TAEMIN 태민 'MOVE' #1 MV

Hi Tim! I’m a new member and this is my first time posting. For me, Taemin, is the embodiment of ‘Artiste’—the Dance Practice for MOVE is LEGENDARY. I was blessed enough to see him in concert last March and it was one of the most overwhelmingly surreal experiences of my life. About gender fluidity—historically, in many East Asian and indigenous cultures, “gender” is a spectrum and possessing both feminine and masculine energies is the norm, not an anomaly. It’s a balance that makes a person whole. In ancient indigenous Hawaiian culture, there was 3rd gender that had nothing to do with sexual orientation, but instead had to do with the manifestation of masculine and feminine spiritual energy. This 3rd gender was highly revered and respected in society—until the strictly binary gender values of western colonization made it taboo. Sadly, the stigmatization persists until today. I have to say that the first Kpop MV I ever saw was for EXO’s “Power” (the dance track you liked from their Killing Voice) and when I saw Xiumin’s and Baekhyun’s glitter eye shadow makeup (yes, oddly specific, I know lol), I fell in love with how unapologetically beautiful they were…and it didn’t seem outlandish or weird to me. It made total sense on some subconscious level. Even my daughter, who was only 4 years old at the time, gushed over how pretty they were, which made me realize that the social rejection of gender fluidity is a learned prejudice based on our western cultural norms. Anyway, stepping down from my soapbox, thank you for your Taemin appreciation and I hope you’ll check out more of his discography.

Hey Tim! Thank you for the reaction. I should have included in the intro video that Taemin did not officially come out in any way. It is just an evolution that we fans have witnessed through the years. Unfortunately lgbtq is still pretty taboo in Korea and as an entertainer it would be career suicide to officially come out. Interestingly the Korean fan base loves the pretty boy image but when it’s done within the confides of why is accepted. In terms of the music video, yes the swaying hips is the start of the part that has been covered. Another fun fact about the music video is that the director was pretty new at doing music videos and he made Taemin dance in the rain for 18hrs. He said now he would never do that to an artist but Taemin did it with no complaints and was a perfectionist until the end.

I'm not an expert in Korean culture (obviously, not even an amateur really 😂) and my frame of reference is just Stray Kids, but this is the first time I've seen anyone in the industry openly address gender/sexuality issues FOR the idols. It's very cool to see and I wish they weren't all so locked down. I also don't know if Korean HAS a concept of gender-based pronouns? If there are, I haven't learned about them yet. There ARE several moments where I have seen idols publicly acknowledge gender fluidity as well as queerness in general. Felix has said very clearly that he thinks fashion/makeup should not be limited by gender and sometimes likes a more feminine style. Lee Know and Felix both have spoken in fan calls about their "ideal type" of partner while clearly including men in that group. They all flirt with each other constantly (you could argue they're just teasing, but it's a data point). And then in SKZ Family half of them dress as women (and they all switch to using she/her pronouns in the captions for those characters without missing a beat). Not to mention SKZ EXchange Island, another episode of SKZ Code where they go on romantic dates with each other like a dating show 😂 Of course, in SKZ Code they are playing a game, its roleplay, and it's all for content. Everything they say publicly gets filtered through the Company and its idea of Idol Image. But I think the way they approach it shows that they're at the VERY least, accepting and open. I would be happy to see what idols decide to share about themselves if they weren't tied down to this rigid idea of what idols are allowed to do.