“Cookies I made. It’s so soft (what?) I keep thinking of you (ayy)”; “If you want it, you can get it”; “(Keep) looking at my cookie. The scent is different (taste it), one bite is not enough (uh)”; “Take it, don’t break it, I wanna see you taste it.”
These are few lines from girl group NewJeans’ debut lead single Cookie, which, according to the group’s agency Ador, is a song for fans “made with a sincerity as that of baking a cookie.”
Reading the lyrics, it appears that the song is about more than just trying to eat a mouth-watering cookie to win your crush's heart. Throughout the song, the straightforward lyrics are repeated, luring a “boy” with the cookie and tempting him to enjoy the sweetness.
The delivery of such a sexually explicit metaphor involving cookies and love by young girls, however, alters the entire context, contend many who have criticised the song for being inappropriate for its target audience. The oldest member of NewJeans, Minji, is 18 years old, while Hyein is the youngest at 14 years old.
The song and music video were a pre-release from the quintet's self-titled debut album New Jeans and were released on August 1. The song immediately sparked intense controversy online, especially among foreign fans, due to its provocative references and sexual objectification of the minor band members who sing the lyrics.
The music is fantastic, as one comment from “Lana” below the song video stated. No matter how you try to spin it, these lyrics are completely unacceptable. Another was written by “Lore SF” and stated, “This would've been such a wonderful notion if they were mature ladies. Recall that they range in age from 14 to little over 18 years old. With thousands of likes, both comments were at the top of the list.
Many responses criticised the overtly sexual connotation of the term “cookie” in Western culture. The term “cookie” can also refer to female genitalia, according to Urban Dictionary.
“Lana” said, “Their company understood what they were doing with this song, they knew the discussion it would cause — it's all (alarmingly) premeditated” to her comment. They know Westerners are listening to the music and they know what cookie is synonymous with in the West, according to another comment that was critical of the corporation.
Although these allegations were first made among English-speaking admirers online, they have recently expanded to local communities, particularly after a local YouTuber produced a video claiming that the lyrics are too explicit for children to sing.
In a video posted on Wednesday, YouTuber Kim Tae-hoon of the English-teaching network Bridge TV dissected Cookie and argued that it is not acceptable for girls under the age of 18.
For local audiences who are unaware of the cultural context in which the lyrics can be understood, he begins the video by elaborating on the dual meaning of the word “cookie.”
“If I were to ask 100 people who are proficient in English if these lyrics are ‘provocative,' they would all agree that they are. The lyrics are really “sexual,” Kim said while speaking in English and Korean.
Kim, who is also a simultaneous Korean-English interpreter, continued by pointing out that songs like Cardi B's WAP and Blackpink and Selena Gomez's Ice Cream both contain sexual metaphors in their lyrics. The issue with NewJeans, though, is that each of the five members is a teenager. Even for those who may have become “numb” to such sexual analogies, Kim continued, the young girls singing Cookie's offensive lyrics would make them uneasy.
Ador has kept silent during the ongoing dispute and has only stated that it will pursue legal action against any type of disparaging remarks made about the group.
Ador stated in a statement issued on August 10 that “the firm has chosen to pursue legal steps against the kind of actions such as malicious slander, the circulation of false rumours, and defamation of NewJeans and the contents generated by the company.” – Asia News Network/Choi Ji-won/The Korea Herald