Question
Do Americans respect Psy?
Answer
Short answer: a strong no.
You only have to compare Korean reactions to American teen reactions to immediately get that there is a difference and that "respect" isn't an adjective that naturally springs to mind (except for one of the kids reacting). You may not understand exactly what is going on though, if you are American.
The Cliff Notes Version
This can be hard to analyze culturally, so let me save you the trouble. The reason this is a hard question is that Gangnam Style is a self-consciously campy song, so both Koreans and Americans view it as funny.
But the song is deliberate, adult camp to Koreans while it is enjoyed through infantilization, patronization and a lens of assumed cultural superiority over a foreign culture by most Americans.
Don't jump the gun. I'll get to whether the assumption is correct and whether the attitude is problematic in a bit. For now, just accept it as a validated fact to be explained.
In other words, Koreans are going, "haha! this is funny and nails the culture of Gangnam district and a particular subculture very well" while Americans (the majority -- those who don't speak Korean and have never lived there) are going, "haha, look at those funny foreigners doing kid-like things and badly copying American culture."
Let me elaborate a bit.
The Non-Cliff Notes Version
My wife is Korean-American, though she was raised in America and doesn't speak any Korean. So I've watched a lot of Korean stuff, from those macabre horror movies (Old Boy etc.) to the cute TV romances (Pasta and its peers).
I am Indian, and I came here at age 22, so I have a pretty good understanding of how Americans process Bollywood (think Ghost World, Moulin Rouge, Slumdog Millionaire...).
So I have two data points.
It is easier to do the simpler case first, drama. In general, Americans find Asian dramas to be overwrought, melodramatic or "childish." To a lesser extent, they also judge Latino dramas to be this way. In the case of Bollywood, middle-class, English-speaking Indians also find Bollywood dramas to be melodramatic, but an accurate depiction of traditional culture, which IS a somewhat more dramatic/demonstrative than American. So when I watch Bollywood, I can separate out the technical deficiencies in film-making from the cultural aspects that just represent a different "normal," in a way that is impossible for Americans.
Comedy is harder. If you exclude the kinds of humor that don't translate (pure word play etc.), you are left with slapstick and camp. Slapstick reflects different cultural norms, so I'll ignore that. Camp is harder though. Susan Sontag's definition is a good one: camp is failed seriousness.
http://www9.georgetown.edu/facul...
The problem with something like Gangnam Style is that it is deliberate camp that fails intentionally in a certain way with Koreans (for example, Koreans know that "Gangnam" is a particular region, not a mispronunciation of "Gangman" which Americans might assume, and Psy explains that he intentionally went for "dress classy, act cheesy"... practically a sartorial port of Sontag's definition).
But with an American audience that does not understand the context, Gangnam Style turns into true camp (i.e., unintended, in the sense that the original Star Trek seems campy today). Americans are laughing, but probably not for the reasons Psy thinks they are (I've watched the way he plays to American audiences on talk shows etc., and it is clear that he senses, but doesn't quite get what the difference in audience reactions between Korea and America is).
So Why do Americans Process as 'Camp'....?
So why do Americans process foreign American content in a way that infantilizes what they are seeing? The answer is that they replace what they do not understand with their own projected mental models, and misunderstood humor is easily seen as childish, especially if you operate with the assumption that your home culture is the standard setter and that foreign cultures are "copying" things like hip-hop.
This isn't a major crime. After all, you can only make sense of the parts of a new thing that you actually recognize and can associate with what you know. And if you impoverish what you're seeing that way, it will necessarily look like a bad copy of what you understand in refined ways.
This is at the heart of the American version of soramimi applied to foreign content.
A great example is "Benny Lava," a Bollywood (well, actually, Kollywood, the Tamil version) song+dance that went hugely viral a couple of years back, the way Gangnam Style is doing now.
If you know even a tiny bit of Tamil (I am not Tamil, but I understand a fair bit), you will appreciate the actual lyrics and process the song+dance in a very different way than Americans do.
I am neither offended nor amused by this, because I have a very weak social identity of any sort. I know Indians who are both offended by this and flattered that "western" culture has acknowledged something Indian.
The intent seems good-natured enough, and the creative misunderstandings did make me crack a smile in places (at the American doing the soramimi, not the song+dance itself... I know enough rudimentary Tamil, and understand Tamil context/culture well enough to process the clip directly). So for me, it is a "two track" processing.
Soramimi is actually a good test of cultural understanding.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sor...
Perceived Status and Cultural Interactions
Whether through Soramimi or other means, you can distinguish three different cases of cultural interaction.
So basically, the "cultural equity" stays the same in 1, depreciates in 2 and appreciates in 3.
There are subcultural tweaks here. So even though America-Japan is generally of Type II (for things like Godzilla or Japanese rock bands), the subcultures around Anime and Manga and martial arts literature is Type III.
Status here isn't about notions of intrinsic worth of different races/nationalities. It is about social identities as the source of actual, demonstrated behaviors, including comprehension behaviors around alien things.
Gangnam Style is type 2. For all their advances to first-world status, Koreans do not yet consider themselves peers to Americans, culturally. Americans agree. As a result, as a cultural text, the thing has been imported in a significantly depreciated and devalued form.
So the stage is set for an asymmetric status processing of Gangnam Style. So to summarize you can separate out 3 effects:
The first two I've already discussed. The last one is the tough one. There is an invisible gap between what people think and what they say/do in response to a cultural import. What would be unacceptable cultural supremacist attitudes was "normal and okay" 20 years ago. There is an evolutionary lag between the two, reflected in the think/say gap. That gap has a name: political correctness.
Cross-cultural exchanges can only lead to evolved norms of "good taste" after the importing culture has a chance to actually understand the import in a way that is comparable (if not identical) to the way the native culture processes it. This requires, first, a starting attitude of peer status, since either assumption of superiority or inferiority leads to flawed and impoverished processing of the cultural import.
This is rare, but becoming more common.
In Conclusion
Is this situation good or bad? Are the reactions of the teenagers problematic or not? Should Psy have a problem with the way he's being accepted into America or not?
Complicated questions. It is hard to provide prescriptive answers, but I'll offer two examples of American shows that process alien content in very sophisticated ways that break this whole model: Seinfeld and The Simpsons.
Sticking to just the Indian references in those shows, both were impressive artistically because they managed to use exactly the same tropes as less sophisticated works (arranged marriages, elephants, overcrowded trains, slums, outsourcing) in ways that reflected a truly globalized sensibility of humor that anyone could participate in.
So do I have a problem with the "breakout" and "crossover" model Gangnam Style is experiencing?
Yeah, sort of. I'd rather the import of this particular piece of culture was being handled by the creators of The Simpsons or by Jerry Seinfeld than by the less sophisticated people who are actually doing it.
You only have to compare Korean reactions to American teen reactions to immediately get that there is a difference and that "respect" isn't an adjective that naturally springs to mind (except for one of the kids reacting). You may not understand exactly what is going on though, if you are American.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u...
The Cliff Notes Version
This can be hard to analyze culturally, so let me save you the trouble. The reason this is a hard question is that Gangnam Style is a self-consciously campy song, so both Koreans and Americans view it as funny.
But the song is deliberate, adult camp to Koreans while it is enjoyed through infantilization, patronization and a lens of assumed cultural superiority over a foreign culture by most Americans.
Don't jump the gun. I'll get to whether the assumption is correct and whether the attitude is problematic in a bit. For now, just accept it as a validated fact to be explained.
In other words, Koreans are going, "haha! this is funny and nails the culture of Gangnam district and a particular subculture very well" while Americans (the majority -- those who don't speak Korean and have never lived there) are going, "haha, look at those funny foreigners doing kid-like things and badly copying American culture."
Let me elaborate a bit.
The Non-Cliff Notes Version
My wife is Korean-American, though she was raised in America and doesn't speak any Korean. So I've watched a lot of Korean stuff, from those macabre horror movies (Old Boy etc.) to the cute TV romances (Pasta and its peers).
I am Indian, and I came here at age 22, so I have a pretty good understanding of how Americans process Bollywood (think Ghost World, Moulin Rouge, Slumdog Millionaire...).
So I have two data points.
It is easier to do the simpler case first, drama. In general, Americans find Asian dramas to be overwrought, melodramatic or "childish." To a lesser extent, they also judge Latino dramas to be this way. In the case of Bollywood, middle-class, English-speaking Indians also find Bollywood dramas to be melodramatic, but an accurate depiction of traditional culture, which IS a somewhat more dramatic/demonstrative than American. So when I watch Bollywood, I can separate out the technical deficiencies in film-making from the cultural aspects that just represent a different "normal," in a way that is impossible for Americans.
Comedy is harder. If you exclude the kinds of humor that don't translate (pure word play etc.), you are left with slapstick and camp. Slapstick reflects different cultural norms, so I'll ignore that. Camp is harder though. Susan Sontag's definition is a good one: camp is failed seriousness.
http://www9.georgetown.edu/facul...
The problem with something like Gangnam Style is that it is deliberate camp that fails intentionally in a certain way with Koreans (for example, Koreans know that "Gangnam" is a particular region, not a mispronunciation of "Gangman" which Americans might assume, and Psy explains that he intentionally went for "dress classy, act cheesy"... practically a sartorial port of Sontag's definition).
But with an American audience that does not understand the context, Gangnam Style turns into true camp (i.e., unintended, in the sense that the original Star Trek seems campy today). Americans are laughing, but probably not for the reasons Psy thinks they are (I've watched the way he plays to American audiences on talk shows etc., and it is clear that he senses, but doesn't quite get what the difference in audience reactions between Korea and America is).
So Why do Americans Process as 'Camp'....?
So why do Americans process foreign American content in a way that infantilizes what they are seeing? The answer is that they replace what they do not understand with their own projected mental models, and misunderstood humor is easily seen as childish, especially if you operate with the assumption that your home culture is the standard setter and that foreign cultures are "copying" things like hip-hop.
This isn't a major crime. After all, you can only make sense of the parts of a new thing that you actually recognize and can associate with what you know. And if you impoverish what you're seeing that way, it will necessarily look like a bad copy of what you understand in refined ways.
This is at the heart of the American version of soramimi applied to foreign content.
A great example is "Benny Lava," a Bollywood (well, actually, Kollywood, the Tamil version) song+dance that went hugely viral a couple of years back, the way Gangnam Style is doing now.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s...
If you know even a tiny bit of Tamil (I am not Tamil, but I understand a fair bit), you will appreciate the actual lyrics and process the song+dance in a very different way than Americans do.
I am neither offended nor amused by this, because I have a very weak social identity of any sort. I know Indians who are both offended by this and flattered that "western" culture has acknowledged something Indian.
The intent seems good-natured enough, and the creative misunderstandings did make me crack a smile in places (at the American doing the soramimi, not the song+dance itself... I know enough rudimentary Tamil, and understand Tamil context/culture well enough to process the clip directly). So for me, it is a "two track" processing.
Soramimi is actually a good test of cultural understanding.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sor...
Perceived Status and Cultural Interactions
Whether through Soramimi or other means, you can distinguish three different cases of cultural interaction.
- Peer to peer: the producer and consumer culture have roughly the same social status. So this would be like the Japanese watching Korean things, or Americans watching French things. Or Indians watching Jackie Chan movies. In this case, consumers reserve judgement about, or attempt to learn about, the parts that they do not understand.
- Lower to higher: the producer culture is viewed (and views itself) as generally lower status than the consumer culture. This would be Americans processing basically anything non-European. Americans processing European has been slowly drifting from p2p to this category over the last couple of decades. This class also includes "blackface" American shows before the civil rights movement. In this case, the consumers dismiss, ignore or trivialize the parts they do not understand.
- Higher to lower: the producer culture is viewed (and views itself) as generally higher status than the consumer culture. So this would be Asians watching Hollywood movies etc. In this case, the consumers uncritically respect, fear or develop awe for, the parts that they do not understand.
So basically, the "cultural equity" stays the same in 1, depreciates in 2 and appreciates in 3.
There are subcultural tweaks here. So even though America-Japan is generally of Type II (for things like Godzilla or Japanese rock bands), the subcultures around Anime and Manga and martial arts literature is Type III.
Status here isn't about notions of intrinsic worth of different races/nationalities. It is about social identities as the source of actual, demonstrated behaviors, including comprehension behaviors around alien things.
Gangnam Style is type 2. For all their advances to first-world status, Koreans do not yet consider themselves peers to Americans, culturally. Americans agree. As a result, as a cultural text, the thing has been imported in a significantly depreciated and devalued form.
So the stage is set for an asymmetric status processing of Gangnam Style. So to summarize you can separate out 3 effects:
- Translation losses separating understood/not-understood divisions
- Status effects resulting in over/under-valuation of the not-understood
- Norms of "good taste" that govern what it is permissible to say/do in response to the understanding
The first two I've already discussed. The last one is the tough one. There is an invisible gap between what people think and what they say/do in response to a cultural import. What would be unacceptable cultural supremacist attitudes was "normal and okay" 20 years ago. There is an evolutionary lag between the two, reflected in the think/say gap. That gap has a name: political correctness.
Cross-cultural exchanges can only lead to evolved norms of "good taste" after the importing culture has a chance to actually understand the import in a way that is comparable (if not identical) to the way the native culture processes it. This requires, first, a starting attitude of peer status, since either assumption of superiority or inferiority leads to flawed and impoverished processing of the cultural import.
This is rare, but becoming more common.
In Conclusion
Is this situation good or bad? Are the reactions of the teenagers problematic or not? Should Psy have a problem with the way he's being accepted into America or not?
Complicated questions. It is hard to provide prescriptive answers, but I'll offer two examples of American shows that process alien content in very sophisticated ways that break this whole model: Seinfeld and The Simpsons.
Sticking to just the Indian references in those shows, both were impressive artistically because they managed to use exactly the same tropes as less sophisticated works (arranged marriages, elephants, overcrowded trains, slums, outsourcing) in ways that reflected a truly globalized sensibility of humor that anyone could participate in.
So do I have a problem with the "breakout" and "crossover" model Gangnam Style is experiencing?
Yeah, sort of. I'd rather the import of this particular piece of culture was being handled by the creators of The Simpsons or by Jerry Seinfeld than by the less sophisticated people who are actually doing it.