10.1558/genl.18565
OpenAlex
W3138563458
Cited by
17
References
1
Citations by year
2026: 4 · 2024: 6 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 1 · 2021: 2
FWCI
17.77
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Locations
Gender and Language (publishedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Cultural Studies › Asian Culture and Media Studies
  • Social Sciences › Gender Studies › Gender, Feminism, and Media
  • Social Sciences › Cultural Studies › Cultural Identity and Representation
Keywords
K-pop, African American English, hip hop, cultural appropriation

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