Korean Masculinities and Transcultural Consumption: Yonsama, Rain, Oldboy, K-Pop Idols

South Korean masculinities have enjoyed dramatically greater influence in recent years in many realms of pan-Asian popular culture, which travels freely in part because of its hybrid trans-nationalistic appeal. This book investigates transcultural consumption of three iconic figures — the middle-aged Japanese female fandom of actor Bae Yong-Joon, the Western online cult fandom of the thriller film Oldboy, and the Singaporean fandom of the pop-star Rain. Through these three specific but hybrid contexts, the author develops the concepts of soft masculinity, as well as global and postmodern variants of masculine cultural impacts. In the concluding chapter, the author also discusses recently emerging versatile masculinity within the transcultural pop production paradigm represented by K-pop idol boy bands.

Sun Jung is a research fellow in the School of Communication and the Arts at Victoria University, Australia.