Catholic Style

As for me and my household, we will be serving the Lord, Jesus Christ.


I really enjoyed dancing among many people to rather upbeat "GangNam Style" (by Psy) during St. Andrew Kim's Bazaar during the first weekend of September.  Then upon watching it on YouTube finally, I was horrified!  Why is such a secular (very sexually suggestive for the most part; and very much representative of our current state of culture of death, in my opinion) sweeping the world?!

It has literally become a cult movement of its own. Psy (aka JaeSang Pak 박 재상) is quite well mannered and very likable.  He has drawn a lot of followers simply with his "dress classy & dance cheesy" slogan.  And the lyrics are even agreeable to some extent.  But his video is quite scandalous! - and definitely R-rated and parental guidance is required!!!

Was Psy trying to create a parody about our promiscuous and immodest culture and how there seems to be a hunger for sex (in addition to numerous other things, i.e. pleasure, money, power, coolness, acceptance/belonging/community, external beauty, etc.) which is really an indication that our culture is hungry for true love but seeking in the wrong places?

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Below is my email to my pastor:

Dear Father Olson,

I want to thank you for many good things you do for our parish and for the school.  Your homily today was excellent as well.  You are undoubtedly a gifted homilist and so is Father Wagner; so we are VERY fortunate.  No wonder I hardly go to St. Andrew Kim any more.  I am too busy at your parish (I mean our parish). :) 

I think it's also great that you are aware of what's taking our kids away from church these days.  I think GangNam Style video is very scandalous and dangerous; I would categorize it to pornography.  And that's probably why it's so addictive.  But what can we do?  I think we need a strong antidote (of course, the Theology of Body, Catechism, Word of God, etc.) and possibly a lot of deliverance from the demons of lust, addiction, hedonism, money, power, pride, promiscuity, immodesty, etc.

In any case, it really made me think about it since you shocked me with your awareness this past Sunday.  It was another wake-up call for me: to do what I can to raise awareness to our community.  I'm working on my analysis of the GangNam Style video/music and I started to put my thoughts on my blog.

Alas! - indeed, the music is very catchy and addictive.  I couldn't put my mind off Psy or Gangnam Style.  So I spent a lot of time learning about Psy & watched a lot of relevant videos.  I came across a Korean blog that talked highly of Psy and I agree with his reasons:  Psy seems to be mature and very much a family man with a pretty wife (whom he described as not a "tuxedo-style" but a "pajama-style") and twin daughters.  His wife is a very wise and caring person, making sure to feed him a hearty breakfast, etc.  I also heard his many interviews on ABC, CBS, NBC, MTV, ...

I must admit that Psy is surrounded by many amazing people, i.e. Justin Bieber's manager Scooter Braun, whose video (of an interview with Sean Stephenson) really moved my heart with a heightened respect for him:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0vyc6OIwpw.  But of course, we are all called to respect everyone around us, including those we don't agree with, simply because we are all created in the image of God and thus His children.

Also, I must also mention one of my favorite parody of Gangnam style:  Gangnam Style Mom (강남스타일) "Umma Gangnam Style"

I concluded that he must be a very hard-working and intelligent person.  I even liked most of his Gangnam style lyrics:  they were succinct yet profound in some ways.  But he's wacky & funny; however, unfortunately, I am very much outnumbered in my unwavering thought that there were many inappropriate scenes in his video.  But that's the state of our society.  It's like a frog in a cold water, its temperature slowly increased to the point of just about killing the frog:  By now, our society is quite desensitized to immodesty in dresses and certain dance moves.