K-Pop Idols Turning into Actors will Continue

The recent T-ARA incident is spreading to a "Refusal to Watch them on TV" protest but T-Ara Soyeon continued with her scheduled appearance on "Haeundae Lovers." The drama, which was first broadcast on Monday was her first attempt at dramatic acting. Her character is a troublemaker that you can't quite bring yourself to hate and Soyeon received positive feedback about her ability to pull off the Busan accent. However, the expect anti-T-ARA responses are continuing.

For the production crew of the drama, it would have been difficult for them to deal with expectations of negative reactions from audiences when her appearance had been planned for a while and some of it had already been shot. There are very clear reasons why idol group members are being cast for dramas and that's why the possible risk factor and problem couldn't be fixed overnight. 

Then we must ask: why do drama and movie productions leave behind existing actors to cast idol group members in their projects?

Currently, the music world is being dominated by idol groups and this trend has been continuing for 4-5 years. They start off with their teenage appeal and now with some experience, they're expanding their music capabilities and going so far as to plant their feet in acting as well. Even YG Entertainment, which is famous for staying within the music track, demonstrated this trend when Big Bang's T.O.P appeared in "Into the Fire" and drew very positive feedback. 

So now, for idols, appearing on dramas has become a part of their way to success. 

2PM Taecyeon in "Cinderella's Sister," Girls Generation Yoona in "Love Rain," Park You Chun in "Sungkyunkwan Scandal" and "Miss Ripley," and all members of CNBLUE have been on dramas, making it the norm for the other groups as well. For these idol group members who have been proven to be adept at acting, it's not much of a risk factor for production companies to cast them. However, even the idols who are new and who are only valuable in their names also have some benefit. 

For the case of "Dream High" 1 and 2, JYP was essentially the production company and had no reason to cast anyone else. It was natural because of the subject matter as well. However, for other regular dramas, taking the risk and casting an idol to act in their project has benefits in creating buzz in the media and foreign sales. 

Because there are so many dramas in production, companies and networks have realized the importance of promotions and marketing. Therefore, instead of news about the same 20 year old actors appearing in dramas, it's much better and much more eye-catching to say "Hallyu Idol ____ Stars in a Drama." With this attachment, companies are able to get endorsements from companies that want to showcase their product and have much better chances at foreign sales. 

But it's not all flowers and rainbows for idols to appear on dramas. 

For trained actors, they don't look favorable upon idols joining casts based on their fame and popularity. Some of them lose roles out to idols for that reason and looking at the quality of the dramas, it's not always the best option to cast untrained and unproven idols to be actors. It's also not favorable for young actors who wish you start out. 

Idols actually receive much less money than they would as a singer in order to appear in dramas and that's a part of "One Source, Multi Use" marketing on the part of the management. For singers, there are gap periods between different albums but there are a lot of members and a lot of staff at the management companies and therefore, they must somehow make profit. 

So individual members will be thrown into dramas or variety programs and they sometimes make even more profit than they did as singers. For the members themselves, it's good for them to expand their horizons and get as much screentime as possible, driving their prices up. 

Hong Kong pop culture has always shown this trend and Japan will follow suit. For Korea, the border between singer and actor is starting to become thinner.

Tags
K-Pop
idol
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