Sports trainer Yang Chi-seung expressed his views on how variety shows are perceived while addressing actor Lee Yi-kyung's "face-wiping controversy."
On the 3rd, a video titled "Appearing on MBC I Live Alone, I will speak frankly" was released on the YouTube channel "Yang Chi-seung's MakTube." That day Yang Chi-seung recalled his past variety show appearances and mentioned the recently surfaced face-wiping controversy involving Lee Yi-kyung.
Yang Chi-seung said, "Wasn't Lee Yi-kyung caught up in the face-wiping controversy? But would there really be someone who eats like that?" and added, "You can tell at a glance it's a variety show, so people usually think it's a joke." He went on to say, "Sometimes people watch variety shows as if they were documentaries and devour them. Of course it can make you wince, but if you really don't like it, you can choose not to watch it."
He also emphasized that most images on variety shows are "concepts." Yang Chi-seung said, "When I was on broadcast, I couldn't go to hotel buffets because of my mukbang image," and added, "People looked at me as if to say, 'Does that person even go to hotel buffets?' I used to go often, but that image was also a concept."
He gave a more blunt explanation of how variety shows are produced. Yang Chi-seung said, "Variety shows are 100% scripted and staged," and added, "If you just leave a cast member alone and film from afar, what kind of show would that be? You film while thinking about what kind of images to create." He added, "Sometimes cast members exaggerate themselves to provide entertainment, and sometimes they do it at the request of the production team. They sacrifice a bit of their image for the program."
Yang Chi-seung said, "I, too, knew what the production team wanted, so I deliberately exaggerated myself and took criticism," and added, "I sympathize with Lee Yi-kyung's controversy."
Earlier, Lee Yi-kyung was criticized for bad manners after performing an exaggerated face-wiping in front of actress Shim Eunkyung on last year's MBC variety show Hangout With Yoo. Afterwards, he claimed that during the process of leaving the show, "At the time of the face-wiping controversy, I clearly said I did not want to do it, but the production team asked me to, and my line 'it's for a variety show' was edited out," arguing that he had to bear the controversy alone.
In response, the Hangout With Yoo production team apologized in an official statement in November last year, saying, "It was the production team's fault for failing to protect the cast member." The production team acknowledged, "Our desire to make people laugh went too far, and we did not sufficiently consider viewers' sensibilities during the production process," and conveyed an official apology to Lee Yi-kyung.
[Photo] OSEN DB / YouTube capture
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