IU’s fourth mini album, ‘Chat-Shire’ and the controversy over it

&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;IU&rsquo;s fourth mini album &lsquo;Chat-Shire&rsquo; had been released at the midnight of October 23rd. Arousing a bond of sympathy among the public with her subtle and unique sensitivity, IU has shown her development as a musician and enlarged her field by participating also as a producer in this album. The album &lsquo;Chat-Shire&rsquo; contains 7 songs which are each related to a particular character in the stories substituted in order to express how IU feels and thinks about things happening around her as a 23 years old lady.&nbsp;

&nbsp; &nbsp; The 7 songs are &lsquo;New shoes&rsquo;, &lsquo;Zeze&rsquo; , &lsquo;twenty-three&rsquo;, &lsquo;The shower&rsquo;, &lsquo;Knees&rsquo;, &lsquo;Red queen&rsquo; and &lsquo;Glasses.&rsquo; The title track &lsquo;Twenty-three&rsquo; refers to the &lsquo;Chat-Shire cat&rsquo; in the famous fiction &lsquo;Alice&rsquo;s Adventures in Wonderland&rsquo; by Lewis Carrol. The song exhibits her current state as a woman in her 20s, not knowing what and how to deal with things, asking for the answers to the Chat-Shire cat. The other songs, &lsquo;New shoes&rsquo;, &lsquo;Zeze&rsquo;, &lsquo;The shower&rsquo;, &lsquo;Knees&rsquo;, &lsquo;Red queen&rsquo; and &lsquo;Glasses,&rsquo; each refers to the character &lsquo;Dorothy&rsquo; in &lsquo;The Wizard of Oz&rsquo; by Frank Baum, &lsquo;Zeze&rsquo; in &lsquo;My Sweet Orange Tree&rsquo; by J. M. de Vasconcelos, the boy and the girl in &lsquo;Shower&rsquo; by Hwang Sun-Won, &lsquo;Sinclair&rsquo; in &lsquo;Demian&rsquo; by Hermann Hesse, &lsquo;Red Queen&rsquo; in &lsquo;Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There&rsquo; by Lewis Carrol, and &lsquo;Ivan&rsquo; in &lsquo;Ivan the Fool&rsquo; by Leo Tolstoy.

&nbsp; &nbsp;Her new album has been evaluated as an album that conveys her messages straightforwardly and has a unique setting referring to famous stories.&nbsp;As a K-pop&rsquo;s sweetheart with her innocent image and vocal talents, her countless fans had been waiting for the release of the album &lsquo;Chat-Shire.&rsquo; Despite the album&rsquo;s particularity and her fan&rsquo;s affection, IU has recently been accused of sexualizing 5 years old boy, Zeze in her song lyrics. The song &lsquo;Zeze&rsquo; was based on the orange tree&#39;s perspective towards Zeze and includes lyrics that could be considered sexually suggestive, such as: &ldquo;Zeze, hurry and climb up the tree / kiss the leaves,&rdquo; &ldquo;If you hurt the tree, bad, bad,&rdquo; &ldquo;Take the youngest leaf here / Pick the only flower / Climb up me / Climb up me,&rdquo; &ldquo;You&rsquo;re very naive / but certainly sly,&rdquo; &ldquo;You might seem transparent like a young child / but something about you is dirty&rdquo; and &ldquo;tomorrow night, will you come see me again.&rdquo;

<h4 style="text-align:justify">&nbsp; &nbsp;In her recent interview, IU explained the song saying : &ldquo;Zeze is innocent but cruel in some aspects. He is a character with many paradoxes, which is why I felt he was charming and sexy.&rdquo;&nbsp;&nbsp;In the story &lsquo;My Sweet Orange Tree,&rsquo; Zeze is an imaginative but misunderstood 5-year-old boy who is physically abused by his family and comes to befriend an orange tree. Considering that the book is the author&rsquo;s autobiographical novel&nbsp;, IU&rsquo;s interpretation about the character is understandably controversial. Moreover, the publishing company voiced concern over the issue, suggesting that her interpretation that &lsquo;a maltreated child is somewhat sly and cruel because of his double-sidedness&rsquo; is wrong. A lot of critics, artists, and commentors are divided over the issue with Some claiming that &ldquo;literature is continually being newly discovered atop the interpreter&rsquo;s freedom and capacity,&rdquo; whereas others maintain that &ldquo;a line must be drawn when it comes to literary interpretation suggestive of pedophilia.&rdquo; Most of the commentors argue that IU is using pedophilia as her concept, which shouldn&rsquo;t and is a crime.</h4>

<h4 style="text-align:justify">&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; In spite of the controversial issue, IU&rsquo;s songs are maintaining high priorities on the lists. The public thinks that the society must be aware of the serious problem, pedophilia. They consider this controversy as her chance to become more prudent as a famous musician and to alarm others to be more cautious, thinking how their songs would affect the audience.</h4>

Reference :&nbsp; <a href="http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20151110001035">http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20151110001035</a>

(for the lyrics, IU&rsquo;s interview and the critics&rsquo; opinions)

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