Video Analysis of “D (Half Moon)”
In Dean’s music video called “D (Half Moon)” featuring Gaeko, Dean uses many important visuals that hint at a couple who once had a very intimate and sexual relationship before they had broken up. Throughout the music video, these visuals hint at the viewers about the story of the two people. Korean popular music is driven by the visual (Epstein with Turnbull 2014: 316). Visuals prove to be extremely important in Korean music videos as they help tell a story and hint at the hidden meanings of the song. In this essay, I will be arguing that Dean utilizes many important visuals in his “D (Half Moon)” music video, and that these visuals are there for a reason, hinting at a story of a couple who once had a very intimate and sexual relationship before they had broken up.
Dean’s “D (Half Moon)” music video, had many visuals that hinted at the story of an intimate couple’s relationship. The male gaze projects its phantasy on to the female (Mulvey 1975: 11). It can be seen in the music video that Dean gazes to a distance and at the actress when he sings the chorus which translate to, “nothing comes even close to half of you, it can’t fill me, it doesn’t fill me up, yeah just half, if only I had just half of you, then I wouldn’t feel like this”. This shows that Dean’s gaze shows that he is thinking about his ex-girlfriend which is the female actress, and longs for her, hinting that even just half of her would satisfy him. The locations that appear most often in music video tend to be generic depictions, suggesting a concept of a place, or representing a kind of place (Vernallis 2004: 75). The locations that appeared the most is a small bedroom and living room with the actress in it. These places suggest that Dean and the actress once had an intimate relationship within those places, representing an important place for the couple. Since only the actress was in those places with no sight of Dean, this suggests that they had already broken up. There are more visuals in the living room hinting that the girl also misses the other half which is Dean. Music videos take the promotional aspect of its nature and turn it into an advantage where the performer sings directly for the camera through direct address to the viewer watching individually at home rather than having to address a large live audience (Goodwin 1992: 33). When singing, Dean often gazes to the camera showing with his eyes and facial expressions that he longs for his ex-girlfriend as stated before. In the living room, the actress also gazes into the camera while doing actions like applying lipstick to only the bottom lip, and painting half of her toenail. These visuals and actions show that the actress misses and longs for her other half which is Dean. At the end of the video, Dean knocks on a door which is assumed to be the actress’s house. In many hip-hop songs, this door knocking action is often used to emphasize how intimate the couple’s relationship was. This also hinted that Dean longs for her so much that he wanted to be with her again, thus knocking on her door.
The music video “D (Half Moon)” by Dean had many important visuals that hinted at a story between a couple who had a intimate relationship before they had broken up. The location that was repeated many times showed the significance of the bedroom and living room which hinted that the couple had their happiest moments there. Also, the gazes from both Dean and the actress shows that they both long for each other after breaking up. In conclusion, these visuals shown in the music video are there for a reason, which is to hint at the story of a intimate couple’s relationship.
References
“Decoding the Mood Behind the ‘TRBL’ Rebel Named Dean.” KpopStarz. https://www.kpopstarz.com/articles/271259/20160411/dean-exclusive-news-decoding-mood-130-trbl-ep.htm/ (accessed 12/08/2018).
Epstein, Stephen, and James Turnbull. “Girls’ Generation? Gender, (Dis)Empowerment, and K-Pop.” The Korean Popular Culture Reader, edited by Kyung Hyun Kim and Youngmin Choe. 314-36. Durham NC: Duke University Press, 2014.
Goodwin, Andrew. Dancing in the Distraction Factory: Music Television and Popular Culture. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1992.
Mulvey, Laura. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” Screen 16, no. 3 (1975): 6-18.
Vernallis, Carol. Experiencing Music Video: Aesthetics and Cultural Context. New York City, NY: Columbia University Press, 2004.
Ivan Pang
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