F VOLUME 1 | ISSUE 1 IXNESS GENDER STEREOTYPES IN DIET & FITNESS CULTURE HOW DOES HEALTHY TREND PERPRETUATE GENDER BIAS?

Diet & Fitness FROM LUXURY TREND TO POPULAR CULTURE Illustration of healthy lifestyle. Adapted from Hana Giang Anh 2021

#1 ‘TOP CONCERN AMONG VIETNAMESE’ DURING 2021(KANTAR 2021) 90% WATCH FITNESS AND SPORT CONTENTS ONLINE (Q&Me 2021) 79% PREFER HEALTHIER FOOD & DRINKS (KANTAR 2021) 80% MAINTAIN DOING EXERCISES EVERYDAY (KANTAR 2021) 3 | FIXNESS VOL. 1 INTRODUCTION About five years ago, when talking about the healthy trend, most Vietnamese found it unreachable based on the high cost of fitness services and diet plans (Saigoneer 2016). Over the years, this luxury trend has become a popular culture since people started to produce and consume more and more diet and fitness content online (Vietnamnet 2020). Hana Giang Anh (cited in Vietnamnet 2020), who is the most famous Vietnamese fitness influencer, gives her comments when asked about the current healthy trend: Over the past five years, the interactions relating to keywords #healthy #fitness and #eatclean keep increasing (Google Trends 2021). Since the COVID-19 pandemic, Vietnamese people have paid the most attention to their diet and exercise routine. According to KANTAR (2021), health and wellness are the top 1 concern among Vietnamese in 2021. Nowadays, the fitness culture has become more accessible. People can find many exercises on YouTube and media channels. They also have various choices of fitness applications to maintain their healthy life whenever and wherever they want.

FIXNESS VOL. 1 | 4 Misconceptions ABOUT AN IDEAL HEALTHY BODY Continue discussing this culture, Hana Giang Anh (cited in Vietnamnet (2020) points out some positive effects of the trend - improving physical and mental health. On the other hand, she argues the negativity when people only rush for such a body ‘goal’ but do not understand their body (Vietnamnet 2020). Indeed, the internet is a double-edged sword since it brings brightness like rich resources or doses of inspiration and darkness like misconceptions about ideal healthy looks. For instance, the internet, according to Vu (2021), has promoted ‘fixed’ body standards which are strong, muscle for men and V-line face and curvy body for women. The fitness industry in Vietnam also promotes stereotypes by often describing a ‘healthy’ man as one that does heavy weightlifting. In contrast, it usually ascribes the image of a ‘healthy’ woman to a more delicate look with lighter training like yoga. This issue of ‘FIXNESS’ will analyze fitness-related vlogs and a music video through a post-structuralist perspective and gender performativity theory. It is to help the audiences to understand how healthy lifestyles perpetuate gender stereotypes in Vietnam and why we should matter.

5 | FIXNESS VOL. 1 is the ‘data-gathering methodology’ (McKee 2003, p. 8) which used to study how different texts tell stories, make assumptions, represent cultures, and making meanings without clarifying which one is the only true (McKee 2003) Textual Analysis which is Judith Butler’s work, discuss differences between biological sex and cultural gender. Sine that, it also highlights the ideology that gender should not be considered as stable and limited but changeable and performative (Loos 2020) Gender Performativity

FIXNESS VOL. 1 | 6 GENDER STEREOTYPES IN diet & fitness culture

7 | FIXNESS VOL. 1 7 | FIXNESS VOL. 1 GENDER IN VIETNAM Under the influence of Confucianism, Vietnam has struggled with gender equality since a thousand years ago (Grosse 2015). Confucian ideology emphasizes women’s compliance with their father, husband, and son (Rydstrøm, Trinh & Burghoorn 2008; Schuler et al. 2006, cited in Grosse 2015). It also highlights the responsibilities of men for taking on both society and family (Grosse 2015). Grosse then highlights the enhancement of gender equality throughout the time thanks to new ideas of Communism and modernization. However, the studies that Confucianism still has a significant influence on Vietnam society. Therefore, conservative stereotypes about gender still exist despite all efforts modernization has made (Luong et al. 2004, cited in Grosse 2015). Sudying gender stereotypes through eating and drinking behaviors, Rodrigues, Corona & Valentin (2020) found out the issue has a biological start. They report that men can consume more meat than women due to the difference in hormones, energy expenditure, insulin resistance, and fat distribution (Rodrigues, Corona & Valentin 2020). People, then, use this fact to stereotype men as meat-eater while claiming that women should eat more vegetables (Rodrigues, Corona & Valentin 2020). Zhu et al. (2015, cited in Rodrigues, Corona & Valentin 2020) also pointed out Western people make food stereotypes when they consider healthy, organic food as feminine. In contrast, they describe heavier food like fried chicken and potato chips as more masculine. Furthermore, Rodrigues, Corona & Valentin (2020) showed how society expects a woman to eat less and have a slimmer body than a man, which is the other kind of stereotype. Meanwhile, Vietnam experiences the same situation however, this issue took more root in Confucian ideology since the feudal era (Grosse 2015) DIET, FITNESS AND GENDER STEREOTYPES

When searching for the keyword ‘diet’ (‘che do an’) or ‘workout’ (‘bai tap’) on YouTube, only a few videos emphasize ways to achieve a healthier life such as a diet for better health or a workout for fit. Instead, we can find several videos that focus on improving our looks, for example, how to have a sexier bust, and what to eat to get a bulky body (YouTube 2021). We will consider the interactions of different content from the same video creator – Chau Bui. Chau Bui who is a talented fashionista and beauty blogger with more than 600 thousand subscribers, has created two famous diet and fitness series on YouTube. She often gets over 1 million views for videos about improving three measurements to get an S-curve body, in contrast, videos about maintaining health receive much lower views. For instance, the video ‘How to improve posture for a healthy back’, which is posted on July 31st, 2019, achieves only about 260 thousand views (Chau Bui 2019) while the video ‘How to immediately tighten your waist’ which is posted later, has a peak at over 2 million views (Chau Bui 2020). Hana Giang Anh has the same experience. Despite the variety of healthy-lifestyle videos, her most famous video is ‘How to get 1:1 abs’ with more than 1.5 million views (noxinfulencer 2021). On the one side, enhancing body look is one of many benefits of diet and fitness culture. There is nothing wrong when people tend to create or discover related content. However, FIXNESS VOL. 1 | 8 SIGNS OF GENDER STEREOTYPES IN THE TREND IN VIETNAM

the high-rated consumption of these types of videos interprets how gender expectations of both sexes put people under appearance pressures and force them to seek media content that may help them to get ideal looks. In terms of gender performativity theory, these expectations follow heterosexual gender norms. It obligates one’s behaviors and performances to an unchangeable identity (Loos 2020). Therefore, the ‘healthy’ performance of individual men or women tends not to be honored by his or her actual achievements, for example, burning more visceral fat, being more active, or having a better sleep. On the other hand, society may criticize people by examining whether they look masculine or feminine enough based on their biological sex. As the popular culture, this trend emerges and develops based not only on consumption but also on the production and distribution of people (Waskul & Vannini 2015). Therefore, high-rate consumption can lead to high-rate production and distribution of content which spread gender bias ideology. Consequently, media distorts a healthy lifestyle into the ‘gameplay’ of expression but not the performance of health and wellness at all. 9 | FIXNESS VOL. 1 SIGNS OF GENDER STEREOTYPES IN THE TREND IN VIETNAM

FIXNESS VOL. 1 | 10 How does this trend PERPETUATE GENDER BIAS in Vietnam? A CASE STUDY FROM BAEMIN FIXNESS VOL. 1 | 10

11 | FIXNESS VOL. 1 Example of husband & wife in the MV Em Be. Adapted from ST.319 Entertainment 2020 Em Bé MV AMEE X KARIK X BAEMIN 11 | FIXNESS VOL. 1

Taking insights from the flourishing diet and fitness culture, BAEMIN – ‘the number-one food delivery application from South Korea’ and the ‘fastest-growing food tech start-up in Vietnam’ (BAEMIN n.d) - launched a campaign called ‘A little bit healthy’ (‘Thu chut healthy’) on the last quarter of 2020. The purposes are to attract and encourage customers to practice healthier eating habits (Tu Nha 2021). The music video Baby (‘Em Bé’) played a vital marketing role by hitting the top 3 trending on YouTube after only 72 hours of release (Tu Nha 2021). It has also achieved more than 48 million views up to date. The success of ‘Em Be’, according to Truong (2020), depended on the most on BAEMIN’s acute of choosing appropriate target audiences and insight. The insight was: ’No matter how tough and independent the woman is, she is still a baby that needed to be loved and cherished. ‘Em Be’ also aims to motivate women to love and take care more of themselves by maintaining a healthy diet. We do not ignore the bright message that the brand would like to convey. However, when looking from the peripheries, it still contains controversial gender bias ideas. By conducting a textual analysis of two male and female characters, this article will discuss how ‘Em Be’ produces and perpetuate gender stereotypes. The music video builds up the story about a couple through different eras, from the prehistoric era to the modern-day. Unlike what the brand said about its purpose, they had not clarified the image of a tough woman in the music video. Throughout the video, we can recognize that the female character keeps acting as a housewife while her husband has much more performances, from a prehistoric worker to a village rich man, then a businessman. Based on the gender performativity theory and Confucian ideas, this character development has produced the stereotypes of woman as she is fixed to a stable identity – a wife, a mother. In contrast, the music video promoted the stereotypes of men, when illustrating the male character as a social guy who depends all the eating and drinking things on his wife. The music video also describes ‘healthy’ term as expressive rather than performative. The first interpretation is the interactions between our main couple. It is noticeable that ‘Em Be’ only focuses on the appearance of the wife, for instance, while the husband is busy planting, studying, working, and looking at his wife’s beauty, the wife is doing some face and body make-up and making lovely expressions. Secondly, let’s consider some pieces of the song lyrics: ‘Bae, bae I swear I will eat healthy to have rosy, white skin and could go for tiny waist, being in your arms when you hold me tight’/‘Oh my wife, so clean, so fresh is what I think about you’. This song composed the idea about how a normative healthy woman must have soft and flawless appearances like fresh, ageless looks, light skin, and a tiny waist to be ‘small in a man’s arms. It seems quite unilateral as Butler (cited in Loos 2020, p.931) states that: ‘gender is performative rather than an expression of some inner truth or identity’. Gender is different from biological sex where they are more flexible that can be formed and adjusted when experiencing context (Loos 2020). However, like many other Southeast Asian countries, Vietnam has not had a clear differentiation between sex and gender (Loos 2020). The Vietnamese language refers to both gender and sex to the same term called ‘Gioi tinh’. There are also few investigations and promotions about it so, Vietnamese people often confuse that biological sex defines human characteristics and goals, like, one who has male expression has to show up masculine. A little bit healthy A CASE STUDY FROM BAEMIN FIXNESS VOL. 1 | 12

A little bit healthy A CASE STUDY FROM BAEMIN 13 | FIXNESS VOL. 1 Example of male character in the MV Em Be. Adapted from ST.319 Entertainment 2020 Example of emale character in the MV Em Be. Adapted from ST.319 Entertainment 2020 Example of husband & wife in the MV Em Be. Adapted from ST.319 Entertainment 2020 I will eat healthyso I could go for tiny waist SO CLEAN, SO FRESH, IS WHAT I THINK ABOUT Y O U

FIXNESS VOL. 1 | 14 Illustration of healthy lifestyle. Adapted from Hana Giang Anh 2021

CONCLUSION Although the message of BAEMIN was trendy and insightful, its execution was a lack of objectivity and caused misconceptions. McKee (2003) once wrote that different audiences will interpret texts in different ways. So that, if the content includes too many controversial details, like, the music video ‘Em Be’, the number of audiences may not catch the actual key message of the author. Instead, they may consume and promote the misconceptions about gender that the video provided. In conclusion, diet and fitness culture remains a positive trend that helps more and more people improve both their physical and mental health (KANTAR 2020). However, under the influence of Confucianism and the confusion between sex and gender terms, people, without noticing, spread gender stereotypes by producing and consuming many gender-bias contents. Consequently, these ideas will blend into people’s daily life to influence their thoughts and behaviors (Waskul & Vainini 2015). It is not simple to subvert all these negativities, however, actions should be taken right away to prevent a positive trend like a healthy lifestyle to produce and perpetuate such old gender norms. Scan to join our community