The Pavilion

A recent post on X actually got me thinking about this. This past month Min Hee-jin has chosen several very interesting movies that seemed to have contributed to shape her overall creative vision. One of the films was The Swimming Pool.

Now this thing caught my attention right away. I'm really into Post-Structuralist literary readings, especially Feminist and Postcolonial perspectives. I'm not super familiar with this other specific ideological framework (New Materialism). I assumed it was derived from post-structuralism, where the analysis shifts away from the center toward the margins. In New Materialism, it seems directed toward the surrounding objects (including settings or locations, buildings...), investing them with agency --where she says "the swimming pool becomes an observer".

This made me think, since her entire vision revolves around taking her idols and placing them in real locations. And that this specific vision of hers has been in place for ages, but I'd like to highlight, in particular, the settings in Red Velvet's Ice Cream Cake and SHINee's View, and all of Taemin's solo MVs, where the car acts as another character in the story.

In the narrative of these MVs, the real locations and inanimate objects become a sort of human gaze, transferring their psychological, cultural vibes, memories of the past, etc. right onto the idols themselves.

Taking the case of NewJeans and her choice of an Almodóvar film location for their debut concept pics.

So, from this New Materialism perspective, certain objects and settings are attributed with 'agency'; they are given a 'voyeuristic gaze'. For instance, during a discussion on cinema, she recommended Almodóvar's Bad Education, a film that deals precisely with themes like voyeurism, the espionage of intimacy, the abuse of power, and past traumas in a Catholic boarding school. In fact, these very themes become the bulk of the Guilty MV narrative.

From the perspective of loss of innocence, coming of age etc, it makes sense her choice of real locations in Layover too. The golden cave in Love Me Again looks just like the tunnel where the still innocent teenagers in Run (BTS) were trapped—and wasn't Minho trapped in a similar road tunnel in Atmos (SHINee) too, right before his own coming of age?

Think about the similarities between the cave with its organic curves, and then those again utero-like, curvy walls of his warm, comfy apartment in Rainy Days. The beach in Slow Dancing acts as an in-between space between adulthood and childhood, a transitional state seen from HYYH onwards. Then, right after his 'adult experience,' in the sea, there's this rigid, squared, white architecture in Blue and Slow Dancing that isolates him.

The 'voyeuristic gaze'

So, for instance, some scenes where you can clearly notice this gaze where the inaminate object becomes an entity in its own right.

In Ice Cream Cake, the camera acts as a silent intruder, or stalker.

In Guilty, here very clearly again, the iconic dancing scene with the silent car:

Now here comes the MV that caught my attention. In the latest SHINee MV, Atmos, we see the agency of the object through the car's rearview mirror. A very handsome, experienced Taemin is being watched --by Minho, who symbolizes quite clearly the still innocent teenager lost in his own tunnel.

This 'voyeuristic gaze' reflects a romantic attraction toward the person being watched, as seen in the way our gaze noticeably fixates on parts of Taemin's body, turning him into an object for the observer's pleasure. This aspect is super remarkable—I just can't resist adding a few stills here:

If you compared this with Slow Dancing, we see the camera as if it's spying on Tae's neck and upper torso as he dives into the sea, having a coming-of-age moment (metaphorically, per the HYYH interpretation).

The difference here is that, right after, he looks directly into the camera and just won't look away.

It's the same in For Us. (the fragmentation of the body as an object). Both times, it's done much more subtly here than in Atmos.

He has caught us looking at him. He has caught us, the viewers, red-handed. The voyeur has been exposed. Who was the other person he was actually watching? who is that spectator?

Tae's wide smile at this specific person reveals that what's shown in the MV is just a fantasy for the public, he's basically saying: 'My friends on this trip are just my imagination… but you are real.' Our bond is a genuine, intimate, and adult bond that is kept safe from the public eye.

terrible stuff

I literally feel like I’m witnessing two whole BTS eras condensed into a three-minute music video… 🤯😭

where Taemin and Key are the seducers / adults / experienced ones

Minho / Onew the innocents / virgin-like / the seduced ones