Unmasking Queerness: Blurring and

Solidifying Queer Lines through K-Pop

Cross-Dressing

CHUYUN OH AND DAVID C. OH

T
WO MEN NIMBLY RUN ACROSS A STAGE WHILE SINGING A ROMANTIC
love song. They gather at the center where a woman is sitting
passively with her back to the audience. The men open their
hands toward the woman and turn her around to face the audience,
revealing her long, brown wavy hair, knee-length white lace dress,
and high heels. One man gently kisses her chin, and she responds by
smiling coyly, while covering her mouth, slightly flinching her
shoulders, and averting her eyes. As soon as the song finishes, all
three gather closely, put their arms around each other’s shoulders,
and playfully jab and tap, cavorting around each other. She makes a
victory gesture and shouts “Yay!” in a low-pitched voice while press-
ing her arms down, waving her fists, and spreading her legs widely
like she is squatting.
The scene involves a cross-dressing performance in SM Town Live
World Tour III (2012) by Tamin, a Korean pop music (hereafter, K-
pop) male singer, who is well known for his androgynous appearance.
K-pop male singers are often called “Flower Boys” because of their
slender, androgynous bodies and fashion-conscious, beautiful
appearance. Cross-dressing is one of the most popular conventions in
the mainstream K-pop industry. Male singers’ cross-dressing is par-
ticularly beloved by (mostly female) fans. In K-pop, androgyny and
male cross-dressing are considered neither an absence of masculinity
nor homosexuality.

The Journal of Popular Culture, Vol. 50, No. 1, 2017

© 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

9
10 Chuyun Oh and David C.Oh

Queer identity is essentialized as simple resistance toward hetero-

sexuality, and queer bodies are specifically “marked,” such that they
easily become theatrical spectacles.1 The marginalization of bisexual
groups in queer communities demonstrates the exclusion caused by
the relative privileging of the “L” and “G” of LGBTQ (Gammon and
Isgro). In this logic, since bisexuals are in between heterosexual and
homosexual, they are not necessarily resistive to heterosexuality, and
thus, not queer enough. Historically, performance has been a site for
liminal actions that transgress pre-existing boundaries and social
norms (Turner and Schechner). Performance can present queerness in
between homosexuality and heterosexuality without specifically being
marked as queer or homosexual.
Focusing on liminal features of queerness decolonizes Asian queer
aesthetics by unmasking Western-centered gay subjects. Queer is often
understood as a Eurocentric concept with the implication that the
non-West queer subject should follow Western models. Accordingly,
homosexuality is often stereotyped with the notion of a “global gay”
image (Halberstam 344). Drag queen shows in Western culture, such
as RuPaul’s Drag Race, which is largely characterized by hyperbolic
theatrical femininity, could be an example of such homogenization.
Queer is masked with certain stereotypical imagery. This dominant
“mask” of queerness conflates diverse voices of queer communities
around the world with the typical understanding of the gay subject in
the West. However, as Halberstam says, “cross-gendered homosexuali-
ties [are] elsewhere” (345). Indeed, one of the earliest documents on
homosexuality in Korea is found in poems that portrayed Hwarang
soldiers during the Silla dynasty (57 BC–935 AD) (Kim and Hahn).
Therefore, articulations of queerness unfold in different cultural ter-
rains marked by their specific histories and intersecting discourses of
gender, sex, and sexuality.
Furthermore, despite K-pop’s increasing visibility in popular
culture and in the academic literature, there is almost no research on
K-pop cross-dressing, and the ways traditional performances have
influenced contemporary cultural practices and beliefs have been
neglected.2 K-pop cross-dressing can be understood in the genealogy
of talnori, in which male singers have traditionally worn female masks
to perform cross-gender roles.3 Drawing upon historical references
and transnationally received masculinity onstage, K-pop cross-dres-
sing is a hybrid performance that has the potential to problematize
Unmasking Queerness 11

constructions of masculinity and heteronormativity. Whether they

challenge or reify traditional constructions of heterosexual masculin-
ity and reinforce or subvert social norms, these performances rely on a
“double moment of representation,” through mocking humor or
homoeroticism (Albright xiv, xiii). It is at the site of the doubly
inflected performance that we ask the questions that guide this pro-
ject: How does K-pop cross-dressing, like talnori, reinforce social
norms, including patriarchy, while at the same time blurring queer
representations? What kinds of symbolic masks do they wear? If, as
others have argued, K-pop becomes a source of “inter-Asia queer
identity” against Western dominance (K€ang; Khiun; Oh; Sinnott),
how does K-pop transform an originally heterosexist cross-dressing
practice into a subversion of heteronormativity?
K-pop cross-dressers present multiple queer identities by reinforc-
ing and/or challenging heterosexist “hegemonic Korean masculinity”
and Western queer images through its ambivalent masquerade of
homosexuality (Moon 47, 55; Sea-ling 41). Drawing theories from
performance studies and gender studies, we closely read two K-pop
boy groups, VIXX and Infinite, and their cross-dressing perfor-
mances.4 We argue that, like the literal masks used in talnori, K-pop
cross-dressing is a symbolic mask that allows the performance of
queer identities, while at the same time shielding its performers from
being perceived as queer. VIXX’s performance exhibits a presenta-
tional and theatrical form of gender parody that creates humor
through their use of exaggerated fictional role-playing. Their
performance challenges Korean masculinity, but the humor negates
homosexual possibilities. Infinite’s male and female duet, however,
subverts heteronormativity through their androgyny and verisimilar
homoeroticism. Infinite creates an alternative space and can be a
source of Asianizing queer aesthetics against the US-centric “global
gay system” through its articulation and expression of subtler, more
nuanced, and liminal versions of queer imagery.

Queering Masculinity: Cross-dressing from Talnori to

K-pop

In Korea, the earliest form of cross-dressing was found in namsadang-

pae, a group of fifty to sixty bachelor performers from the lowest social
12 Chuyun Oh and David C.Oh

class of the Silla Dynasty (57BC–935AD). They were itinerant, profes-

sional entertainers who staged a wide range of performances, including
outdoor plays, folk dances, drumming, mask dances, acrobatics, pup-
pet plays, and ropewalking. Talnori was one of the main repertoires of
namsadangpae. Tal means a mask, and nori means a play or a game.
Thus, talnori is a mask play in which performers wear masks to amuse
the audience. Shamans and villagers also performed talnori in religious
ceremonies and festivals. But the ritual talnori, too, used performance.
Players put on exaggerated masks tinted with vivid, bright colors, and
communicated with deities through masquerading, speaking, singing,
and dancing.
Talnori is a site for interrogating the double nature of performance.
On the one hand, the origin of cross-dressing in talnori was as a patri-
archal device to prevent the public display of women’s bodies
onstage. In the pre-modern era, cross-dressing was a regular feature of
traditional performances in Korea. Because men played all roles,
cross-dressing was found not only in talnori but also ch’angguk (opera)
and mudang-chum (shaman dance) (Kendall and Hiền). Furthermore,
talnori actors maintained their own internal gendered hierarchies
based on their stage roles and ages. The youngest members, especially
those with a feminine appearance, were called pirie. Pirie not only
played a female role onstage, but also served food and did domestic
labor. This gendered role-play on and off stage signified that actors’
stage personas could affect their daily life identity. On the other
hand, although gender roles were reified through the strict construc-
tion of gendered hierarchies, talnori also challenged patriarchal hetero-
sexuality through homosexual love and same-sex relationships on and
off stage, having a potential impact on both the performers and their
audiences. Indeed, cross-dressers pass with an assumed identity com-
posed of apparent binaries, such as male/female and heterosexual/ho-
mosexual, albeit temporary (Smith 15).
Talnori cross-dressers shed light on how a theatrical device that is
often perceived as merely entertainment can actually carry efficacy in
reality and address social issues. Satirical content was openly allowed
with tacit consent by the ruling class because talnori was considered
as nori, “play.” Through song and dance, talnori players directly criti-
cized social and religious elites’ corruption and immoral conduct
through mimicry and satire, wearing masks of those whom they criti-
cized (C. Kim and E. Kim).5 Considered as representative of Korean
Unmasking Queerness 13

performing art, talnori is still performed today. Given the long legacy
of talnori embedded in Korean culture, the play has naturalized cross-
dressing for (heterosexual) mainstream Korean audiences.
Like talnori, Korean society approves of K-pop cross-dressing not
because of progressive advocacy of homosexuality but, rather, because
of compulsory heterosexuality. Military regimes along with neo-Con-
fucian beliefs have stigmatized homosexuality as a “foreign” value or
“mental disorder” as a means to uphold gender hierarchies and notions
of the ideal heterosexual family in Korea (Bong; Lee; Miriam; Park-
Kim). In such a heterosexist structure, homosexuality’s denial rather
creates space for male performers to freely perform cross-dressing roles
as they are not read as homosexual. Strong normative assumptions
about lived heterosexuality allow for what would be understood from
a Western point of view as alternative queer performances.
In Sun Jung’s expansive work on Korean masculinities, she refers
to K-pop cross-dressing and performance of “Flower Boy” as
“pseudo-gayness.” The reasons the performances are well received by
the mainstream society is because “they are pretty but not actually
gay” (“K-pop”). Jung explains that K-pop male idols dressed as
women present “manufactured versatile masculinity” and exhibit gen-
der fluidity along with a wide range of artistry (Korean Masculinities
165). While Jung successfully frames cross-dressing with general vir-
tuosity of contemporary popular culture industry, she does not read
how cross-dressing has evolved in the genealogy of Korean perform-
ing arts. More importantly, an analysis of cross-dressing is not com-
plete without full consideration of corporeality.
Cross-dressing relies on the body, and the body as a theatrical
device accomplishes its meaning through physical actions. Identity is
an action verb, not a noun (Rossen 3).6 The body is the very site
where racial, gender, ethnic, and sexual identities are performed;
these markers are fully visualized and physicalized through corporeal
resistance and/or reinforcement of social norms. Queer is also a verb
that needs a physical action. Queer refers to “new ways of being
sexed, gendered, and sexual” (Kerry 701). Through bodily enactment,
“queering” becomes a way of looking, acting upon, or uprooting
previously held beliefs, opinions” that are considered “unproblematiz-
able” (Kerry 701).
An analysis of physicality in K-pop cross-dressing problematizes
gender norms and creates possibilities for a “third gender” as “a mode
14 Chuyun Oh and David C.Oh

of articulation, a way of describing a space of possibility,” with its

theatrical manifestation problematizing conventional categories of
gender (Nally 623). Revealing gender as a construction or perfor-
mance does not necessarily weaken gender binaries, unless alternative
gender roles are suggested (Butler; Connell; Hatfield). Thus, in con-
junction with the idea of queer as a verb, we understand queer as a
plural form when used as a noun, as it allows multiple ways of pre-
senting, performing, and appreciating social constructions of identity.
We use the term “queers” to understand the fluid complexities of
doing “multiple genders” within transnational Asian pop culture
(Kahn et al.).

Gender Parody: Putting on a Campy Mask

Five men dressed as women confidently walk onto the stage to enthu-
siastic applause. Around the stage, there are faux signboards and a
giant disco ball. Some members of the group wear skinny leopard-
print leggings with tight black tops, and others have on miniskirts
with sheer black stockings and showy costume jewelry, including
necklaces and bracelets. They wear women’s wigs and high heels.
Their skin is waxed smooth, and they have applied pink blush, eye-
liner, and mascara. Yet, even with their feminized masks, they are
identifiable as men. The men are slender, but have clearly defined,
toned muscles. The camera zooms onto female fans and then a female
judge who erupts in laughter and claps loudly with excitement.
The performers are members of K-pop boy group, VIXX. In the
show, they parody the K-pop girl group Wonder Girls’ song “So
Hot.” VIXX’s performance can be read as camp because of its
exaggerated performance of gender. Camp is characterized by
“exaggeration, artifice, and extremity” and exemplifies kitsch aesthet-
ics (Rodger 25–26). Despite being dressed in women’s clothing,
VIXX’s physicality does not match the typical appearance of gender
blurring “Flower Boys.” Instead, like drag queen shows in Western
culture, VIXX exaggerates femininity. The performers sing in a high
pitch falsetto, while dancing together in a chorus girl formation.
They stand in a line and put one hand on the shoulder of the person
in front and sway their hips. While swinging their hips, they close
their eyes slightly and open their mouths as they seductively stare at
Unmasking Queerness 15

the amused audience. Then they turn, facing away from the audience,
to show their backsides, caressing their hips in mock imitation of sex-
ualized female K-pop performers. While showing their backs, they
turn their heads, face the audience, and giggle. The vulnerability and
sexual availability of their pose conjures typical representations of
women in mass media, in which women internalize the male gaze,
objectifying their bodies for male pleasure. Yet, in this performance,
it is primarily women audience members who share in the fun, as the
imitation disrupts the absurdity of the male gaze.
The performers, then, stand in a line and kick their calves back-
ward with a girlish attitude. Singing their solo parts, some of them
place their fists on their cheeks, rolling them back and forth, and
wink. An uncommon gesture in the West, the playful performance is
a sign of aegyo. Commonly translated as “cute,” aegyo (애교 in
Korean) is composed of two characters that combine “child” and
“lovability.” Combined with their dress and their objectified pose,
the use of aegyo is meant to signify youthful feminine sexuality. But
such exaggerations of femininity do not match their physicality.
Their muscular bodies belie their exaggerated masquerade of femi-
nized childhood. The tight and revealing clothes they wear accentuate
their muscular physique.
Male drag is resistive because it works inside of a patriarchal,
heteronormative gender system to expand gender boundaries through
absurdity and ambiguity (Koenig). Because of the theatricality
embedded in their performance, VIXX’s gender reversal is visibly
unbelievable and inherently presentational. A presentational acting
style refers to a technique in which an actor maintains distance from
the role s/he plays. The actor constantly reminds the audience that s/
he is aware of its existence and creates an “alienation effect,” so that
the audience cannot fully juxtapose the actor with the role s/he plays
(Brecht 71). VIXX’s presentational acting, accompanied by their use
of camp, constantly reminds the audience that the performers are
men playing women. This theatrical device allows the audience to
have distance from “commonsense” gender roles.
Enhancing the show’s denaturalization of masculinity, the actors
do not try to pass as women but blatantly reveal how they fail to
fully perform women. In the opening, the performers abruptly lift up
their heads, shouting, “We are back!” in a low-pitched voice. But
once the song starts, they imitate femininity. One of the members
16 Chuyun Oh and David C.Oh

walks to the center, and he sticks one leg forward, thrusting out his
chest, and caressing his thigh with his hand. Undulating his chest,
he tosses his short wig. But since his hair is neither real nor long, it
does not reference the sexualized image of a woman tossing her hair
back. He enjoys his failure in presenting female sexiness with the
audience. As they laugh, he grins broadly and further exaggerates his
hand gestures by flipping his hair. As the song reaches the end, all
members simply switch their performing personae to men. They sing
in their natural voices to signal they are giving up the masquerade.
They smile widely, and their eyes indicate that they are ecstatic and
satisfied.
Discrepancy is one of the main elements that evoke laughter in
cross-dressing (Quemener). Interestingly, in VIXX’s show, humor
works disproportionately for female audiences. As soon as VIXX
appears on the stage, a female judge yells out in excitement and
laughs heartily. She leans forward to see the performers better and
greets them with applause. The female members of the audience, also,
seem to be extremely amused. They cheer, applaud, clap, and even
stomp their feet while laughing. They support the performers’ oscil-
lating gender identities. Their laughter deserves interrogation, as it
draws on the masquerade’s exaggeration to reveal dominating
gendered expectations and fixed notions of gendered being. Male
cross-dressing can provide potentially liberating images for women,
whose bodies have been demeaned and objectified in comparison with
the heterosexual male body (Darling Wolf). Indeed, the female
audience appears to be liberated and emancipated from the power
dynamics of the gaze in mainstream culture—women as displayed
object versus men as spectator—by reversing the gaze and denatural-
izing femininity. VIXX purposefully displays a failure of performing
female sexiness, as the performers make fun of their own masculinity,
to please the predominantly female audience.
The men in the audience, including the two male judges, seem to
not enjoy the performance. Once VIXX appears on the stage, they are
shown immediately grimacing and showing strong disapproval. Their
mouths hang open, with the subtitle “surprise and horror!” suggest-
ing the male judges’ inner dialogue.7 Unlike the women, the male
judges do not clap, but instead lean back, while shaking their heads
from side-to-side. Whether it is a media-provided image or a por-
trayer of the audiences’ real reactions, these judges’ immediate and
Unmasking Queerness 17

deliberate grimaces reveal their disgust, as if resisting the humor of

the performance. Humor has power to subvert existing social norms
(Shugart). A drag performer carries power with his campiness: “The
more he makes us laugh with his subversion of power, the more
power he gains” (Abel 198). Because the humor in VIXX’s perfor-
mance mocks, in part, masculinity by ridiculing its gaze and demon-
strating its flexibility, the male judges seem unable to find
enjoyment, because the more the show evokes laughter, the more the
male judges become vulnerable.
Although VIXX’s cross-dressing has the potential to liberate
women from patriarchy and weaken gender codes, it paradoxically
works to further entrench heteronormativity. The show was aired for
family viewing during Chuseok, one of the most important national
holidays. Given the large, heterogeneous audience for a Chuseok spe-
cial, the humor can be reasonably understood to not directly chal-
lenge the status quo. In former days, cross-dressers in talnori were
“safe” because players were anonymous and because talnori was con-
sidered as nori, an enjoyment. As in talnori, VIXX wears a mask of
humor. It allows men to play the role of women, but connotes the
performance as “safe” because the men do not truly want to be
women, nor is there the possibility of heterosexual attraction. VIXX’s
show is ambivalent. It can be liberating in denaturalizing gender,
and, at the same time, as a humorous nori, VIXX relegates the perfor-
mance to a temporary transgression in which masculinity, especially,
heteronormativity is not directly challenged. Thus, it relies on com-
pulsory heteronormativity. Nevertheless, although cross-dressing can
be playful in reaffirming normative values, comedic conventions can-
not “completely erase the problematic topsy-turviness” embodied in
cross-dressing (Thomas 309). As homoeroticism existed among talnori
players although talnori was a stage nori, K-pop cross-dressing is not
always “safe.”

Wearing a Mask of Homoeroticism

Under dim blue light, the male singer Sungjong Lee, or SJ, appears
with a high-pitched whistle sound. He is clad in silky, tight black
pants with a leopard-print jacket. He has short straight hair with
bangs, and his body is thin and slight, resembling the appearance of
18 Chuyun Oh and David C.Oh

a juvenile. His voice resembles that of a castrato because of the effem-

inacy and delicacy his voice emanates. Behind him, a woman stands
with her back turned toward the audience. She is Sungyeol Lee, or
SY, dressed as a woman. Though she is taller and more physically
muscular than her partner, she is still androgynous in appearance. She
is dressed in a short one-piece red velvet dress, a black and white faux
fur leopard vest, knee-high black boots, and a headband that resem-
bles cat ears. In addition, she wears a long, dark brown wig with
curls cascading past her shoulders. Their sensual outfits moderately
resonate with burlesque costumes. They are less exaggerated and even
seem casual compared to VIXX’s girlish, flamboyant stage costumes.
Both of them barely wear makeup, albeit SY’s lips are tinted red.
SJ and SY’s duet consists of close physical interaction that evokes
sexual energy and tension. While singing, they draw each other’s
bodies closely, and SY undulates her upper body, moving closer to
SJ’s chest. In such an intimate distance, she walks her fingers up his
arm as if to seduce him. They then interlock their bodies. Swaying
their hips, he crosses his hands on her body behind her, and she
arches her hands over his pelvis and chin, turning her head back and
leaning into his chest. He moves his face across her arm from her
wrist to shoulder, maintaining little distance from her skin, as if
caressing her body with his lips. As soon as his lips get close to her
face, she sharply whirls and tosses her head back with a lady-like air
and moves away.
The sensual/sexual duet of the two men appears genuine. When
they sing, they face each other. They look at each other’s lips, tilting
their heads slightly in opposite diagonals. At the end of the perfor-
mance, she comes closer to him. He gazes deep into her eyes and
abruptly moves to kiss her. Even in this most intimate physical inter-
action, they do not exaggerate their facial expressions or gestures.
Their sincere, earnest acting makes their relationships seem “authen-
tic,” and provides verisimilitude, or hyperreality, an illusion that the
couple could actually exist. The ways they interact with the audience
supports this verisimilitude. The performers appear lost in the
moment and do not react. While dancing and singing, they focus on
themselves and their partners. There are no hints of embarrassment,
exaggeration, or rehearsed failure, such as a grin while performing,
which can occur when actors and performers vulnerably expose them-
selves to the audience. In the world of the play, SY and SJ perfectly
Unmasking Queerness 19

maintain the fourth wall in theater—the imaginary wall that exists

between the audience and performers onstage.
By losing her/himself in the role s/he plays, the actor is able to
become someone else and “represent” the role without distance from
the role s/he plays. Representational acting is a technique in which
an actor internalizes the role and thoroughly attaches to and immerses
her- or himself in the role s/he plays (Stanislavski). SY and SJ do not
play certain characters. Nor do they try to act more feminine or mas-
culine. But still, they are able to smoothly perform female and male
roles with their physical androgyny. Instead of transporting into char-
acters, they seem to only play themselves. This approach differs from
VIXX’s presentational acting that allows the audience to see the gap
between the roles they play and their everyday selves by revealing
their failures at being women.
Despite such a representational approach, there is a moment when
SY breaks the fourth wall. As the show reaches its climax, she pulls
off her faux fur top, revealing her bare chest and shoulders, momen-
tarily staring at the audience. When taking off her vest, she draws a
large circle and overemphasizes her arm gestures, as if she wants to
show off her muscular power. She then turns back, strutting upstage.
The female fans’ screams become louder and almost unruly. This
abrupt intervention visibly reaffirms that SY is actually male and cre-
ates distance from the female role she plays. Though this moment
plays up the performance, she could have exaggerated her feminine
features and shown typical sexy poses or alluring gestures, such as
undulating her chest, which commonly occurs in a drag show to
make the audience laugh, as VIXX does. While VIXX’s “alienation
effect” via a rehearsed failure negates homosexual attraction with
humor, SY’s case instead enhances homoerotic tension. His revealed
male torso at the show’s climax reminds the audience that they are
watching an erotic male duet.
The fans’ enthusiastic screaming implies that they receive the scene
in ways that provide sexual excitement. The performers’ intimate
physical contact triggers loud and energetic fan chants and enthusias-
tic responses from the audience. The fans’ reactions differ from the
mere laughter that is commonly driven by incongruity or failure
found in male cross-dressing. In a heterosexist context, men dressed
as women can be amusing only if it is obvious that they are men,
because if men dressed as women look too “convincing,” their
20 Chuyun Oh and David C.Oh

performance generates homoerotic tension (Sawyer 8). Fans’ enthusias-

tic reactions with cheers demonstrate that the performers seem con-
vincing enough to generate an erotic arrangement.
By employing a nontraditional casting, SY and SJ resist the typ-
ical gender role-play of masculine versus feminine. SJ, who plays
the male role, is the youngest member of the group Infinite, and
he is famous for his androgyny as a prototypical “Flower Boy.” He
has a small, nonmuscular frame. He has fair and flawless skin, and
he is well known for his youth and presumed innocence. On an
entertainment show, SJ said that he feels he is prettier than most
K-pop girl groups. The other Infinite members agreed, saying that
SJ is so good at imitating girl groups’ choreographies that his body
emanates rhythms and styles of female dance (“Infinite Members’
Exposure”). SY, who plays the female role, is taller than SJ, and
his body looks muscular. Nevertheless, his face is delicate and
androgynous as well. Their physicality challenges gender as a con-
struct through the ambiguous performance of it—the more physi-
cally imposing man dressed as a woman and the physically smaller
man dressed as a man.
In addition to their androgynous looks, both of them execute
effeminate, girlish, and childish attitudes and gestures. They flip
their hands while taking dainty, nimble steps with perky shrugging
gestures. They stand side-by-side, bend their wrists outward like a
girl, and wiggle their shoulders, stepping one feet back and forth and
side-to-side. These girlish gestures smoothly exist together with their
reversed role-play because both are pretty and androgynous. SJ’s
ambiguity resonates with a transvestite actor who “signals a category
crisis” due to his/her indeterminable presentations of gender (Thomas
308).
Gender ambiguity is the key to understanding the performers’
cross-dressing duet. Male drag often relies on absurdity, as it plays
within the dichotomy of male versus female. SJ and SY’s perfor-
mance, however, is nuanced and restrained. Through fluid and hybri-
dized understanding of gender roles and embodiment, women can
represent masculine traits without imitations of men, which Halber-
stam calls female masculinity. SJ and SY enact male femininity.
What they embody onstage is men’s femininity without imitating
female characteristics—they neither masquerade nor imitate women.
Male femininity is possible for them, even if they do not act or try to
Unmasking Queerness 21

look feminine because their androgynous bodies and appearance

already posses effeminacy—men’s femininity.
Queer is a verb, a way of performing identity. The corporeality of
androgynous cross-dressers has the potential to change the meaning
of performance because the “body marks a central shift in the nature
of the intervention” (Quemener 86). SJ and SY’s bodies directly shape
the audience’s visual experience and affect the following interpreta-
tion. As queer desire is “everywhere,” the audience can find queer
pleasure even in a heterosexual narrative (Doty xii). The performers’
androgynous physicality questions Korean masculinity that should be
read as heterosexual—compulsorily heterosexual—by provoking ero-
tic imagination about male bodies, what Quemener might call the
“centrality of expressive body” (81).
Other Infinite members cannot hide their embarrassment while
watching SY and SJ’s duet. In a rehearsal video, SY and SJ are clad in
casual black training pants and loose T-shirts without makeup or
wigs (“Infinite’s Reaction”). They surely look androgynous, while also
still looking like ordinary boys. When they are doing sensual dance
moves, some of the Infinite members grimace with discomfort, and
others show awkward smiles, clapping wildly with exaggerated
laughter. Their reaction is not necessarily a sign of disapproval, how-
ever. All of them concentrate on and stare attentively at the duet
with a certain level of excitement. Later in the rehearsal video, a
reporter asked what Infinite members think about SY and SJ’s duet.
Dong Woo, the main rapper of Infinite, replied with an embarrassed
smile: “SY is tall and fit. He worked out hard saying he wanted to
show his fit body. But I was confused when he said he was going to
dress up as a girl. I just didn’t understand what he was thinking”
(“Infinite’s Reaction”).
In the video’s comments section, users suggested a heightened
homoerotic tension, pointing out the other group members’ reactions:
“Hoya’s reaction is like a 11 year old’s watching porn for the first
time” (LadyC***); “Myungsoo is jealousing [sic.]!!! I know Y.Y”
(Wendy***); “Myungsoo was like ‘wait, . . . Sungyeol is dancing to
Troublemaker without me?’ :PP” (Stephi***); “L[‘s] two lovers mak-
ing out in front of him lol ~” (SNAti***); “Seriously, I wondered
how they reacted when the two kissed. Must’ve felt the heat if you
know what I mean” (Nghi N***). The fans precisely point out imag-
inative homoerotic relations (or fictional narratives) among the group
22 Chuyun Oh and David C.Oh

members, or at least, erotic provocations in watching the performers.

Indeed, among K-pop fans, the idol boys of Infinite are very often
rumored to be secretly gay, because of their androgynous appearance
and too intimate physical contact on and offstage (Reddit K-Pop).
Unsurprisingly, scholars have claimed that homosexual relationships
existed among talnori players based on their male and female stage
roles (Jang 177; Kim and Hahn). Likewise, K-pop performers may be
influenced by their stage roles, which are not necessarily separated
from their daily life gender roles.
The performance itself enacts queer complexities. It is unclear
whether the performers have queer identities in their daily lives, since
no single K-pop boy has come out as gay, given that heterosexism
and homophobia are common in Korea (Dong-Jin). Nevertheless,
their duet attracts homoerotic attention from both their team mem-
bers and their fans. Are they then “playing” with queerness? Is it a
performance of heterosexual attraction, with a man attracted to a man
dressed as a woman? Is it a performance of homosexual attraction
with two men, enacting reversed gendered roles? This queer perfor-
mance is not limited to either possibility but is open to both simul-
taneously.
This uncertainty explains how K-pop becomes a source of Asian
queer aesthetics. SY and SJ’s ambivalent construction of homoerotic
role-play signals that anyone can act like, feel, and be queer without
the danger of directly being marked as “gay” or “homosexual.” Such
ambiguity has potential to liberate individuals and to allow alterna-
tive sexual identities, moving away from stereotypes of homosexuality
embedded in Western culture. A certain body that does not belong
to existing categories produces “anxiety and fascination,” and chal-
lenges the homogenized classification of gender roles in society
(Albrecht 706). In a global context, SJ and SY traverse these gender
boundaries and extend queer lines, what Silberman might call a “pro-
ductive ambiguity” (qtd. in Albrecht 721). They contain both mascu-
line and feminine qualities through their bodies and through their
mixed role-play. They do not overtly pretend to look like or be like
someone else, neither homosexual nor heterosexual. Neither do they
pretend to be male or female. Without a particular theatrical device
or technique, the cross-dressers “play” with multiple queer possibili-
ties both metaphorically and physically. Unquestionably, they
become “troublemakers.”
Unmasking Queerness 23

Talnori, as a predecessor of contemporary K-pop cross-dressing,

was a lively, flexible, elusive performance with which anyone can
play, resisting pre-existing gender categories, which speaks to
Thomas’ word of “provocative nature of theatricality” (318). Just as
villagers cross-dressed and became queers during their talnori
festivals, SY and SJ demystify and popularize queer as a nori. SY and
SJ generate a romantic arrangement that resists categorization of fem-
inine/masculine, heterosexuality/homosexuality, sissy/manly, and
femme/butch, and thus stimulates the audience’s erotic imagination.
In their duet, queer is no longer a theatrical act, but an accessible,
ordinary action that anyone could perform, as a slice of daily life.

How to Play Queer

K-pop cross-dressing, like talnori, derives from and thus maintains a

patriarchal order. Being and playing Otherness is a form of power.
K-pop cross-dressing is akin to the ways heterosexuals have played
gay men, but rarely the other way around. Although VIXX denatu-
ralizes masculinity through parody, its humor negates homoerotic
relations. Meanwhile, Infinite’s gender roles are clearly defined with
the two men, playing man and woman, supporting a heterosexist
order. They solidify queer lines by reinforcing conventional ways of
representing queerness.
Nevertheless, a possibility of queering dominance can occur simul-
taneously with queering resistance. K-pop cross-dressing, like talnori,
signals the double nature of performance that reinforces and resists
social norms. Talnori players put on masks to mock social hierarchies
and explore alternative sexualities. Talnori’s disruption of social
norms was prescripted. Players wore actual masks that visualized
individuals that they criticized. Yet, unlike talnori, K-pop cross-
dressers’ subversion of heteronormative hegemony occurs through an
implicit public satire both physically and metaphorically. Androgyny
has potential for subversion (Robertson). Through campy mask of
humor and verisimilar mask of homoeroticism, K-pop cross-dressers
enact symbolic masks as a tool for social subversion. Infinite’s duet
blurs a queer representation through ambivalent gender roles and
cross-sexual physicality. Homoeroticism is encouraged through audi-
ence knowledge that this is a same-sex performance, even if the
24 Chuyun Oh and David C.Oh

performers are represented in cross-gender seduction. Their nuanced

expressions do not directly challenge heterosexism or a patriarchal
order but destabilize the very hegemony within gender construction
—precisely what queer is. K-pop cross-dressing blurs the line
between queering resistance and dominance. The ambivalence of sym-
bolic masks provides viewers with room for further interpretation and
thus imagination, and creates a liminal space in which queers become
indefinable. This proves Koenig’s idea that the driving force in cross-
dressing is not to be an “original” gender but to take pleasure in
exploring malleable, fluid modes of gender performance (154).
K-pop cross-dressing is considered as nori—entertaining play for
mainstream audiences. This apolitical aspect of nori assures the audi-
ence that K-pop cross-dressing is nothing but an amusement, which
is often called a “fan service.” However, it is precisely because it is
nori that there is room to stage political issues by disguising them as
mere entertainment. An entertainment, or a play, is more than an
instrumental rhetoric. It can destabilize and queer categorical
identities through humorous ways of refusing to conform to “proper”
gender and sexuality (Schildcrout 827). K-pop cross-dressing’s non-
conformity reveals that there is pleasure in watching and performing
queerness and subverts hegemonic power of social norms—heteronor-
mativity—by playing with it, and making it as a nori.
K-pop’s queer nori resonates with a “third” realm, a “space of pos-
sibility” in gender construction (Nally 623), where performers and
the audience imagine multiple ways of being queers and alternative
sexual identities that are not necessarily available under the Western
imagery of queerness. K-pop’s extension of queer lines eventually
unmasks Westernized queer subjects by opening up who and how
subjects can be queer, and thus, suggests a room of Asianizing queer
aesthetics. Identity is a verb that constantly seeks an opportunity to
change, transform, and transgress itself. K-pop cross-dressing reveals
how performance onstage can expose oneself to the liminal status of
ambiguity as a way of playing, unmasking, and being queers to liber-
ate oneself.

Notes
1. According to Peggy Phelan, the body is “marked” depending on social hierarchy and power
dynamics imposed upon racial, ethnic, racial, and sexual identities and categories. In
Unmasking Queerness 25

Western culture, for example, a white heterosexual, upper class men are unmarked and can
be considered “neutral” or “universal” and free from stigmatization.
2. Over the last few years, there has been an effort to explain the phenomenal success of PSY’s
“Gangman Style” music video through the lens of talnori, as both employ satire and humor
to criticize social hegemony, and suggest a harmony between different social classes through
a festive performance (Park). This approach, however, idealizes and simplifies talnori and fails
to consider how talnori reinforces the status quo, such as patriarchy. Furthermore, there has
been a constant lack of discussions on the historical continuum of talnori.
3. We use talnori instead of talchum. While tal means a mask, nori means a play, and chum
means dance. Talchum refers to a specific genre in traditional Korean performing arts, but
talnori can be more inclusive. It refers to broader performative aspects, metaphorically,
because anything can be a play, nori.
4. VIXX parodied K-pop girl group Wonder Girls’ song “So Hot,” which aired on 20 Septem-
ber 2013 for a holiday special “Star Faceoff” program. Infinite’s members, Sungjong and
Sungyeol, covered JS and HyunA’s “Trouble Maker,” a male–female duet, for their concert
in China on 2 Dec. 2012.
5. The hand-carved masks had different colors and wooden constructions. These ornamentations
signify genders, ages, and characters of particular roles (Jang; Shim).
6. For example, she uses “dancing Jewish” instead of “Jewish dance” to describe ethnic identity
formation of Jewish as a performance, a verb, not as a fixed form of noun.
7. The authors translate the subtitles.

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Chuyun Oh (PhD, University of Texas, Austin) is a visiting assistant professor

of East Asian Languages and Literatures at Hamilton College, NY. She is a
performance studies scholar and practitioner. Her research focuses on the
Unmasking Queerness 29

construction of racial, gender, sexual, and postcolonial identities in

transnational performance.
David C. Oh (PhD, Syracuse University) is an assistant professor of Com-
munication Arts at Ramapo College of New Jersey. He is the author of
Second-Generation Korean Americans and Transnational Media: Diasporic Identifi-
cations, and more than a dozen journal articles and book chapters on race,
identity, and media.