The dark side

Psy’s first big hit, Gangnam Style, reigns as the most popular item ever on YouTube. Since first published last July it’s had more than 1.5 billion views. Everybody copied the happy dance, from pre-schoolers to Peter Mansbridge. It was good, clean fun.

Mark Twain once wrote, “Everyone is a moon and has a dark side.” Well, we’re seeing Psy’s dark side in his follow-up offering, Gentleman, which in its first week of availability has already been watched 178 million times. There isn’t enough of a new dance routine but that’s a minor issue. Psy’s view of the world has become deeply misogynist. Women exist to be mocked, derided, and harassed. At various points in the video, Psy pulls a chair out on a woman who is about to sit, stops the exercise treadmill and sends a woman flying, and unties a bikini top. He also breaks wind, grabs a handful of the released “air” and puts the ephemera in a woman’s face. There’s more such idiocy, but you get the idea.

And what exactly is the meaning of the repeated line, “I’m a mother-father gentleman.” I can only assume that it will be widely interpreted as, “I’m a motherf*cker gentleman.”

My issue with all this is that the six-year-old boys who enjoyed Gangnam Style will watch Gentleman and get the wrong idea about how to treat women. Society has enough trouble already from teenaged boys and young men who think nothing of gang-raping a woman, posting the video, and driving the victim to suicide.

Too bad Psy didn’t heed the rest of the Mark Twain line: “Everyone is a moon and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.”