The good,the bad,and the forgiven: The media spectacle of South Korean male celebrities’ compulsory military service

Getting served Gangnam style

Psy, the singer behind the 2012 global phenomenon ‘Gangnam style’, came close to never horse-hopping his way to international fame when he was previously involved in a scandal that nearly ended his career back in 2007. Though all South Korean males aged 18–35 are expected to serve either active or supplemental service for at least 21 months (Military Manpower Administration, 2014), the performer served an unprecedented total of 55 months in the South Korean military. After a court ruling voided his 35 months’ supplemental service as an industrial technical personnel at an IT company, the Military Manpower Administration re-drafted him to serve the mandatory 21 months again. After seven months of mass mediated investigations and legal battles, the court decision confirmed that he had violated the terms of supplemental service by ‘failing to perform the designated duty of his service’ and thus revoked his discharge (Entertainment Notes, 2007; also see Kim, 2007).

Supplemental service (or non-active service) is already perceived as an easy way out for those coming from the wealthier and more educated strata of South Korean society. As such, allegations of several celebrities not even performing this lax service dutifully, and the legal appeals struggling to avoid active duty at any costs, has been met with widespread public criticism (Choi, 2007). For South Korean male celebrities like Psy, even the suggestion of ‘shirking’ military service is scandalous and can easily end even the most prominent celebrity career overnight. After an initial attempt to overturn the court decision failed, the singer quickly issued a public apology for ‘behaving unlike himself’ while announcing his re-enlistment into active duty service amidst mounting public criticism. Almost two years later, he re-emerged in July 2009 with his previous transgressions forgiven and his celebrity image restored, thereby setting the stage for him to take the world by storm – Gangnam style (Entertainment Notes, 2015).

Touring West Germany and Afghanistan: Private Presley and Captain Wales

Celebrities’ military service ‘tours’ have a long history of making headlines, thus serving to revamp/reinvent the star images of the celebrities themselves, as well as the military establishment they serve, by generating mutually aggrandizing publicity. The grandest of all has to be Elvis Presley’s tour to West Germany in 1958. Raymond M Weinstein (2006) explains that Private Presley’s overseas tour of duty was highly publicized and images of his military labor in dress uniform ‘are some of the most enduring icons of popular culture’, that continued to generate public attention in media appearances and promotions for his movie G.I. Blues after his honorable discharge in 1960 (p. 130). Although Weinstein points out the complete disconnect between the reality of military service in postwar Germany and the reel version depicted in the film, he nonetheless concludes that Presley in his military performance ‘reflected unsentimentally the American ideal that all young men, regardless of wealth or fame, should fulfill their military obligation and should do the time without special privilege’ (p. 146).

The king of rock and roll’s tour to West Germany ended more than half a century ago, and the US has been an all-volunteer force since 1973. Still, iconic images of him waving to hoards of fans, looking dapper in his dress uniform, and performing his tour of duty as a ‘regular’ soldier resonate in the media frenzy over the BBC-documented tours of one Captain Harry Wales. ¹ Through these images, Prince Harry achieved the successful redemption from casually racist and boozy ‘Harry Potty’ into ‘Hero Harry in Afghanistan’ by becoming ‘one of the boys or rather, our boys’ (Tulloch, 2010: 222, emphasis in original). According to Tulloch, as much as this manipulated media celebration has redeemed Captain Wales’s own star image, it also restored the image of the British army and its military involvement abroad. Tulloch writes that this symbolic rebirth of the military covenant through Harry came at a time when the British armed forces had never been fewer in numbers (recruiting mainly from its economically less fortunate), but during which casualties in its post-2000 interventionist foreign policies provided opportunities to ‘celebrate the relationship between the imagined community of a nation united in struggle and its armed forces’ (p. 215). As the media coverage of Captain Wales’s tours transformed Afghanistan into a celebrated adventure, instead of reflecting on its problematic limitations ‘the army becomes, again, the mystical mirror of society in which a warrior elite redeems us and “Britishness”’ (p. 223).

Celebrity, conscription, and conscientious objection in South Korea

The ‘mystical mirror’ of society that is the conscripted armed forces in South Korea does not seamlessly reflect the estimated 613 currently incarcerated South Korean men who represent the largest number of jailed conscientious objectors anywhere in the world (Amnesty International, 2015). South Korea is not the only country that is at de facto war and that enforces conscription in a liberal democratic consumer society while dealing with the problems of military service corruption and evasion. According to Amnesty International, however, South Korea is one of the very few remaining countries that do not provide alternative service options, whose highest courts do not acknowledge the right of conscientious objection, and the only country that has held more than 10,000 conscientious objectors in prison for their refusal to serve since 2000. ² Mainstream conservative South Korean media discourse on conscientious objection ties it into the highly contentious discourse of ‘selfish military service evaders’ whose illegal ‘shirking’ of ‘sacred’ military service duty violates the universal application of conscription and ‘threatens’ the very survival of the South Korean state (Jang, 2004; Reader column, ChosunIlbo, 2004). Thus, casualties of national security policies in South Korea not only provide opportunities to reinforce ‘the relationship between the imagined community of a nation united in struggle and its armed forces’, but also bring out fissures and irregularities within the actual society divided in the struggle over its own armed forces (Lee, 2007).

As military discourse in South Korean media continues to penalize conscientious objectors and scrutinize draft-dodging public figures alike, it has woven Elvis’s and Harry’s military performance myths into its own obsessive coverage of male celebrity conduct regarding conscription, as desirable/honorable examples of noblesse oblige. The media myths that Elvis Presley – the ‘king of rock and roll’ – and Prince Harry – third in line to the British throne ³ – did not take advantage of their elite status and instead shared the burden of the nation, resonate as noble reference points in the South Korean celebrity and conscription discourse. Korean media outlets likened mega-star and actor Hyunbin’s highly publicized and hugely celebrated 2011 voluntary choice to serve as a ‘regular’ marine to Elvis’s refusal of special treatment, and criticized Psy’s appeals against re-enlistment for his undutiful performance against Prince Harry’s dutiful training in 2007 (Reader column, ChosunIlbo, 2011; also see Lee, 2007). Unlike the exiled singer Yoo Seungjun, however, Psy then went on to take full advantage of a Harry-inspired image makeover when his unprecedented re-enlistment to active service provided the one and only redemption option for South Korean male celebrities tainted by military service evasion scandals: performing active service.

Militarization and male conscription in South Korea

The military has been a potent force in postwar South Korean political, economic, and social development ever since Korea gained independence in 1948. With the outbreak of the Korean War shortly after the establishment of the Republic of Korea (ROK) in 1950 and the unresolved division under the ongoing ceasefire agreement with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, prioritization of national security became a quasi-state religion, and military service a sacred duty in the South. This has necessitated and legitimized the maintenance of the principle of universal male conscription proclaimed in the Military Service Act of the ROK for almost 70 years. ⁴ The role and significance of male conscription and the military establishment in South Korean society have been explored from the perspective of historical, socio-political, and gender/post-colonial studies (see Croissant, 2004; Lee, 2009; Moon, 2005a). However, there is a considerable lack of research assessing the social meanings behind the highly publicized conduct of male celebrities negotiating the issue of their compulsory military service, which have turned increasingly into media spectacles since the mid-1990s.

The most prominent military corruption scandal involving the political and financial elite was the Park Nohang case that began to unravel in June 1998, implicating the sons of 2002 presidential candidate Lee Hoichang. In the turbulent and increasingly polarized socio-economic environment of the immediate aftermath of the East Asian Financial Crisis that put a halt to the South Korean economic miracle in 1997, the media began to vigorously expose military service evasion by politicians, athletes, and celebrities. In other words, it was only at the turn of the millennium that the mass media came to ferociously contest the hegemonic silence surrounding military service through reportage of corruption by the famous and privileged, arguably as a result of the increasingly commercial and less restricted mass media environment under the democratically elected governments of the 1990s. ⁵

This study investigates South Korean military news media discourse by tracing celebrity conscription events between 1990 and 2015 in the print version of the conservative newspaper ChosunIlbo and news programs of the public broadcasting channel KBS. Both sources were accessed through their online archives chosun.com and new.kbs.co.kr that provide search services of their past printed articles and broadcast television news programs, with ChosunIlbo as the primary source and KBS as a supplementary one. Since ChosunIlbo has the largest share for subscribers at 31.3 percent, readers at 32.7 percent, and a combined readership at 13.0 percent, it was chosen as the main source of data under the assumption that it best reflects the majority discourse in the top three conservative and most read newspapers, which all have online versions and together make up 49.7 percent of all print and 28 percent of all combined readership. With television still claiming 46.2 percent of overall news consumption time and 51.8 percent of news media influence, KBS reports also were analyzed as a supplementary source to assess the discourse across media platforms (Korea Press Foundation, 2015). As press freedom in South Korea has declined under the previous two conservative administrations, ChosunIlbo and KBS – considered to be historically heavily pro-government – have seen their credibility increasingly questioned via the rise of alternative news media despite surveys that still indicate their dominance within the South Korean news market (Kim and Johnson, 2009).

In reviewing press coverage of celebrities and military over 25 years (1990–2015) in the newspaper ChosunIlbo, which has the largest combined (print/online) readership as of 2015, this article provides a typology that identifies major themes of the celebrity conscription discourse. For instance, preliminary search results of the terms ‘military’ and ‘celebrity’ revealed that out of a total of 186 articles of their printed edition (also available online) between 1 January 1990 and 9 September 2015, Yoo Seungjun had the most relevant articles (10 articles) followed by Hyunbin (9 articles) and Psy (7 articles). ⁶ These three celebrities are not only some of the most publicized in combination with the terms ‘military’ and ‘celebrity’, but are also repeatedly referred to as reference points in roughly identifiable themes that have increasingly emerged in celebrity conscription media discourse after 2000.

In this study, these three celebrities’ cases regarding conscription have been analyzed in detail as they each represent some of the most distinct and unprecedented cases: Yoo as the first (and so far only) celebrity ever to be exiled, Hyunbin for his receiving of presidential accolades and major inter/national press coverage throughout his service (Entertainment Notes, 2011a), and Psy as the first (and so far only) to serve twice. By critically assessing these three prominent cases, the objective of this study is to provide a qualitative discourse analysis of how these media spectacles reinforce militarized masculine ‘Koreanness’ by celebrating and policing the ‘sacred’ duty to serve the nation. Thus the basic theoretical framework this article adopts is to deconstruct the ‘mystical mirror’ of military service to South Korean society as constitutive of militarized masculine ‘Koreanness’. Through an analysis of media discourse, ⁷ it argues that the spectacle of celebrity performance of service to the nation promotes patriotic duty to the nation while obscuring inequalities within Korean society.

A diagnostic critique of celebrity media spectacles

With the aim of enhancing understanding of the media coverage frenzy that has regularly ensued in the new millennium over celebrity conduct regarding military service in South Korea, this research defines such occurrences as media spectacles and adopts cultural studies as a diagnostic critique, which ‘attempts to discern how media culture articulates dominant discourses and circulates opposing political positions around class, race, gender, sexuality, politics, and other crucial concerns of the present’ (Kellner, 2003: 27). By doing so, this research aims to illuminate the underlying dynamics of military service discourse in contemporary Korea thus far overlooked in traditional political science since – according to Kellner – media spectacles can be considered as crystallized displays of the politics behind representation, a contentious evolution of public sentiments, providing opportunities to better interpret contemporary society and culture, reflecting the ‘signs of our time’.

Following Kellner’s (2003) definition then, this research aims to approach the analysis of celebrity mediation of military service cases in Korea as media spectacles arising under the liberated Korean ‘mediascape’ of the democratic governments since the 1990s. These cases are arenas for the display of the increasingly micro-political clash of interests in the current globalized consumer society of Korea. ⁸ The analysis of the contestations of social classes, interest groups, dominant and resistant forces/ideologies that these media spectacles (of scandalous, valorizing, or exonerating media events regarding military service) represent/generate, illuminates the social and political pathologies surrounding compulsory military service in contemporary Korea, and thus provides the means for social transformation and progress towards a more just and egalitarian democratic society. Despite the arguably trivial nature of tabloidized media coverage surrounding celebrity military conduct, the mass media also do function as a watchdog promoting a more just and democratic society that keeps the citizenry informed of abuses and misconduct. By approaching the tabloidized media from the perspective of public relations, Mendelson (2007) explains that even the paparazzi can be perceived as conducting investigative journalism as they uncover the truth and inconsistencies behind the celebrities’ image that is carefully crafted to further their cultural and economic power. Therefore, the significance of analyzing the spectacle of celebrity military scandal lies in understanding its role in legitimizing democracy in South Korea since celebrity transgressions in this regard seem to be one of the few elite misdeeds that are persistently uncovered and persecuted in the court of law and public opinion.

Celebrities as negotiation sites of social values

Currently, the real underlying issues of unjust application of active service among differing strata of society according to financial and political power are overshadowed by the continued media spectacle of celebrity scandal or the valor surrounding the dutiful performance of military service by celebrities in South Korea. On the one hand, any celebrity’s attempt to evade military service duty is widely publicized as a scandal by the media and severely condemned, as in the case of disgraced singer Yoo Seungjun. On the other hand, a well-choreographed performance of active duty, as epitomized by actor Hyunbin, generates immense positive publicity and significant image enhancement. In some cases, it may even result in a much-needed career boost that can make over a previously tarnished reputation, as in the case of Psy.

Despite the fact that military service duty is a ‘normal’ rite of passage and the duty of all South Korean male citizens, celebrity conduct obsessively dominates most of the media discourse whether or not it is to bring every last slacker to justice or to elevate the dutiful ones into national heroes. Even when the media is actually policing the public sphere, exposing corruption and inequality of military service, this continued overemphasis on the spectacular celebrity cases – in contrast to the fleeting coverage of political/economic elite cases that usually never result in legal repercussions – might create a distorted focus for public attention. This exemplifies what Daniel Boorstin (2006[1961]) would call the prevalence of ‘pseudo-events’, as people pay more attention to these media-generated spectacles than the real concerns in their sociopolitical surroundings. Thus, in South Korea, the congressional hearings exposing military service corruption cases of politicians and their families, rarely generate lasting media attention or detrimental consequences, while celebrity conduct in similar fashion usually translates into media spectacles that can either make or break careers for good.

This media obsession with celebrity military corruption scandals may be due to the fact that ‘celebrities appear as models for revealing societal issues; they reveal our current concerns, while at the same time acting also outside their original arena of performance’ (Gorin and Dubied, 2011: 612). When the celebrity is mentioned in the discourse regarding military service, it sets fire to a whole powder keg of built-up resentment of unjust application that the non-elite populace identifies with, and unlike the strictly political/financial elite, the ‘powerless elite’ (Alberoni, 2006[1972]) that is the celebrity, can be persecuted for relevant transgressions. The analysis of celebrity news regarding conscription thus illuminates values either promoted or stigmatized through ‘models embodied by the behavior of celebrities’ (Gorin and Dubied, 2011: 615). Celebrities thus represent social values while they are subjected to media scrutiny, and consequently, receive attention at the occurrence of an unexpected or reprehensible act, which is even more detrimental if it drastically contradicts the celebrity’s known image.

Steve Seungjun Yoo, the scandal that defined military service scandals

The celebrity whose image arguably was most irreversibly devastated in a military service scandal is the former South Korean pop singer Yoo Seungjun (now mockingly referred to as Steve Yoo). His initial celebrity image was based on a healthy, morally upright, relatable character that was the epitome of the Korean masculine ‘beautiful young man’. A role model featured in no-smoking campaigns for adolescents, his popularity was based on both his American-influenced ‘West Side’ rapping as an overseas Korean (jaewegukmin, or ‘Korean national residing abroad’), while simultaneously maintaining an image of upright ‘Koreanness’. He had promised officially numerous times that he would serve in the military despite his permanent residency status, which enabled him to engage in profit-seeking activities in South Korea while deferring his draft physical examination (i.e. the initial process to enlistment). He ‘betrayed’ exactly that promise in 2002 when he quietly relinquished his South Korean citizenship thereby (legally) freeing himself from conscription (ChosunIlbo, 2002).

His name was initially mentioned in the press in relations to military service, as legal amendments in 2001 obliged profit-seeking overseas Koreans to the duty of military service, and several male celebrities’ names started to circulate in the media that were to receive their draft physical examination notices (Yoo, 2001). Consistent with his image of an upright, healthy Korean male role model, he underwent the physical and was designated to non-active duty service. Despite his numerous public pledges anticipating the dutiful embarkation and completion of service, in January 2002 reports broke in his absence that he had ‘secretly’ given up South Korean nationality and had acquired US citizenship (Lee, 2002). Public outrage erupted immediately, exploding in accusations of his ‘treacherous’ (yet legal) renunciation of South Korean citizenship being solely motivated to avoid military service (Jung, 2002). Within days, everyone from the Minister of Defense and Yoo’s fans to the whole of South Korea was criticizing the singer’s actions as ‘cowardly’ and ‘regrettable’ in the media, and on 2 February he was refused entry to the Republic of Korea, a decision that has been in effect ever since. For more than a decade, he has been banned from entering the country except for short-term visits on humanitarian grounds (Shin, 2002), and subsequent appeals to revoke his ‘exile’ have been dismissed (Jung, 2003). As one article from 2002 stated:

He should have considered the tens of thousands serving young soldiers his age and the deprivation felt by the youth that soon have to enter the military. If his domestic activities as a glamorous star were only to seek profit by selling his talents, then the disillusionment has to be great. What saddens us most, however, are the lies of one talented young man. (ChosunIlbo, Editorial, 2002: 5)

What is most intriguing about Yoo’s case is that, despite the fact that any attempt to evade military service is illegal, at that point, his acquiring US citizenship was not an illegal act per se, and he was never tried and sentenced in a court of law. The fact that Yoo was never prosecuted – and the relinquishment of citizenship is an act that is still not illegal to this day (and for no other individual resulted in legal persecution, let alone exile) – has been delicately pointed out as a gross violation of human rights; a violation by the government that openly condemned his actions and legitimized its decision to exile him not based on legal grounds but on the ‘offended public sentiment’ his actions had aroused. The fact that the media have repeatedly reported on numerous serving high-level government officials’ sons having acquired US citizenship and thus being exempt from military service, defended as a ‘legal’ and ‘private’ choice, stands in stark contrast to Yoo, who has been branded as the ‘icon of military evasion’ for that same choice (Kim, 2005; Park, 2012).

The reports that referred to the rapper’s legal acquisition of US citizenship as ‘saddening’, ‘disappointing’, and ‘deceptive’, need to be understood in the South Korean media context in which accusations of the political and financial elite shirking military duty are rampant, even though such an act is never prosecuted because it is not illegal to quit being a South Korean national even when one’s father is currently sitting in congress (930 News, 2006; Bae, 2013; Ju, 2010; News 9, 2002; News Brief, 2005). Media reports on the fact that many second-generation political and economic elites in South Korea routinely dodge the ‘sacred’ duty of military service ‘legally’ have manifested themselves in their popular referral as ‘sons of God’. For the non-elite public, then, the relative frustration caused by this repeated unequal application of the supposedly most fundamental and indiscriminating duty seems to be only intensified by the fact that in the reported congressional hearings most politicians defend their own and their sons’ exemptions as ‘legal’. Thus, while the ‘deceptive’ moves of the divine sons of politicians mostly remain out of the realm of public or legal repercussions, the same moves of celebrities seem to be all the more obsessively mediated and dissected instead:

Around 16,000 men were exempt from military service duty by renouncing their South Korean nationality in the last five years. Increasing in numbers yearly, it was more than 4,300 last year, and this year already 2,300 men were exempt from military service duty by acquiring foreign citizenship by July. Among them are 30 sons of high ranking public officials … most of them are sons of the country’s elite … military exemption through renouncing South Korean nationality does not interfere with inheriting assets in South Korea, and they only have to wait until they pass the draft age limit of 37 to be reinstated as South Korean nationals, as done annually by more than 20 men. The Military Manpower Administration, however, only keeps repeating that it is very difficult to substantiate/prove whether or not foreign citizenship was acquired in order to evade military service duty. (News Plaza KBS, 2015)

The Yoo Seungjun scandal was generated by media condemnation (not sentencing) that his (legal) acquisition of US citizenship was for the purpose of military service evasion. In the media’s questioning of his patriotism, the scandal ensured that there would be no chance of repentance or forgiveness.

Yoo’s otherwise routine relinquishment of South Korean nationality as a US permanent residency holder, represents not a necessarily legal breach, but a transgression of one of the most contested and sensitive obligations of South Korean manhood/citizenship: the ‘sacred’ duty of military service. As any transgressions with regards to military service bears immense ‘scandal sensitivity’ in contemporary South Korean society, especially in the aforementioned climate of increasing exposure and contestation regarding military service corruption of the seemingly untouchable political and economic elite, the accusations were particularly damaging for Yoo. As overseas Koreans are perceived as benefitting from their foreign language skills when they engage in profit-seeking activities in Korea and the many legal leniencies they are granted in comparison to foreign aliens, they are more likely to be positioned in media discourse as suspect in national burden sharing, especially, military service. As Hinerman (2006: 457) observes about celebrity scandals:

A scandal can occur when a star’s existing public image system, one which has been circulated and repeated, and which bears a connection to a particular cultural formation, is disrupted by some ‘immoral’ private action at odds with both cultural norms and the star’s image.

Yoo’s ‘susceptibility to scandal’ was thus threefold: first, he was perceived as one of those pseudo-Koreans accused of only seeking personal profit; second, he was highly visible as a popular celebrity; and third, he had publicly proclaimed his intentions to serve in the military numerous times (Thompson, 1997: 40).

The mere accusation of evasion, in the absence of an imminent apology that is otherwise routinely issued to excuse and explain the celebrity’s behavior, such as in the case of Psy, was enough to generate immense media fixation and speculation, exploding in public outrage literally overnight – especially in a society for which military service duty is a very real predicament for every male member and their families, and its faithful, universal fulfillment was undergoing a ‘process of moralization’ in the media since the 1990s (Thompson, 1997: 40–43). The Yoo scandal officially culminated in the refusal of his entry at Incheon International Airport in the early morning hours of 2 January 2002. The Military Manpower Administration officially requested the Ministry of Justice’s and the Incheon Airport Immigration Office’s cooperation in issuing a press release expressing governmental level condemnation of Yoo. Thus, despite the absence of a confession or sentencing, the highly publicized refusal of his entry functioned as a public act of disciplining Yoo for his evasion of the obligation of service to the South Korean nation. With his expulsion from the national community through a quasi-legal act that served as the ultimate expression of disapproval, Yoo’s fate was sealed.

In the days that followed, reports of various public figures participating in what Thompson calls ‘opprobrious discourse’ appeared in the media (p. 45). Since military service remains a highly contested and sensitive issue to South Koreans at large, this moralizing discourse continues to tarnish Yoo’s reputation, as his name (disparagingly mentioned in the media as Steve Yoo) continues to be associated with military service corruption scandals in the media. Since other overseas Korean celebrities also have relinquished their South Korean nationality, Yoo’s act in itself was neither necessarily scandalous nor illegal. The scapegoating of the Yoo case was arguably due to the gap that had arisen between his authentic self and inauthentic image, which was obsessively feasted upon by the corporate media, and thus resulted in his ostracization and subsequent expulsion from the social system. The ongoing obsession and condemnation with celebrities and pertinent military service corruption scandals that involve the media, public opinion and the government, stand in stark contrast to the repeatedly reported ongoing inequality of active military service performance between social classes in South Korea. While the media is obsessed with bringing to justice the celebrity cases, fundamental reform to address and prevent corruption by the political and financial elite are lacking and issues, such as the fact that South Korea houses the absolute majority of jailed conscientious objectors in the world, have yet to generate much media attention. ⁹

Subsequent scandals involving male celebrities and conscription have become ritualized media events resembling mostly Yoo’s pattern. In most cases, however, after rumored involvement in corruption, verification and public condemnation, the celebrity enters military service and – depending mostly on the pre-scandal status – emerges unscathed or even with a more masculine and ‘mature’ image from the service after completion (unless the service is not completed dutifully as was the case with pop singers Rain, Seven, and others). However, since the chance for tapping into the exonerating effect of performing military service was denied for Yoo, he was literally exiled (as opposed to the conventional period of self-restraint and self-reflection (jasuk) out of the spotlight as part of post-scandal management) ¹⁰ from the country, and the continued association of his name in the press in reference to other pertinent scandals remains strong. Over the last 15 years, he has become an emblem of those who ‘dishonor’ their Koreanness by failing to dutifully perform their ‘sacred’ service to the nation (News 9, 2015).

Psy, military service as effective penance

In contrast to Yoo Seungjun, who now has passed the age eligible for active duty, preventing him from ever entering the stage of atonement, thus undermining his comeback as a Korean celebrity, several others, such as actors Song Seunghun, Jang Hyuk, and most drastically, singer Psy, who went to the military for an unprecedented second time after accusations of undutiful service performance, received absolution and were reinstated to their respective careers after being discharged. Interestingly, whether or not the scandal is conscription related or not does not seem to matter, as long as the (male) celebrity involved enters the military and performs his duty, after which he is exonerated and reinstated into the entertainment industry as well as accepted by the public as a ‘matured man’, who has accomplished this critical rite of passage. ¹¹ It is, however, the only option for redemption if a celebrity is implicated in a military evasion scandal. ¹²

Reports of an ongoing investigation into potentially undutiful performance of supplemental service of elite offspring and several celebrities, including Psy, who performed his service at an IT company from December 2002 to November 2005, broke in the media in May 2007. The following months saw his star image plummet as he appealed against the Military Manpower Administration’s decision to re-enlist him into active duty as his performance was found to be ‘insufficient’. In December 2007, he ultimately lost his legal battle when his appeal was denied as the court found him guilty of spending his time in service ‘lounging around and engaging in private business’ (Lee, 2007; see also News 9, 2007a, 2007b). While the breaking news of his initial scandal followed the investigation, verification, ramification, and public condemnation process of scandal development similar to Yoo, Psy started his process of rehabilitation utilizing a method of atonement that is arguably available only to South Korean male celebrities of a certain status. Five days after the court dismissed his appeal, he announced at his entrance ceremony press conference that he would faithfully serve his country. While the enlistment announcement was still reported in relation to his former image as the ‘undutiful’, during his entrance ceremony he had already laid out the groundwork for his return to society, since entering the military literally means that he was from now on outside of the realm of celebrity and had committed himself to faithfully serving the nation. As Psy confessed to the media before he re-entered the gates to the Nonsan ROK Army Training Center:

I deeply apologize for the seven months of indecent behavior that was unlike myself. Being told to serve 20 months again, being told to go serve 55 months was just overwhelming/unfathomable … I am going in to shed the weight this time around. After losing the weight I will come out healthy again. I apologize for unwittingly lowering the morale of the honorably discharged and currently serving soldiers. I will uprightly and dutifully serve once again, lose all the weight, and then return as my true self. Thank you. (Morning News KBS, 2007)

In this way, entering the military signified the beginning of his transformation into a fully acceptable male member of society, shedding his ‘indecent’ past mistakes and ultimately becoming initiated into true ‘Korean, masculine, uprightness’ through the sacred flames of active military service. Psy performed his second tour in the now abolished ‘celebrity soldier’ unit of the Defense Media Agency, performing on stage in ‘K-Force Special Shows’ and boosting the morale of his fellow soldiers, for which he was decorated with an Army Chief of Staff award for his ‘performances and efforts to enhance the image of the military’. ¹³ Recognized officially during his time of service, its effectiveness in disassociating him from, and smoothing over the stigma of the former scandal, became evident by the time Psy was discharged, as the media had almost completely disassociated his image as yet another duty-dodging celebrity and instead welcomed his return. Upon discharge, he affirmed his moral duty to the nation:

I received this badge of honorable discharge that everyone achieves after completing service quite late at 33 and after making a fuss, thank you again for the large welcome; and although I won’t be able to show you decency from now on, I will definitely show you health/uprightness. Loyalty! (Attention!). (Morning News Time, KBS, 2009)

As the ultimate celebrity comeback story from conscription scandal, Psy has since been enshrined in the media as the ‘only’ celebrity who went to the military twice, and then went on to become a ‘world star’ – Gangnam style (Entertainment Notes, 2015).

Hyunbin, the zenith of celebrity military service

The discussion thus far has outlined the scandalous and exonerating effects of celebrity conduct regarding military service in the forms of the Yoo Seungjun scandal and the rehabilitation of Psy. In response to the annual ritual of media breaking news regarding the ever-evolving military service corruption scams and attempts by the rich, powerful, and famous (of which usually only celebrities are persecuted), another trend emerged in response to the increasingly unforgiving media environment regarding celebrity military service. As celebrity acts related to military service have received much media attention ever since Nam Jin’s enlistment and dispatch during the Vietnam War (Entertainment Notes, 2011b), the penchant for it being utilized as a public relations event was not new per se. However, as the media coverage of celebrity scandal regarding conscription has increased immensely since the mid-1990s, so has the trend of valorizing and glorifying every aspect of the ‘patriotic’ and ‘commendable’ male star serving and protecting his motherland. This culminated in the spectacle that constituted the media frenzy ensuing from the announcement, entrance ceremony, updates during service to the discharge and comeback, that was the immense ‘pseudo-event’ of top-star/actor Hyunbin’s military service.

In January 2011, media outlets started to report that actor Hyunbin (Kim Tae Pyung) volunteered to serve in the ROK Marine Corps and completed his application interview during the filming of the highly popular TV series Secret Garden (SBS, 2010). With the acceptance results of his application still pending, it was reported that the actor would commence his service in March 2011. In the days following the announcement of his application, Ministry of Defense personnel and politicians praised the actor’s decision to voluntarily serve and protect the country as ‘Hyunbin, the marine’ (Choi, 2011). ¹⁴ The pre-entry hype and speculation generated by the announcement of a mega-star’s planned timing of entry, which includes what branch and when he will enter, reaches its peak the day the star actually enters the military in a ritualized media event at the gate of each respective training facility. The entrance of Hyunbin on 7 March 2011, made not only national news, but also international news: Japan’s NHK and Kyodo dispatched crews as well, and the event was broadcast live on South Korea’s YTN, a 24-hour news channel (Choi, 2011; News 9, 2011).

Reports continued to focus on the event days after his entrance, dissecting details about his performance at the event, such as his fashion, hairstyle, facial expression (he cried), the way he bowed, what he said, but also the event itself, how many press and fans were there from how many news agencies and countries, the weather conditions in which the fans and press waited. The Marine Corps enjoyed a huge promotional effect from the enlistment of the actor as news reports continuously updated fans on Hyunbin during his military service (Yang, 2011). Reports submitted to members of the national assembly from the Marine Corps headquarters regarding Hyunbin’s training progress were the source of tabloid journalism, including detailed information on his shooting performance that were noted to have qualified him as a distinguished marksmen (Park, 2011). Throughout his service, the media, in collusion with the government, reported on his activities to promote national military service. The website of the Ministry of Military Affairs posted handsome uniformed photos of Hyunbin on its website and reported on him being voted the most admirable role model for service in a poll organized by the Ministry of Defense. Even his military equipment sales mission to Indonesia and him being chosen to run in a marathon commemorating the recapture of Seoul during the Korean War were announced in the media (Morning News Time, 2011). Though technically no longer a civilian, or part of society, audiences were constantly updated on his whereabouts, as he appeared through various media outlets.

By the time of his glorious discharge, the media reported on the crowds of fans and press gathered to see him greet the country in full uniform, expressing gratitude to the fans who loyally ‘waited’ for him, as he received an appreciation award from the Minister of Defense and the Marine Corps Commander (News Plaza, 2012). Having signed several deals while still in service, he was to star in six major commercials immediately after discharge, which was then announced as ‘the return of three mega-celebrities’ who completed their service admirably (Cho In Sung, Kang Dong Won, and Hyunbin) alongside their anticipated future plans, thereby concluding the media spectacle that was the military performance of Hyunbin, the marine (Kim, 2012).

Interestingly, it is quite striking how the features that constitute the mediated spectacle of a commendable media celebrity correspond so closely with those of a scandalous one. If in a scandalous case (as observed in the analysis of the Yoo case), it begins with the ‘transgression’ of a certain value, norm or moral code, then an ‘act of affirmation’ would constitute the equivalent first condition for a promotional media spectacle. Media reporting on the announcement or revelation that a celebrity (i.e. Yoo Seungjun and Hyunbin) is planning to serve, jumpstarts the buzz in the media, especially since it involves the sensitive issue of military service. The immense media coverage that this generates for a celebrity of the status of Hyunbin satisfies the second characteristic of mediation to non-participants regarding the act. In Hyunbin’s case, this was also intensified by the fact that the news was ‘revealed’ a month after he had applied, thereby adding another aspect to the ‘drama of concealment and disclosure’ (Thompson, 1997: 43). The consequent ‘honorable discourse’, in which public approval that was reportedly expressed by even the President, in ‘speech-acts’ profusely lauding and commending Hyunbin’s voluntary enlistment as a marine, can be regarded as a (conversely) moralizing discourse that approves, praises, and compliments. ¹⁵ Finally, the military, government and commercial media profit from the publicity based on Hyunbin’s fame and reputation, which was cultivated by the media itself (Thompson, 1997).

According to a presidential aide, President Lee Myungbak lauded actor Hyunbin by remarking on his application to the Marine Corps that Hyunbin has the ‘right mental attitude’, and his becoming a Marine is an ‘excellent decision that will increase his popularity and will inspire other young people’. (ChosunIlbo, 2011: A14)

Thus, by celebrating Hyunbin’s admirable service to the country, the media (or the government through the media) used ‘news’ to define what it meant to be truly Korean, utilizing values and inspiration as well as facts and information, communicating with the public through this ‘vehicle of celebrity’ (Kitch, 2000). The Hyunbin case then is one of ‘valor’ and ‘courage’ – a fine example of (handsome) Korean masculinity and patriotism carried out with humility and dignity by a celebrity, who expressed gratitude and embarrassment over the attention he received for performing his duty ‘like any other man’ (e.g. he bowed to his fans at the entry and at the discharge ceremony). However, if scandals, such as elite military corruption cases, can undermine the trust upon which social relations and institutions are built, and consequently discourage confidence in public life for the non-elite populace (Thompson, 1997), can the corresponding mediated celebration of elite military performance assuage or gloss over it? As Boorstin (1961: 48) notes: ‘for human models are more vivid and more persuasive than explicit moral commands. Cynics and intellectuals, too, are quicker to doubt moral theories than to question the greatness of their heroes’, since ‘the folklore of hero-worship, the zestful search for heroes, and the pleasure in reverence for heroes remain’, even if they are artificially manufactured.

On the other hand, it is unlikely that even a spectacle, such as Yoo’s scapegoating as the ‘villain’, or Hyunbin’s performance as the ‘war-hero’, is sufficient to distract public disenchantment on the ‘real’ irregularities regarding universal application of military service when they make the agenda (temporarily) in the right context. For example, public criticism and outrage soared after it was reported that in the emergency security ministerial meeting regarding the controversial sinking of Pohang-class corvette ROKS Cheonan and the bombardment of Yeonpyeongdo in March and November 2010, none of the leading members of the former Lee administration – including the President, the Prime Minister, and the head of the National Intelligence Service – had served in the military (Jun, 2013b). And when the Korean media reported on Prince Harry’s service in 2008, they stressed the fact that this ‘British prince’ was serving in a combat zone, while in South Korea, the exemption rate of the members of cabinet under the former Lee administration was 36 percent, compared to a 4 percent exemption rate for the average South Korean citizen from 1998 to 2008 (News Time, 2008). Discussions featured in the media have covered the issue of military service corruption, with articles debating the disproportionate exemption and lack of penalties for politically and financially prominent figures, albeit usually with less fanfare than those regarding celebrity military conscription (Kim, 2009).

After the singer Rain, and several other celebrity soldiers’ conduct and preferential treatment (unauthorized and previously unknown liaisons with top-star girlfriends and massage parlor visits) was exposed and exploded in scandal and public outrage, in July 2013, after 17 years, the Ministry of Defense announced the abolition of the ‘celebrity soldier’ unit (Jung, 2013). In other words, the mediated wrath of the non-elite Korean public over the mediated scandals and preferential treatment of ‘celebrity soldiers’ as they were produced and consumed celebrating the military, was only assuaged with the dissolution of the unit in which none other than Psy as well as others had served.

The first celebrity to enter into active service in the immediate aftermath of the dissolution of the celebrity soldier unit in August 2013 was the actor Song Joong Ki. Volunteering to serve in the notoriously harsh frontline reconnaissance unit (the DMZ between North and South Korea), he went on to star as a ‘humanistic’ Korean soldier on a peacekeeping mission in the military-themed romantic television drama Descendants of the Sun (KBS2, 2016), which was endorsed and praised by sitting President Park for its promotion of ‘patriotism’ and ‘tourism’ (Kwon, 2016). The hugely popular show that Song Joong Ki shot straight out of active service, incorporates military reality such as Korean troops in Iraq in 2004 or relations with North Korea into a fictional fast-paced and action-packed soap, which has been exported to 32 countries worldwide (English News, 2016). Dubbed as the revival/pinnacle of the Korean Wave, the international popularity of this military-themed romantic soap across Asia, Europe, and the Americas, arguably provides an example of the universal appeal and seamless consumption of locally produced ‘militainment’ (‘state violence translated into an object of pleasurable consumption’) contents today (Stahl, 2010: 6).