I wish this was for the best interests of victims and changing societal behavior but it’s clearly motivated by financial interest. Regardless, at least it’s making agencies more deliberate and considerate when it comes to signing young new talent. K-drama productions are across the board adding contract addendums (to existing contracts signed) and new contract terms for future contracts that revolve around damages caused by a cast member facing bad publicity. The contract gives the production the right to fire and also demand double payback of the acting fee, as well as demanding recompense for the cost of reshoots, losing CF partners, and other damages. This was clearly motivated by two high profile bullying allegations in the last two weeks, one against Ji Soo which led to him leaving River Where the Moon Rises and another against Lee Na Eun of April and she subsequently left the upcoming K-drama Taxi Driver. If this makes popular kids who think they can misbehave during their formative years and hope to later have a career in entertainment think twice then it’s fine by me.
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Lol... They’ll still misbehave, they just won’t go into entertainment. Or they’ll make sure to do apologize and makeup before going into entertainment. The production companies are just covering themselves. Not sure how much impact this will have on Korean middle and high schools.
I understand where the Production team is coming from. Reshooting and bad publicity will really damage projects financially and physically.
But I think if Actors/Idols/Celebrity who are really good people since birth (I mean, has good attitude, never a bully Professional at work, etc.) cannot control if people from social media will accused them of any bad deeds. It will spread like a wildfire. I mean, netizens, people hiding on their phone screen or compiter screen can openly create a story, put malicious comments on social media and articles will be published and the artist will be judged quickly.
I don't know, but nowadays, it's easy to bring down people and ruin their reputation. I pity those innocent celebrities.
Some of the current bullying allegations are already proved false/disbelieved by netizens eg Hyuna, who simply replied that she was hardly in school since the age of 6 because that's when she started training. Sometimes former classmates also step in to clarify. Ji Soo's case was on another level though - even the comments on the post made by his first victim, were all by other victims!
It's really not fair to have Park Hye-soo's photo here. It's become pretty apparent that she was the one who was bullied not the other way around and that those who bullied her came together to smear her name, esp, since "victim" statements aren't matching up.
https://www.soompi.com/article/1458005wpp/park-hye-soo-personally-addresses-school-violence-rumors-says-she-was-the-one-bullied
Netizens have pointed out inconsistencies on her part too and the likelihood that Dispatch was paid off so she's not exactly cleared.
I think what you are goings to see is more agencies pressuring victims to remain silent. Agencies are going to threaten pressing charges and NDAs are going to be standard. This is not a good thing.
I dont think this will happen at tgis time since sns are really active. Agencies of these celebrities cant do something this wrong because they will be on the sns in no time at all.
It seems by my very unscientific method about 25% of allegations are totally false and it is hard to prove a negative so I think probably what the agencies need to do is see if they can get insurance to cover these costs if need be and that insurance fee gets taken out of the actors fee. This amount would be lower for actors who have been around for a while and are less likely to have this stuff pop up. In Hollywood, Robert Downey Jr was unemployable after his drug issues because he wasn't insurable. It took some time and well we see how that worked out.
With regard to Ji Soo, I do wonder if he wasn't the lead in this drama with a well known actress if he would have escaped scrutiny. I mean he has been acting for a while but I would say this was a pretty big break for him. It makes me wonder who else is shaking in their shoes about this stuff but just happens not to have a big drama in the works.
Lastly, some ex-idol of some small non-famous group has a you tube channel and said that when you start training and definitely before debut they ask about any bullying issues and say they can ease the way if they know. However, if you don't tell them, they will find it harder to deal with later. I think people are worried they won't debut and lie. I also think some people really are delusional about what they did in their youth.
In Ji Soo's case, I guess he started getting more publicity recently but also it was a case of timing, if the bullying allegations wave was happening earlier he would have been outed then too.
As for why the victims didn't come forward in 2015 when he first started getting roles, it's possible they didn't even know because his roles were smaller or they were doing military service and not in a position to know entertainment stuff.
I just hope everyone will have their own reflections especially the young men and women out there. Those that are dreaming of just shaping their careers - live a decent life. A life that will respect others the way others will respect in return.