“Street Man Fighter” production team criticized for irresponsibly staying silent every time a controversy arises 

“Street Man Fighter” has yet to speak up on the controversy over the judges. This is not the 1st time they chose silence. 

Following the huge success of “Street Woman Fighter” aired last year, Mnet’s “Street Man Fighter” premiered on August 23rd. Although the number of views on YouTube videos of “Street Man Fighter” is lower than that of “Street Woman Fighter”, the program is still generating buzz. It was No. 1 in the ranking of most buzzworthy non-drama TV for 4 weeks in a row.  

However, although the popularity of “Street Man Fighter” is growing, the production team’s consistent complacency in dealing with ensuing controversies has resulted in more criticism. 

The biggest controversy recently is whether the judges of “Street Man Fighter” are qualified enough to make decisions on the battles between dance crews. In “Street Woman Fighter”, the issue of having K-pop idols judging professional dancers and choreographers was already brought up. However, instead of making changes in the male version, the production team chose to ignore viewers’ opinions and pushed their will and stubbornness instead. 

As the show goes on, more and more viewers are displeased with the judges’ judgment during dance battles, and eventually, some netizens even flooded the personal SNS of BoA, 2PM’s Wooyoung, and Super Junior’s Eunhyuk with criticism and malicious comments. 

In this situation, the production team is still not saying anything. Rather than protecting their program’s cast, they stuck to staying silent. It was SM Entertainment, the agency of BoA and Eunhyuk, who took action to deal with the malicious comments. The mess was cleaned up by SM while it was created by Mnet and its program. 

Mnet is famous for its irresponsible silence whenever a controversy erupts. They hide behind the jersey or their management and don’t put out a word. 

This is actually not surprising. Because it is not the first time that the production team of “Street Man Fighter” has dealt with a controversy by keeping their mouths shut. When YGX dancer Park Hyunse was embroiled in a controversy over mocking New Jeans’ choreography, the broadcast went ahead without a separate response. When CP Kwon Young Chan’s misogynistic remarks at the press conference drew criticism, the production team also hid behind Mnet and stood by.

What the production team is doing not only puts a negative image on the program, but also acts as a factor to prevent the influx of viewers. If they want K-Dance to be in the limelight worldwide, it is necessary to collect and acknowledge public opinion, rather than being stubborn.

Source: nate