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Essay / Popular media culture
On the other hand, in the context of today's modern society, mass media has had a great influence in supporting gender counter-hegemony. As a basis for discussion, “counter-hegemony” can be simply defined as “criticizing and attempting” to remove barriers of “hegemonic” power in the community (Redekop, Gallagher & Satterwhite, 2018). To create the elimination of stereotypes as well as the distinction between masculinity and femininity, a K-pop music video titled "Balloon" by "TVXQ", could be used as an obvious demonstration (SMTOWN, 2009).Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why violent video games should not be banned”? Get an original essay Contrary to outdated stereotypes in people's mentality that masculinity must go hand in hand with virile appearance, muscularity or stylish clothes , the images of the five members in this video depict the casual attitude and features of a woman with white skin, a beautiful baby face and a colorful stuffed animal costume. Similar to the example of the image of women against gender hegemony, the strong and independent appearance of the woman driving a truck in the parody video of Funny girls (2016) partially opened a point of Completely different view from the stereotype of women as weak, dependent or being the main housewife as people always imagine. Despite these idol images, Korean pop culture has had a wide influence and is well received by the public, especially youth in Asia and Europe. This is the same case in which if the image of this trucker appeared about 50 years ago, in my opinion, very few people would accept it. Nevertheless, nowadays they can not only become truck drivers, but also business leaders or politicians, although the number of people involved in these jobs is still quite small. Thus, these two popular media products highlighted that hegemonic beliefs about gender representation in society are deviant and unequal. Men and women may well have each other's characteristics, but that doesn't mean they can be ridiculed or misjudged on their personality. because of that. Another popular media effort to change people's perceptions of gender categories is the enhancement of the creation of toilet symbols. As always in the past, all toilets in public places have only two main symbols representing two rooms, one for men and one for women. Even if a third bedroom can be built, it is also built for people with disabilities. However, a breakthrough took place at the “Sigtuna Museum” in Sweden when the museum added additional toilets with a “shipper-neutral toilet” symbol for “those with a different gender identity” (Löfgren, 2015 ). This new symbol is a combination of half an image of a woman in a “skirt” and the other half of “a man in pants” (Löfgren, 2015). This can be seen as the “openness” of Swedish thinking towards the homosexual community as well as the creator's desire to promote gender non-distinction everywhere in the world (Löfgren, 2015). Regardless of a person's gender, they should always be welcomed and not discriminated against due to old-fashioned gender hegemony. However, the case of the new toilet symbols in Sweden can be seen as the beginning of social recognition of gender diversity, but not all countries have such modern thinking and these are just some very rare examples of diffusion of the idea of equality. and be against gender prejudice.