Ok so in Bad I never interpreted MG as sexualizing anyone. He is literally ''one of the girls'', he is even dressed in the same style as the women dancing with him, and his movements are very feminine. So yeah.
Yes, exactly! That scene could have played out in a very different way and it would have aggravated a lot of fans, especially in a song that's already rubbing a lot of Latam Atiny the wrong way π«£π I confess that when I saw Mingi enter the scene with the girls following him like that, I was like, oh, no. But it very quickly turned into something very fun instead???
I've seen people have issues with Hongjoong's verse because he compares a woman to a Cuban cigar, with another verse (Wooyoung's?) because it compares her to a painting, i.e. something that exists for people to look at (so in both instances we have objectification on top of sexualization), with the song in general for using a Latin sound to sexualize Latinas, yet not hiring any Latinas for the MV (despite how much people liked Chase), with the fact that they used Spanish in a song that is very much Brazilian Funk, with the MV for using a lot of stereotypical imagery, with he line about her body/curves being so good she looks photoshopped in particular (sexualization but also plain cringey) and with the pronunciation of 'Bad', saying it sounds Jamaican (?) or like a Korean word (?) that makes it sound silly.
People have issues with him using Spanish (as said above) and with his pronunciation being a bit overboard, but so far I haven't seen anyone have issues with his scene/choreo with the girls. He made it so camp, even the once-over he gives one of the girls is like my best friend telling me "yass, you go girl! π
πΎπ"
And I don't know if you've noticed, but in the MV he makes a sort of pulling motion to "pull" the girls to their feet, but in the dance practice, in most stage performances that I've seen, and in yt shorts with BBT, he has switched to fluttering/wiggling his fingers π«³π«΄
(not in a sexy way, crooking just two fingers, he wiggles all of them, like a bird fluttering his wings, it's so playful; I'm surprised the dancer at the front of the line hasn't wiggled her fingers back in response, because it feels like the natural thing to do; he's not pulling them along anymore, he's playfully teasing, engaging with them, beckoning them to dance together)
He does it with the girls and boys indiscriminately:
(and the way he's living for the boys feeling him up? I bet they didn't even tell him they were gonna do it, they just knew he was going to be ok with it)
(will I even get tired of posting the same gif and video in every ask about Bad Mingi? No lol)
Even in the dance practice, where he's all dressed in black, with short spiky hair, sunglasses and ripped trousers, he flutters his fingers and blends in with the girls.
What his scene mostly reminds me of is: birds
Specifically male birds, all colorful and flashy, dancing to impress the girl that caught their attention. Mingi is dressed like the girls, he's one of them, but in turn, the girls are all behaving like male birds alongside him. All to impress the woman they desire.
As I said, this was a bisexual's dream. Not only because they're all hot, but also because it plays with gender/gender roles, which is something bisexual men in particular seem to appreciate from the reactions I've seen (my friends sure did! they found it very refreshing!)
Sometimes I think that Ateez went into this song and choreo with two very different ideas π the others were like "hot Latinas, yes!" and Mingi was like "I'm a hot Latina, yes!"
Is it still sexualizing Latinas? Well, yes. But it's done in a way that's campy and not degrading. Mingi is making it clear that he doesn't think he's above the girls, despite the way they enter the scene. The girls don't exist for him. He immediately pulls them up to dance with them, as one of them.
(again, I'm a queer person with a queer friend group, so we obviously tend to look at things through a queer lens; that's why I keep bringing up Skin: some people thought it was Seonghwa's declaration of heterosexuality, because he dances with women so of course he must want to have sex with them; but we saw it as a declaration of queerness because he dances as one of the women, finally allowed to step over the line and join them... everything is subjective! If people have issues with Mingi's choreo, I won't tell them they're wrong, but if they ask my opinion, I'm going to gush about it!)
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