The dust from the last K-pop controversy had barely settled when the wildly popular girl group Blackpink was dragged into the spotlight for the wrong reason — again.
The cause of the furor? A baby panda named Fu Bao.
Fu
Bao’s name means “lucky treasure,” but the 3-month-old giant panda cub —
the first to be born in South Korea — had the opposite effect when the
members of the group were filmed cuddling him in a video clip teaser on
Nov. 5 for an upcoming episode of their online reality show, “24/365
With Blackpink.”
The seemingly
innocuous cuddling of a baby panda at a zoo near Seoul has drawn a
sustained flurry of criticism from Chinese internet users who accused
the band of putting a “national treasure” at risk.
Only trained
professionals, who generally wear gloves, masks and other protective
gear, are allowed to handle the animals, which are classified as a vulnerable group, according to wildlife organizations.
One
Chinese newspaper accused the band of putting the cub in harm’s way
because of “a risk of transmitting zoonotic infections as some of the
members own pet dogs and cats.”
YG Entertainment will not release the last episode of '24/365 with BLACKPINK' after recent baby panda controversy
Commentators
on Weibo, China’s version of Twitter, were even aghast that members of
the band were wearing makeup while touching Fu Bao and did not wear
gloves when touching the snout of an adult panda, which some news
outlets said was the cub’s mother.
“They didn’t explain why they touched the baby panda with heavy makeup!” one user wrote.
The
hashtag “Korean artists wrongly handled panda cubs” has been viewed
millions of times and received tens of thousands of comments.
Blackpink
quickly removed the video from its YouTube channel and said in a
statement that the band would delay the release of the next episode of
its online show. The group noted that all members had worn gloves, masks
and protective clothing when handling the panda cub.
The
occasional eruptions of outrage against perceived flubs by K-pop stars
tend to involve not only K-pop fandom — an army of fiercely loyal
followers who have sometimes turned to political activism — but also internet users in China, who are fiercely protective of the nation’s image and history.
A
caretaker carrying Fu Bao, a giant panda cub, during a ceremony to
reveal its name at the Everland Zoo in Yongin, South Korea, this month. Credit...Jung Yeon-Je/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Last
month, Blackpink — Jisoo, Jennie, Rosé and Lisa (real names Ji-soo Kim,
Jennie Kim, Roseanne Park and Lalisa Manoban) — swiftly re-edited a
music video after one member was shown wearing a nurse’s costume and
high heels, drawing criticism that the band was sexualizing the
profession, according to local news reports.
And in July, the group
faced a backlash from Indian fans after including an image of the Hindu
god Ganesha in a music video. That scene, too, was quickly excised.
The boy band BTS was excoriated by Chinese social media users last month for not recognizing the sacrifices of Chinese soldiers who fought on the side of North Korea during the Korean War, while
honoring the shared suffering of Americans and Koreans. Some K-pop fans
were befuddled about why a South Korean band would acknowledge members
of an army that fought on the opposing side.
In
the case of Fu Bao, commentators were quick to point out the fact that
the baby panda was the offspring of two giant pandas lent to South Korea
by China in 2016 as part of a global “panda diplomacy,” which the
country uses to strengthen diplomatic ties. China retains ownership of
the pandas, even those born overseas.
“I
like Blackpink, but pandas are our national treasure,” one Weibo user
wrote. “In South Korea they were tortured like this, not properly
raised. Please send them back.”
Others
on Twitter were incredulous that the group’s interaction with the
animals could raise such a fuss. “Never thought I would live to see the
day people will get mad at Blackpink interacting with pandas,”one person commented.
Fu Bao was born to two pandas sent to South Korea from China.
Credit...Kim Hong-Ji/Reuters
The situation escalated when the China Wildlife Conservation Association
announcedthat it had formally written to the Everland Zoo, where the pandas are
on loan, requesting that it
“immediately stop allowing nonprofessionals
to have contact with panda cubs.”
The association said the zoo had “violated the professional requirements for
the protection of giant pandas by organizing performance-related
personnel to have close contact with giant panda cubs and producing
entertainment programs.”
For K-pop
bands, the cycle of controversy has become par for the course and does
not seem to dent their bottom lines or disturb the groups’ fan base.
After
Chinese news outlets published critical articles about BTS and a flurry
of multinational companies including Samsung, Fila and Hyundai
distanced themselves or scrubbed the group from their Chinese marketing,
BTS never publicly responded.
A few days later, some of the articles were quietly removed online.
In October, BTS’s management company, Big Hit Entertainment, raised more than $800 million in South Korea’s largest initial public offering since 2017.
And the K-pop beat goes on.
Blackpink's Lisa has legs that went viral Lisa's legs YouTube
You can see some of Lisa's famous dance moves at her YouTube channel, where she posts solo performances and travelogues. This past April, she became a meme when one of her videos, "LILI's FILM #3 – LISA Dance Performance Video", showed off her incredible legs. According to Insider, the Twitter-verse started taking a screenshot of her legs and combining it with other recognizable characters like Luigi and Spock. Even celebrities got in on the fun. Stephen Colbert and Dolly Parton were among the stars who posted themselves with Lisa's incredible legs (Dolly definitely pulled it off better!). The original video has almost 37 million views.
