While I by no means consider myself an expert in the K-pop drama space, I have plenty of friends who are active consumers of the music and spend at least six hours of screen time on Twitter a week (mostly for news and cute bunny photos, I promise).
Still, a mainstay across my feed these past few weeks has been one band: KATSEYE. Katseye is an L.A.-based girl group made up of members from all over the world, representing South Koreans, Filipinos, Swiss-Italian-Ghanians, and American diasporas of Venezuelan Cubans, Indians, and Chinese Singaporeans. Notably, the group emerged from a Netflix-produced international reality competition series called Dream Academy, which was run by Hybe and Geffen Records.
Katseye has made its way onto my Twitter feed recently for a few reasons: their white choreographer, Grant Gilmore, the comments of Daniela Avanzini’s father, and, most notably, Manon Bannerman’s sudden hiatus.
Grant Gilmore’s sudden appearance on my feed was confusing and emotionally jarring even before I knew he was their choreographer. With his erratic movements, intense facial expressions, and extensive use of moves involving his nipples, the excited crowds behind his dancing confused me. He became known online, colloquially, as “that white choreographer,” and once his connection with Katseye was publicly known, the source of the quality of some of their recent music videos became apparent. The primary criticism levied at Gilmore aims at how completely Katseye’s choreography follows the lyrics, completely ignoring the beat.
In another Katseye news item, member Daniela’s father, Rafael Avanzini, came under fire for several insensitive comments he made at the start of the year. Though he has now issued an apology, he implied that his daughter was a better dancer than Lisa, a member of Blackpink who debuted in 2016, due to Daniela’s “untouchable” hips — a reference to her being Latina in contrast to Lisa being Thai. He also said “the girls will be fine,” in reference to Manon’s hiatus. These comments were not taken well by K-pop fans on Twitter, and his apology barely ameliorated the hate sent to him and Daniela.
The biggest news of all is Manon’s sudden hiatus, initially being uncovered through her removal of the Katseye affiliation from her Instagram bio. It was described by her as something unexpected, but she noted her ongoing positive conversations with Hybe and Geffen Records. Eyekons (the name for fans of the band) disagree with this hiatus as any sort of positive, especially with many Eyekons questioning how Katseye can claim to be a global girl group when it is now entirely composed of White and Asian members. Eyekons have also called attention to the longstanding problematic treatment of Manon, often being hidden by other members in group choreography (yet another critique piled on Gilmore) and being depicted as lazy in the Netflix documentary on the recruitment process.
As I said at the start, I am not an expert on K-pop, but it is astounding that this band, which so recently performed at Coachella (sans Manon), has gone from being lauded for diversity and global promotion to facing at least 3 sources of disparagement. The fact that this has happened to such an extent it appears in the feeds of people without any demonstrated interest in the area (interrupting my leftist discourse scroll) is a testament to how much the Eyekons are trying to hold the group’s management accountable to its proclaimed goal for the group.
