Is it racist to poke fun at Idols' pronunciation of English words?

  • bo-thebear

    Changed the title of the thread from “Is it racist to poke fun at Idols'pronunciation of English words?” to “Is it racist to poke fun at Idols' pronunciation of English words?”.
  • Probably not racist but disrespectful. We have to understand English is not their native language so I’m sure fans can allow for mistakes here and there. People shouldn’t be so pedantic. I mean is their Korean as good

  • let's turn that around...is it ok to make fun of any person's pronunciation of a word regardless of whether it's in English or otherwise...


    what about friends - can you make fun of your friend when they say something because of their pronunciation?


    what about when idols make fun of each other? like when Korean members make fun of a non-Korean (or even Korean members) Korean because they said something funny...

  • By definition it's not directly racist, but it still doesn't make it okay. When you know it's not a person's native language, one should be encouraging and applaud their effort. Learning and mastering a second language is a pain in the ass, especially when it's a language from a different linguistic family.

  • Meanwhile, RM shading his own members constantly in broadcasts lol.


    Honestly I don't think it's racist pet say, but as a native speaker of english it is rude of us to do so. Especially wirh Korean, some words are really hard to pronounce and it's hard to break the tonal pattern of your native tongue.


    Most idols are bi or even tri lingual so...

  • Depends on the context though


    A lot of the time I see their English being used for teasing. Hyoyeon regularly got made fun of for her English by members, fans and people around them but it was always light hearted and never meant as a way to hate on them (and ironically Hyoyeon has released more English material than everyone bar Tiffany lol).


    Meanwhile if you undermine someone simply because of their lack of English then that is unacceptable.

  • Depends on the intention behind the "poking fun."


    We've all been laughed at and teased for mispronouncing certain words in any language, but it's often done as friendly banter. I wouldn't hold it against them. For instance, I'm sure Koreans playfully tease each other for mispronouncing English (or even Korean) words, too.


    If they have a mindset of "You're stupid and inferior because you can't even speak English," it would be racist and wrong, yes. Just laughing and finding it funny isn't always so bad.

    that's actually the reason why I used "poke fun at" instead "make fun of" in the title. their meanings are pretty different in my opinion.


    poking fun at something is when you make a light-hearted joke, but making fun of something or someone is often really mean or excessive.

    out of service

  • It more to mocking, but I think it can be considered mocking if only they said the word that way because of their accent. If it because they are wrongly saying and don't know how to say the word but still saying it, then I guess it is inevitable to get poked fun at it.

  • Yes it is. When french, spanish speak english , it is seen as cool

    But asians are mocked for their accents, way of speaking english


    It comes from the roots of racism only

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