ABSTRACT
This entry discusses the global queerbaiting and queer fannish discourses surrounding the K-pop girl band Blackpink. I examine some key moments in the music group’s tantalization of female same-sex intimacies and its global fans’ queer reading practices. My analysis shows that while queerbaiting encourages a global queering of the female idols, the contextual specificities of contemporary global K-pop industry facilitate a particular kind of queer fantasies that simultaneously contributes to a global LGBTQ visibility and the social policing of its idols’ (hetero-)sexual innocence and desirability.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1. For example, Lisa covered the dance to the song “Good Boy” by the boyband, Bigbang in a 2016 Korean TV show and coached male trainees about the dance in NCT’s song “Kickback” in Youth With You 3 (iQiyi, China, 2021).
5. https://dailysbnews.com/2020/12/09/lisas-crab-dance-went-so-viral-that-it-reached-50-million-views/
8. https://www.facebook.com/LisKookOfficialPH/about/?ref=page_internal. The fan page received over 94,000 likes and 211,000 followers by July, 2021.
9. See some screen captures at https://www.bilibili.com/s/video/BV1C4411D7t3 and https://www.bilibili.com/video/av63147557/
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Jamie J. Zhao
Jamie J. Zhao is an Honorary Professor and the External Director of the Center for Gender and Media Studies in the Department of Journalism and Communication in the School of Media and Law at NingboTech University. E-mail: [email protected]