[FOCUS] Jae-beom's departure from 2PM

Boy band 2PM leader Park Jae-beom on Tuesday announced he is leaving the group. "I deeply apologize to everyone, especially my fans who loved me so much. I am quitting 2PM as of today," wrote Park on his online fan cafe.

This is just four days after fans found out Park wrote belittling comments about Korea on his MySpace account a few years ago. He himself will be the only one who really knows why he wrote the remarks -- whether it was out of true hatred of the country or whether they were words written in the spur-of-the-moment over the "gloomy situation of not knowing when I would debut," as he had explained.

Well, one thing for sure is that the issue got big enough that he had to leave his group. Petitions calling on Park to leave from the group, furthermore, to even commit suicide, were posted on Agora, a website for discussion on portal Daum. And some media companies went as far as to call him the "2nd Yoo Seung-jun," a Korean-American singer who was popular until 2002 when he chose not to be drafted to Korea's mandatory military service by becoming a naturalized American citizen. He has been banned from entering the country ever since. Park became someone who can never return to Korea ever again because of a private message he wrote in his past.

You could be disappointed at Park for what he had written. And if Park had remained in 2PM, both he and his group would have continuously be burdened by this issue. But he is neither an offender nor a government official. Individuals can consume the celebrity of their choice. The broadcasters can decide on whether he will appear on their shows depending on the response from the public. Park was already taken off from an MBC show. But nobody has the right to tell him to stop being a singer because he does not like Korea. And this is separate from the reasoning that he is a pop idol who can influence many people.

Whatever his job, nobody can take away his right to do whatever he wants in whichever country. If a person is removed from a country because of something negative he said about it, this goes beyond the issue of him being a celebrity and rather becomes an issue of human rights. Therefore, this is a problem which should be discussed not only by the entertainment industry but by the entire society. If one society can drive out an individual because the public does not like him, how can it be said that society is normal?

One may say Park left on his own will. But his decision came in just four days. He did not have the time or the opportunity to see how consumers of the entertainment industry would respond to him. And immediately after Park's departure from 2PM, some media companies wrote articles saying: "We hope this is a chance for idol management agencies to realize the force of the general public." Not only is it vague in who they are referring to when they say 'the general public', but there is also no basis to their reasoning that public discontent will lead to the departure of a member from his group.

This may all be just the opinion of some media companies. But the press, which concentrated on magnifying the issue rather than judging where the problem lies in the issue itself, is most responsible for leading the situation to where it ended up in just four days. Daily newspaper Dong-A Ilbo which first reported on the issue wrote: "The controversy surrounding this issue is expected to grow if it is discovered that the messages are not concocted but were actually written by Park himself." The petitions on Agora were highlighted in other articles, mentioned in headlines here and there.

The controversy surrounding the issue did not include discussions on how big of a problem Park's message was nor what problems the petitions had. There was no discussion on whether it was an issue which he should be forgiven for since they were personal messages written in the past, whether it was worth apologizing for, or whether it was an issue so serious that he should quit the group.

The press was in a rush to inflate the issue by using the terms "deportation", "quit", "2nd Yoo Seung-jun" and "belittling". Even messages which other members of 2PM wrote on their personal web pages, saying they want to be with Park, were considered acts worth "condemning." After all those years of being together, is wanting to remain with someone who is not even an offender, really worth criticizing on the pretext of "Internet users' response"?

There was no judgment involved but just the response of online users and the delivery of their responses. And in the process, a message that Korean-American Park wrote on his personal blog even for his debut was magnified to become a huge issue. Petitions filed by hundreds to thousands of Internet users were reported by the press, eventually shaking up that celebrity's entire life. There was no room for discussion on that individual's human rights. What is left is the logic of figuring out who the winner and loser is -- whether the public can place a celebrity where they please.

This is why the "nature" of idols from overseas is at the center of these issues. The animosity toward Park comes from the fact that he is a singer in Korea but does not like the country, leading to the belief that he is not the same person inside and out. That is why people bitterly called him a "foreign worker" and Internet users told him to leave and "make money in your own country if you don't like Korea." In other words, celebrities are not allowed to have even the slightest negative thought about Korea from when they are young, they have to be the same person inside and out and they have to have a flawless private life. Otherwise, if you are not or once you get caught in an act, the public and media will file a "suicide petition" for that celebrity which will be reported as a fact in the center of that so-called "controversy."

Who has the right to judge a celebrity for his personal thoughts, furthermore for ones he wrote on his private space years ago? Park's case shows that a celebrity's personal life can be used as a tool to get across the opinion of the public and media rather than something that they look into to find the root of the problem. It is not understandable that as a celebrity and furthermore a human being, his "nature", "manners" and "patriotism" matter more than his basic human rights. What matters more is the direction of what the media reports on which they title "national sentiment."

Therefore the controversy over Park has not ended but rather has just started. He has left for the States but the numerous incidents which arose surrounding the singer over the past four days contain various problems regarding Korean society. To what extent should a celebrity take responsibility for his or her words? How much should the public be allowed to ask for? And what sort of judgments should the press make when it comes to a celebrity's personal freedom versus public opinion? This problem is not just about celebrities themselves but also the issue of the system Korean society takes on in proceeding its discussions and how it should view celebrities.

Senior Reporter : Kang Myoung-Seok two@10asia.co.kr
Photographer : Chae ki-won ten@10asia.co.kr
Editor : Jessica Kim jesskim@asiae.co.kr, Lee Ji-Hye