Make It Pop

I've watched the series twice now (both seasons) and on the plus side I find the female cast extremely attractive and the music generally pleasant and catchy. On the downside a few of the scripts seem to have been written by high school dropouts whose command of the English language is highly questionable. I also applaud the casting of three oriental ladies as the stars, it's not very common. The music is highly produced so it is hard to ascertain what vocal skills they possess but I get the impression they are above average. Another positive element I should mention is that the characters are free to date other characters regardless of their ancestry. It sets a fine example of tolerance which seems to be rather lacking elsewhere.

For one, this is not even close to what was expected. I just watched to see what the fuss was about from social media. I can see that it is related to K-pop at the weakest level.

The director/producers want to maintain the White Man Asian Woman dominance. 'the producer said "Nope! Never! Asian guys in my show, not gonna happen!", while everyone else–albeit uncomfortably–laughed it off. Come on now, it's a show about Korean pop. Half the artists from the K-pop industry are Asian men.'

As mentioned by other reviewers, it seems like the producers are perpetuating the White Man Asian Woman fetish/fantasy.

The acting and everything else seems appropriate for the target demographic. This is the only good part of this series. Its age appropriate and that it hits the target demographic.

A Kpop show without Korean/Asian males is like a Hip hop show without Black males.

How ridiculous would it be if Nickelodeon created a Hip Hop show for kids, and there was 0 black males on it?

I didn't even know how they get away with such a clean and obvious example of discrimination against Asian males. Nobody at any point in the top management decision processes was like

"Hey, this is wrong. Why are we discriminating against Asian males so much? Can we really attribute the absolute invisibility of Asian males in media to lack of talent, or is it institutionalized discrimination?"

or even if racism is intrinsically built into those guys,

"Hey, Thomas, I know you are like 'I will never have an Asian guy on my show', and 'I know we want to perpetuate fetishism on Asian females, permanently typecast the whole race as feminine', but this is getting too obvious. People are going to say something. They are going to point this out."

Hollywood, when can you stop being so bigoted so that we can move on into the 21st century?

I was originally drawn to the show due to its being advertised as relating to K-Pop. After beginning watching it, I soon realized the only relation it has to K-Pop is the foundation of the show (albeit a very tiny foundation) and the source of around 3 posters in the three girls' bedroom. This I decided to accept with disappointment, and trudged on in giving the show a chance.

I only managed to watch the first season, because I couldn't bear to continue the atrocity.

To begin with, the main character, Sun Hi, is a rude, self-absorbed, absolutely unintelligent girl. I understand this is a tween show, but none of the tween shows I grew up with, such as Zoey 101, iCarly, and Victorious had such terrible role models as their main characters. Corki and Jodi are great, but Sun Hi's treatment of them is fueled by her constant need to shine and be the star of the show. This brings out Sun Hi as a terrible model of a friend. My own mother criticized my admiration of Carly from iCarly thinking she was obnoxious. Carly is an angel compared to Sun Hi's character.

I gave the dialogue and acting some leeway considering it's a tween show following in the footsteps of iCarly and Victorious. I also understand that in one season, character development is not something to be hoping for, but to be fair, iCarly and Victorious were much less disastrous.

I'm all for girl power, it's not a bad thing. But the estrogen and female hierarchy is overpowering in this show. Half of it is the three main girls competing with the senior cheer squad. There are two prominent male characters, but they're both so minor and operate as clowns for laughs. They don't have to be Asian (although that would certainly help the racism prominent in the US), but the male roles should, forgive me for a lack of better words, have a bigger role in the show.

Lastly, I'll admit, the songs are catchy and pretty good. And the choreography is also reasonable and acceptable. This is why I gave the show 4 stars, and not 1 or 2.

In conclusion, although the show has a select few positive attributes, it serves as a horrible model for teenagers, and has more than a few things to be fixed or at least alleviated.

I completely disagree with "Leah Mckenzie" 's review. For a person not into Kpop, "she" sure writes a lot on a completely unknown and unpopular Kpop show, ranting about how racism doesn't exist and how anyone who dare to talk about it is the racist.

Pretty much the worse show I have ever seen. In THE ONE place, a show about Kpop, where they could have Asian males in it without being completely sexless, they manage to do away with it. I am actually very IMPRESSED how they managed to pull this off, without anyone pointing out how ridiculous this is.

Why is white Hollywood so averse to having any Asian males on screen, except in extremely clichéd and stereotyped roles? I have no idea. Why is having a normal sexually functioning Asian male on screen so damn hard for American media?

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Notice how the two reviews saying "there is no racism" or "racism is overblown" or "anyone who complain about racism is racist themselves" are all registered within a week and never have a single review in the past.

While the only guy talking about how this IS an example of racism (the main guy behind this show, Thomas Lynch, literally said in no unclear terms "he will never have an Asian guy on his show") has a 10 year account and tons of past reviews.