W obronie tożsamości – interpretacja kampowej stylizacji w wybranych utworach k-popowych pierwszych dekad XXI wieku

The paper presents partial results of my research on Korean popular music (K-pop) in the first decades of the 21st century, with a particular emphasis on the analysis and interpretation of the work of BigBang and the solo work of Kwon JiYong (G-Dragon). The aim of my research was to identify the source of a certain stylistic exaggeration and grotesque as well as to find a possible interpretation of that phenomenon. I will start with presenting the complexity of socio-cultural structures in South Korea. Despite the common belief in the Korean society being ‘modern’ and liberal, they are still deeply rooted in traditional Confucian, patriarchal values. As a consequence, issues such as feminism and gender are considered taboo topics. Approaching those aspects from the perspective of music studies is important not only because of the geo-cultural contexts but also due to an impact of social conditions on the analysis of works through the prism of camp stylistics. In spite of widely emphasized high complexity of the notion of camp, I attempt to explain its definition and provide characteristics of that phenomenon. As its universalization was unfair and unjust, camp sparked a great number of disputes referring especially to the contextual location and unambiguous definition. Camp has spread all over the world along with the works of western popular culture, leaving behind non-obvious, sometimes highly surprising traces which I decided to identify on the South Korean scene of popular music. As Korean pop is a phenomenon that results from a certain adaptation of western popular culture, I assumed that it must have been using its tools and stylizations, though sometimes in new versions, as ‘distorted reflections’ leading to absurdity that often results from cultural contexts. While drawing conclusions, I was constantly accompanied by the thought that I was dealing with a different cultural circle and therefore it was not valid to apply the usual patterns and definitions to the phenomena under study. That led me to use camp as a kind of ‘optical apparatus’ and a suggestion for a possible interpretation. The analyses included selected songs and music videos created in the first decades of the 21st century, available on streaming platforms such as YouTube or Spotify. I relied heavily on the literature on popular music, mainly by Roy Shuker, and articles on American pop, especially the songs of Lady Gaga and Gwen Stefani, studied from the perspective of camp works.