英文原文:
From actor to essence
Bae has become the personification of a love always desired, eternally sought after, but never experienced. His name no longer refers merely to a person, the actor, but conjures up an essence that is both separate from the characters he has played, and inextricably bound up with them, too. Here again, Bae resembles no one so much as Garbo, whose name became synonymous with an air of mystery, and whose attraction, as Barthes suggests, emerged from the interplay between her own face and its idealization as crafted by makeup artists and cinematographers.
Garbo, in her many roles, always remained Garbo; the public never lost sight of the performer-as-star, not because of a lack of talent or conviction, but rather because her overriding charisma insistently revealed the star behind the performance. Indeed, Garbo is not so much remembered for acting, for performing, as she is for being Garbo, for what early film critics referred to as "posing."
Like Garbo, Bae captivates audiences not with his performances, but rather, with his face, his image. Devotees, overcome by a near-religious fervor, flock in droves to see, to adore him; they make pilgrimages to attend his public appearances as they would to witness some miraculous apparition. His meetings with his public -- his "family," as he calls them -- are met with breathless reverence. According to one newspaper report, one Japanese woman gasped after finally seeing her idol in the flesh, "No I can die happy."
Interestingly enough, Bae's popularity is not, like that of
Kwon Sang-woo or Song Seung-hun, based on his image as a sex symbol. In fact, many Japanese fans were disappointed after seeing his performance as the lascivious Jo-won in E. J-Yong's "Untold Scandal." For these fans, as is the case with many others, Bae Yong-joon, or Yonsama (a title of honor, much like Garbo's own title, "the Divine"), as he is known in Japan, represents a different kind of masculine ideal.
From actor to essence
Bae has become the personification of a love always desired, eternally sought after, but never experienced. His name no longer refers merely to a person, the actor, but conjures up an essence that is both separate from the characters he has played, and inextricably bound up with them, too. Here again, Bae resembles no one so much as Garbo, whose name became synonymous with an air of mystery, and whose attraction, as Barthes suggests, emerged from the interplay between her own face and its idealization as crafted by makeup artists and cinematographers.
Garbo, in her many roles, always remained Garbo; the public never lost sight of the performer-as-star, not because of a lack of talent or conviction, but rather because her overriding charisma insistently revealed the star behind the performance. Indeed, Garbo is not so much remembered for acting, for performing, as she is for being Garbo, for what early film critics referred to as "posing."
Like Garbo, Bae captivates audiences not with his performances, but rather, with his face, his image. Devotees, overcome by a near-religious fervor, flock in droves to see, to adore him; they make pilgrimages to attend his public appearances as they would to witness some miraculous apparition. His meetings with his public -- his "family," as he calls them -- are met with breathless reverence. According to one newspaper report, one Japanese woman gasped after finally seeing her idol in the flesh, "No I can die happy."
Interestingly enough, Bae's popularity is not, like that of
Kwon Sang-woo or Song Seung-hun, based on his image as a sex symbol. In fact, many Japanese fans were disappointed after seeing his performance as the lascivious Jo-won in E. J-Yong's "Untold Scandal." For these fans, as is the case with many others, Bae Yong-joon, or Yonsama (a title of honor, much like Garbo's own title, "the Divine"), as he is known in Japan, represents a different kind of masculine ideal.