Black K-pop: Racial surplus and global consumption

Abstract

How can we account for the ideological stakes when the bodies of K-pop performers vicariously play out features of blackness? On the one hand, the performance of racial variants by K-pop idols and fans has functioned as a visual means of deconstructing racial purity in Koreans, but on the other hand, it has problematically internalized the view that divides races into an imagined order, which has plagued US society and politics.