The Message, Cinematics, and Emotional Impact of “Nxde” by (G)I-DLE

BACK TO “NXDE” HOME PAGE

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NOTE: For the sake of simplicity, my analysis of this song starts from the idea that its message is responding to how men view girls/women—or at least, how men are perceived to view them.

Setting the Stage

Before I take you down the rabbit hole of “Nxde,” there’s one place you need to start—the music video itself.

If you haven’t already, take a listen. (An English translation is provided by clicking on the “closed captioning” button in the below video, but the translation I will be using can be found here and below).

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Now that you’ve seen the video, let’s begin…

Right from the get-go of the music video, we are immersed in the world of “Nxde.” The first lyrics and instrumentals we hear set up the song’s message and its tone—“Why you think that ’bout nude / ‘Cause your view’s so rude.”

From the start, the song is breaking down the connotations of what being nude implies. We see Soyeon, the group’s leader and main lyricist, plucking away at the piano with a playful but serious— almost angry—tone, driving home the intent of this initial message: that perceptions of women’s nudity are rooted in sexism and misogyny.

The next member of the group we see is Minnie. She is dressed in pink and surrounded by suited men with big, red hearts—an homage to Marilyn Monroe’s “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” from the movie Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953).

Minnie sings:

As described in the translation, ’Yeppi Yeppi’ is Korean slang based on the word for pretty, ‘yeppuda’ (예쁘다). Here, Minnie’s character acknowledges that many have doubts about her intelligence because of her “beauty.”

The scene here is a direct reference to how Marilyn Monroe was often portrayed as just another pretty face and was not recognized for her intelligence. However, the lyrics also apply to every woman who is not taken seriously in their profession and rather reduced to their looks due to their status as a woman.

From here, we make a quick transition to a new scene involving Yuqi, and then we move back to Soyeon again.

Yuqi is dressed as herself, playing an actress but seen rejecting the makeup being put on her. A magazine that reads “Nude” appears in front of Yuqi—before it is then grabbed by Soyeon and tossed aside.  

The lyrics of these scenes go:

Yuqi addresses the audience, asking if they thought she would just laugh along to their opinions of her image instead of rebelling, as she does when rejecting the makeup. She isn’t going to look a certain way and be the person people want her to be just to please them.

In the next scene, Soyeon continues this train of thought as she throws away the magazine, challenging the audience to get rid of their preconceived notion of the word “nude.” She makes a reference to Marilyn Monroe once again (her character in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes is named Lorelei). Monroe loved to read, especially philosophical works, so Soyeon emphasizes here that in addition to being a “bookworm,” she was also a “self-made woman” who deserved more than people wanting to look at her for her body.

Soyeon then continues her verse by saying,

With these words, Soyeon directly calls out the scrutiny of women’s bodies. Think about sentences like, “You’re going out in that? Are you looking for attention?” or “You wearing that was giving me signals” or “Girls should keep in mind how guys look at them.”

Any of this sound familiar?

In the context of this song, the lyrics above challenge anyone in the audience (presumably men) who might be thinking, “We came here to see your skin, how dare you lie to us and instead give us this type of show?” These lyrics can stand on their own as a critique of patriarchal, sexist, and misogynistic thinking patterns when it comes to looking at women.

Through these lyrics and visuals, the song takes stereotypes about women’s bodies and uses them as a direct call-out. This theme continues as the song progresses.

Yuqi sings:

With these pre-chorus lyrics, the song focuses the audience’s attention on the central message of the song right as the chorus starts:

With this chorus, we can see the song has a double meaning: (1) it calls out men’s erotic ideas of women’s nudity, and (2) it is a self-empowering song for women. Even if people (especially men) no longer love them, they will be who they are.

The visuals are nothing short of breathtaking for this scene in the music video. The previous clips are close-ups, putting the focus on the character each member is portraying, but as the song rolls into the chorus, the audience is greeted with a collage of shots of the members dancing as themselves, as members of (G)I-DLE, in the show they are putting on. This is their show. It is their idea of how they should be able to live their lives as themselves, just as they were born—nude.

The lyrics of the chorus “How do I look / Put on my beautiful self” paired with their flamboyant choreography brings attention to how women should be able to flaunt themselves without being seen as sexual objects when they do so.

This message makes Soyeon’s following rap all the more impactful.

These lyrics are another direct call-out. People can be easily lured in with the title of a movie or even just its rating and expect to see certain things. Soyeon plays the act of a piece of artwork that is being sold at an auction house, but she is also rejecting everyone, saying that if they came here with those thoughts in mind, then they’ll have to get a refund.

This theme of literal objectification continues in the music video. We see Shuhua acting as a sculpture and Yuqi as a piece of art in a museum. But after Shuhua’s scene, a curtain drops behind her, showing how everything is just an act. Yuqi on the other hand is acting in accordance with how everyone filming her wants her to—to be the perfect art piece. All the girls put on a show, but at the end of the day, their actions are only in accordance with what the audience wants to see. Once the curtain drops, the girls no longer must put on an act.

Soyeon wrote this song with the intention of addressing this expectation—if they must act in order to garner attention, who is it the audience truly loves?

As we approach the end of the song, an intriguing visual is shown.

A group of people seem to be entranced with a “luxury nude” artwork—and then it is shredded.

But why?

This is an homage to Banksy, an England-based street artist whose real identity remains anonymous even today. In 2018, the instant his piece “Girl with Balloon” sold for $1.4 million dollars at an auction, the piece started falling through the bottom of the frame and was shredded in the process.

Banksy was asked if it was actually shredded—and yes, it was. In addition, the auction house was not in on the plan. Banksy had intentionally built the entire piece with the shredder inside the frame, so if it was ever sold at an auction, this exact scenario would happen.

Back in the music video, as the group of voyeurs surrounds this “luxury nude,” the music video’s audience is reminded once more of the idea that nudity is seen as risqué, and in this case, posh.

“Nxde” shreds that image.

Translated by myself, the lyrics we hear over this scene are as follows:  

We hear the beginning lines repeated, rehashing the main point of this song—get rid of your preconceived notions. This is further solidified by the next line, “Speak out.”

These people are not looking at the piece for its true beauty. It symbolizes that nudeness should not be the main reason people are looking at the art piece. (G)I-DLE ends the song by saying how their nude self is beautiful, because that is how they are born, and the ones who have the misconception and erotic views about “nude” are you, the audience, the people who the song is directed towards.

When Soyeon was pitching the idea for this song to her team, she was inspired by Marilyn Monroe and Banksy, as shown at the end of the music video. But just as there are big references to these two figures, there are also small references within the cinematics. Blink, and you’ll miss them.

“Self-made woman,” “philosophical mad reader,” “woman who is silly,” and “ruined Loreley, she’s so sexy but too stupid” pop out from these newspaper clippings, further showing the real-life impact of these misconceptions.  

For more nuances within the music video, especially for a breakdown of how nicely the video is edited together, check out this reaction video by YouTuber Jordan Orme.

Monroe’s story of objectification shows how many people during her lifetime rarely looked past her appearance and believed that a woman’s intelligence was worthless, or at least less worthy than how she looked. Near the end of Monroe’s life, she made a comment to an interviewer, ”Please don’t make me a joke. End the interview with what I believe.”

Norma Jeane Mortenson was not born “Marilyn Monroe”—it was an act she knew she had to play. Unfortunately, the pressure was too much, even to the point where she changed her legal name to Marilyn Monroe. “If you are born with what the world calls sex appeal, you can either let it wreck you or use it to advantage in the tough show business struggle. It isn’t always easy to pick the right route,” said Monroe to the Chicago Tribune in 1952. 

Sadly, as “Nxde” shows, even today, some people still see women as things, as just pretty faces for people, and especially men, to look at.

This is where Soyeon got the idea for how each member of the group was styled in the music video, to dress as flappers and be portrayed as “dumb blondes.” But their looks are contradictory to the message of the song. They play the act, but they are self-aware. The initial message Soyeon wanted to send when making this song was,

“내가 아닌 모습으로 사랑받을 바에는 나의 모습으로 미움 받겠다.”

[I’d rather be hated for being myself than to be loved as someone who I am not.]

She comments that, although she knows the public likes her image as an idol, she is also a real human underneath and wants to be loved for who she is. Even if people stop loving her for it, she will choose to be herself.

Soyeon wanted to “take it all off”— she wanted to shed her image as an idol and just be her bare self. Hence the title, “Nxde.”

Activist songs like this one aren’t rare in music, but within the world of K-pop, they aren’t seen as much by groups with a considerable amount of fans, mainly because the groups do not want to shoulder the burden of addressing such heavy topics.

However, activist songs in K-pop do exist. Currently, (G)I-DLE is at the forefront of taking on the challenge of addressing more controversial social topics, and “Nxde” is by far their most confrontational and explicit song, as it tackles the taboo of nudity.

With the current traction K-pop is getting across the world, the songs groups are producing are grabbing people’s attention, and perhaps this attention can be used for social good.

I was not into (G)I-DLE until this song of theirs, and it was only after hearing about the message of the song that I first decided to listen to it. (G)I-DLE has shown that sensitive topics can be addressed in ways that are both proactive and entertaining.

(G)I-DLE shows that there is potential to make a big impact with the messages that songs send out to people, especially when people have an emotional connection with music.

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WHERE TO NEXT?

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