the childcare life had me estranged from my music but now I've had some time to catch up and
WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED TO HWASA????????????????
So my heart is broken and here is my take.
It is very FOUL to police celebrities bodies. I say this first and foremost because what I'm about to say next need some context. I do not believe celebrities have a responsibility to be advocates of a movement and stick to it forever, we cannot expect this from them, specially because their career path has to respond to the market if they want to be successful, lamentably. I also don't believe audiences are entitled to comment on celebrities' choices, bodies, opinions, and lives overall. However, Hwasa did become a referent for body positivity; seeing a k-pop singer that did not fit the industry's beauty standards embracing her body and looks, making that the powerhouse of her brand as a soloist, makes a significant dent in the image this industry presents to us, constructed through heavily policing idol's lives, schedules, diets, weights, style, etc. To see Hwasa embracing herself would make one think this freedom to do so comes from a personal journey and strong self-esteem, enabling her to face the industry and force her label to see her potential just as she is, as opposed to letting them mold her into the idol everyone puts in the market.
WAS MARIA ALL JUST A BRAND?
Yes. When Hwasa sings "it's not your business if I loose weight or not" she's not referring to her employer.
I am not big on keeping up with all the trends, but we have seen a clear shift in our posture towards bodies, with some even saying the body positive movement is dead, and awareness of celebrities showing up all bones and skin on red carpets has also made it's way on social media. It doesn't come as a surprise that this is the time P Nation has decided to steer Hwasa's image in the opposite direction it had been going; no more embracing the beautiful rarity she is in the midst of super skinny and super pale corean ideals, now she's embracing FEMININITY, her brand will be softness, vulnerability, childlike innocence, and and in order to do that she needs to be skinny, because curvy=sexy, skinny=delicate, which is the formula we're all taught to match our personalities with our looks.
Yes. But I should've known better and I won't take it to heart. Beautiful Nicola Coughlan doesn't want to advocate for body positivity and apparently neither does Hwasa anymore, which is fine. When her label decides it's time to start profiting off skinny and ditch the self-esteem brand, that's exactly what Hwasa does. I don't blame her, but I do regret the loss of a prominent figure in K-pop culture, who once walked on confidently, attractive as herself, amidst a sea of exploited, policed, underweight and overworked stars.
COULDN'T SHE BE CURVY AND FEMININE?
This is not my idea, I stole it from the internet; the world does not allow for bigger women to be feminine. If you're big you can't exist at all, nothing suits you right; if you're quiet you're shy, if you're loud you're annoying, if you're feminine you're immature, if you're tomboy you're masculine, if you're vulnerable you're too much, if you're reserved you're invisible.
I do not criticize the change in Hwasa's appearance (and the weight loss involved) as much as the reasoning behind it; the people responsible for Hwasa's brand were incapable to implement the new concept with Hwasa's previous appearance. Fuck them. They told Hwasa, and through her they are telling her audience, that a person in a bigger, curvier body can't evoke softness, vulnerability, innocence, and simply isn't allowed to represent any of the ideas attached to femininity. Hwasa herself said something under the lines of "this is a new concept and so I wanted to try a new body type I've never had before". That sounds innocent enough, but let's not be fooled, it's not a coincidence.
1-Would the concept fail to reach the audience if she hadn't lost weight? Now we'll never know.
2-Should the label have allowed Hwasa to perform under this new concept WHILE maintaining her physique? Yes
3-Why didn't they? Probably because the label thought the answer to question number one was no.
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