Gangnam Style, Dissected: The Subversive Message Within South Korea's Music Video Sensation

• vacuous: 공허한, 얼빠진
• Psy is an unlikely poster boy for South Korea's youth-obsessed, highly lucrative, and famously vacuous pop music
• busted for: 단속에 걸리다
• He is a relatively ancient 34, has been busted for marijuana and for avoiding the country's mandatory military service.
• monolithically corporate media: 획일적인 방송산업분야
• harlequin: 할리퀸
• jokey: 웃긴, 재치만점의
• He's mainstream in the way that South Korea's monolithically corporate media demands of its starts, who typically appear regularly on TV variety and even game shows, but as a harlequin, a performer known for his parodies, outrageous costumes, and jokey concerts. 
• court jesters: 궁정광대
• most cutting ~: 날카로운, 가슴을 파고드는
• Still, there's a long history of fools and court jesters as society's most cutting social critics, and he might be one of them. 
• viral spread: 빠르게 확산되는 (=went viral)
• Gangnam Style has earned 49 million hits on YouTube since its mid-July release, but the viral spread was just the start.
• extol: 극찬하다
• commercial viability: 상업성
• Billboard is extolling his commercial viability
• P.A system: 장내 방송설비시스템        /        distinct dance: 고유 댄스
• A worker at L.A.'s Dodger stadium noticed Park in the stands and played Gangnam Style over the stadium P.A. system as excited baseball fans spontaneously reproduced Psy's distinct dance in the video
• tony: 멋진
• neighborhood: (도시의) 지역, 구역
• Gangnam is a tony Seoul neighborhood
• lampoon: 풍자하다, 비꼬다
• ostentatious: 호사스러운, 보라고 하는 듯한
• clownish caricature: 우스꽝스럽게, 희화하는
• Park's Gangnam Style video lampoons its self-importance and ostentatious wealth, with Psy playing a clownish caricature of a Gangnam man. 
• subtext: 숨은 의미 (=subtle reference, implied meaning)
• subversive message: 파괴적인 메세지
• The video suggest a subtext with a surprisingly subversive message about class and wealth in contemporary South Korean society
• cotton candy: 아이돌 (within the context)
• South Korea is a very different place, and it's a big deal that even this gentle social satire is breaking records on Korean pop charts long dominated by cotton candy. 
• sky-high: 하늘 높은 줄 모르고 치솟는
• One of the first things Hong pointed to in explaining the video's subtext was, believe it or not, South Korea's sky-high credit card debt rate.
• staggering: 충격적인, 믿기 어려운(=astounding)
• disposable income: 가처분소득 (순월급)
• in 2010, the average household carried credit card debt worth a staggering 155 percent of their disposable income. 
• climb out (the Asian financial crisis): ~에서 빠져나오다
• the government encouraged private spending to climb out the Asian financial crisis. 
• coupled with: ~와 관련하여, ~와 결부시켜
• astounding: 경악스러운, 믿기 어려운(=staggering)
• agrarian poverty: 1차산업에 종사했을 때의 가난
• engender: (감정, 상황을) 낳다, 불러일으키다
• aspirationalism: (사회적 지위 향상에 대한) 갈망, 야망
• materialism: 물질주의
• The emphasis on heavy spending, coupled with the country's truly astounding, two-generation growth from agrarian poverty to economic powerhouse, have engendered the country with an emphasis on hard work and on aspirationalism, as well as the materialism that can sometimes follow.
• conspicuous: 뚜렷히 보이는, 명확한
• A place of the most conspicuous consumption, you might call it.
• trust-fund babies: 재벌 2세 (신탁기금을 물려받을 아가)
• princelings: 어린왕자, 군주
• They are overwhelmingly trust-fund babies and princelings
• skewering: 비꼼 
• This skewering of the Gangnam life can be easy to miss for non-Korean.
• boast: 자랑하다, 뽐내다
• Psy boasts that he's a real man who drinks a whole cup of coffee in one gulp, for example, insisting he wants a women who drinks coffee. 
• propensity: 경향, 성향
• crimp on (essentials): ~를 아끼다
• They are called "soybean paste women" for their propensity to crimp on essentials so they can over-spend on conspicuous luxuries. 
• ambivalence: 양면적 가치, 모순적 가치 
• Koreans really wanted to be one of Gangnam people, but she says that feeling is changing, and Gangnam Style captures people's ambivalence
• caught on: 유행하다
• the new game never really caught on
• still, is it possible that the video could have caught on for reasons beyond just its admittedly catchy beat and hilarious visuals? 
• caught up: ~에 휘말리다
• leading edge: 앞서나가다
• Koreans have been kind of caught up in this spending to look wealthy, and Gangnam has really been the leading edge of that
• hotshot: 잘 나가는 사람
• the whole video is about Psy thinking he's a hotshot.
• opulence: 풍부, 화려함
• Psy hits all the symbols of Gangnam opulence throughout the clip
• big-shot: 거물 (=mogul)
• mobsters: 조폭
• He visits sauna not with a big-shot businessman but with mobsters. 
• commentary: 해설
• none of this commentary is particularly overt, which is actually what could make Gangnam Style so subversive. 
• mainstreaming ~(v):~를 주류화시키다
• But Psy is really mainstreaming it, and he's doing it in a way that maybe not everybody quite realizes. 
• choreograph: 안무를 짜다
• unheard of: 전례가 없는
• Psy writes his own songs and choreographs his own videos, which is unheard of in K-Pop. 
• penchant: 애호 (special liking)
• critical take: (~에 대한) 비판적인 시각
• His exposure to American music's penchant for social commentary, and the time spent abroad that may have given him a new perspective on his home country, could inform his apparently somewhat critical take on South Korean society.  
• jarring moment: 신경쓰이는, 불편한
• demeanor: 처신, 태도
• It's a jarring moment to see the musician drop his clownish demeanor and reveal the darker feelings behind this lighthearted-seeming song. 
• "Each frame by fram was hollow", he sighs, apparently deadly serious. 
• deadly serious: 매우 중요한
• vain: 헛된, 소용 없는, 공허한
• "Although "hollow" doesn't capture it, it's a word that's a mixture or shallow or hollow or vain," he explained.
• people who are chasing rainbows: 몽상, 환상, 이루어질수없는 꿈에 빠져있는 사람들
• crossover: 퓨전, 한 문화와 다른 문화가 뒤섞인
• It's kind of the first genuine pop-culture crossover from Korea. 
• resonate: 만연하다, 울려 퍼지다
• there is something about obviously skewering the ostentatiously rich that just might resonate in today's America. 

This article available online at:

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/08/gangnam-style-dissected-the-subversive-message-within-south-koreas-music-video-sensation/261462/