Celebrity

LOONA’s Yves embroiled in racism controversy over a cartoon character + apologizes to overseas fans

LOONA’s Yves was accused of being racist by international fans. 

On July 28th, LOONA’s Yves communicated with fans on the official paid fandom platform FAB. She exchanged jokes with fans by sharing a photo of her lips swelling due to an allergic reaction. Korean fans said that her lips reminded them of Go Eun Ae, a character from “Run Hani”. Yves found this funny so she changed her profile picture on FAB into a photo of Go Eun Ae. 

However, international fans were not happy about her profile picture. They pointed out that Go Eun Ae’s curly hair and thick lips have a racist meaning that ridicules and demeans black people. There was a flood of negative reactions asking Yves for an apology.

Eventually, Yves changed her profile picture back to her selfie and apologized. She said, “You must have been very upset because I used the character Go Eun Ae as my profile picture. It was a character from the classic cartoon ‘Run Hani’, so I did not think that it could be offensive. I apologize to everyone who was upset. Next time, before using a character, I will check again to avoid any misunderstandings.”

The character Go Eun Ae used by Yves appears in KBS2’s “Run Hani”, a popular Korean TV cartoon from the late 1980s to the 1990s. 

Go Eun Ae’s features such as a fat body and thick lips are often used as a cosplay parody by Korean comedians, such as Jung Joon Ha of MBC’s “Infinite Challenge” and Park Na Rae of tvN’s “Amazing Saturday”. Therefore, no one in Korea ever had a problem with people copying this character. 

Meanwhile, LOONA recently made a comeback with “Flip That”. 

Source: wikitree

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