Emma 26-30: “Debuts & Debutantes”
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Emma is beginning to suspect there's something Frank Churchill isn't telling her. We are beginning to suspect there's something Frank Churchill isn't telling anyone.
We're using our theme of beginnings in this episode to talk about the Regency gentleman's Grand Tour, connect K-pop debuts to young ladies coming out in society, and debate exactly why Frank Churchill made such an extravagant trip to London. (P.S. -- if any generous donors would like to sponsor a Reclaiming Jane 2023 grand tour, we are available. You know. For research.)
Links to topics discussed in this episode:
The Grand Tour -- Regency History
Transcript
Reclaiming Jane Season 4 Episode 6
Emily: [00:00:00] This is Reclaiming Jane, an Austen podcast for fans on the margins.
Lauren: I'm Lauren Wethers.
Emily: And I'm Emily Davis Hale.
Lauren: And today we're reading chapters 26 through 30 of Emma through the theme of beginnings.
Emily: This is one of those where when we pulled the tarot, I wasn't sure how we were gonna find the theme. And then I'm still not entirely sure how we're gonna find the theme. I've got a couple things to maybe tug on, but this was a, a difficult one to try and incorporate into the section we had.
Lauren: We made it work for movement, so I have faith in us for this episode. I think it's gonna take some creativity.
Mm-hmm.
But I think we can make it work.
Emily: It's not really deeply embedded, but I think we can find--
Lauren: we can figure something out.
Yeah.
Emily: We're creative people. All right. Unfortunately, I think I'm the first recap.
Lauren: You are indeed.
Emily: Mm-hmm.
Lauren: which honestly bodes well for me because as I said before we started recording, I didn't take any notes for this section, so I am cheating off you for this recap.
Emily: It took me like 30 minutes to do my recap notes. It was a weird section pacing wise, but--
Lauren: mm-hmm.
Emily: We can talk about that after we recap.
Lauren: Yep. Okay. You have 30 seconds on the clock. Three, two, one. Go.
Emily: So the party at the Coles that Emma was so unsure about is actually happening. Turns out that someone has sent Jane Fairfax a very nice piano forte, which is a hell of a surprise gift. And there's lots of speculation over who the mystery sender is.
Mrs. Weston thinks that Knightley and Jane have something going [00:02:00] on, but Emma says, No, absolutely not. Emma and Harriet get talked into visiting at the Bates' when they're in town. Frank and Emma starts scheming to have a dance, and then Frank is called away by his aunt's sudden illness.
Lauren: The rapid speeding up at the end to put everything in.
Emily: For those who don't know, each of us keeps a timer for the other, and we start counting down on our fingers for five seconds when we get to that point, so we know how much time we have left and the panic sets in.
Lauren: Immediately.
Emily: Mm-hmm. Well, are you ready to make your attempt?
Lauren: No.
Emily: Too bad, you're doing it anyway. Three, two, one, go.
Lauren: Emma goes to the party at the Coles'. She actually has a great time. There's much gossip about the piano forte that's been given to Jane Fairfax. She continues gossiping with Frank Churchill about it and Mrs. Weston. They all have different ideas and theories. They hang out with the Bates and the Churchills and the Westons at different points throughout this section and they continue gossiping about who is in love with who. Frank Churchill's still be really shifty when it comes to Jane. There is something going up with the two of them because he keeps finding excuses to see them, and then doesn't. The Westons wanna have a party and then they can't because Frank Churchill's called away. And that's it.
Emily: You made it with one second left.
Lauren: God bless.
Emily: Nice. Okay, let's, since you mentioned it, let's start in with how weird Frank Churchill is being about Jane Fairfax.
Lauren: He's being very shifty.
Emily: He is so unnecessarily mean about her when he's with Emma all the time, and that is super suspicious to me.
Lauren: Sounds like overcompensating.
Emily: It really does. It also sounds very much like the, you know, elementary school, Oh, he's mean to you because he likes you kind of thing.
Lauren: Oh, I hate that so much.
Emily: Which for the record is bullshit. You should never be mean to anybody, especially someone that you like.
Lauren: Right. But it does kind of come off that way. Like, Oh, he's only pulling your pigtails because he thinks you're cute.
He's only insulting you all the time when he hangs out with Emma because he thinks you're actually really pretty like, yeah. Whatever he's hiding, he's trying to mask it with all of his little side comments to Emma that conveniently align with whatever she's thinking at the time.
Emily: Yeah. Frank is just [00:04:00] so perfectly agreeable that it starts to feel like that's all there is to his personality or to what he shows the society at Highbury. Especially what he shows Emma, because like he literally says that, Well, anything you come up with, I'm certain to agree with. It's like, Sir, what's this about? I feel like there's something going on here that we don't quite grasp and that Emma also doesn't grasp.
Lauren: Mm-mm. And even like one of the first slightly suspicious things that he does in this section is when they're at the Coles' party, and he and Emma are starting to discuss who actually gave her the piano forte, because the party line is that the colonel has given it to her, which would make sense, and which is widely accepted by pretty much everyone except for Emma.
Emma thinks it must have been someone else, and so she's starting to go on this wild thought journey about who it actually could be and comes to the conclusion that the husband of one of Jane Fairfax's other connections is secretly in love with her and he is the one who's actually gifted her this piano forte.
And Frank Churchill is egging her on this entire time, and you can tell he doesn't quite know where she's going with this line of thought, because everything he says shifts in response to the new information she gives him about what her hunch is. But he's not going to actually disagree with her, even though you can kind of tell he thinks it's a bit ridiculous.
But he won't give that away to Emma, and she's not picking up on the fact that he's just nodding along to everything you say. He's not contributing anything new.
Emily: There's something weird up with this guy.
Lauren: I don't like it.
Emily: No, I don't like it.
Lauren: It's suspicious!
Emily: But it is genuinely a mystery to everyone around who has actually sent this entire musical instrument to Jane, which I completely agree with Mr. Knightley's assessment, that that's [00:06:00] kind of a stupid surprise gift to send someone. Like there's no guarantee if you're not intimately familiar with the arrangement of the Bates's home, whether they can even fit it in there.
Lauren: Mm-hmm.
Emily: Is it something that Jane would actually appreciate when she goes off to be a governess somewhere? What's she gonna do with this instrument? Is it just gonna sit at the Bates' and then they have to deal with it? Like what's happening here? It's like giving a child, a puppy for Christmas. Like what were you thinking?
Lauren: Or giving another adult a piece of furniture.
Emily: Yeah, the, I mean, that's exactly what it is.
Lauren: And you've never been to their house before. You don't know what their layout is and you're like, Here's a sofa sleeper. Congratulations. Find a home for it.
Emily: Yeah. Mrs. Weston has a hunch that it could have been Knightley.
Mm-hmm.
Because he is the kind of person who, without saying anything, just does thoughtful, kind deeds for other people.
Like sending the last of his nice apples to the Bates when he finds out they're running low. But then his later commentary that it was kind of a dumb thing to just send someone a piano out of the blue, sort of dispels Emma's worries on that front, that it could have been him because she is extremely opposed to the idea that Knightley might be in love with Jane Fairfax.
Lauren: I wonder why that is.
Emily: I don't know. It's probably not projection.
Lauren: No, she's very violently opposed to the idea that Mrs. Weston brings up, and so every time Mr. Knightley seems to pay Jane Fairfax any kind of special attention. Mrs. Weston kind of looks at Emma and gives her a wink, like, See what I say? And Emma sulks. Like, Mm, no. I mean, he's just being nice.
And then he'll say, Well, what about Jane specifically? And Mrs. Weston will look at her again, and Emma says, No!
Emily: I, I could see it. I mean, I don't know. I would expect that kind of thing from Knightley because he's also like Mr. Elton, a very practical man, and so I think if he were going to [00:08:00] look for a woman to marry, it would be someone of a similar standing.
And Jane is not necessarily a bad connection for him. She's not from a questionable family or anything, but she's definitely not on par with Knightley. So she would be maybe a slightly unusual choice for mistress of Donwell, but I, they both seem like quite nice, practical people with good skills to have and may very well get along nicely.
So.
Lauren: Which is really all you need for Regency marriage.
Emily: Yeah, really.
Lauren: Just don't want to kill each other every second of every day. And you'll probably be fine. And Emma's also very concerned because her nephew is currently the one who's going to inherit because of course, Mr. Knightley's brother is married to Emma's sister, and because Mr. Knightley has no children, the first born of his, of his younger brother would be the one to inherit Donwell. And Emma first uses that as her opposition to him being in love with Jane Fairfax or marrying at all. And because she's saying to Mrs. Weston, 'Mr. Knightley, marry? Oh no, that can never be the case because my nephew has to inherit it.'
And Mrs. Weston's like, 'Well, you know, I would hate that for him too. But Mr. Knightley is not obliged to not have children so that his brother's son can inherit his family home. That's not really how that works, honey. You're kind of going to have to get over that,' and Emma says, 'No, absolutely not. I will not. This is unacceptable, and he also can't be in love with her. and I'm not upset about that for any particular reason.'
Emily: Emma's reaction to everything Mrs. Weston says in this section is just, 'no bestie.'
Lauren: Exactly. Like no with the heart emoji.
Emily: Exactly.
Lauren: Yeah. What makes it even funnier is that Mrs. Weston approaches Emma with this by saying, 'Oh my gosh, you've rubbed off on me. Now I'm playing matchmaker in my head.' And Emma hates it.
Emily: She's the only one who's allowed to do that!
Lauren: Especially when you're match making someone who she absolutely does not have any feelings for whatsoever.
Emily: Mm. So aside [00:10:00] from whatever is going on with Jane, I think the other main shaking up of the status quo here is the very intense planning that Emma and Frank are putting towards this dance. Well, I don't know if they're really putting that much effort into it, but they're very excited about the idea.
Lauren: It would be great. Frank Churchill immediately makes sure that he asks for Emma's engagement for the first two dances, which Mr. and Mrs. Weston overhear and are elbowing each other like, he did it! He did it! He asked her to dance!
Emily: So they're on this train, along with Emma, of course she qualifies that she absolutely doesn't want to marry him. If she thought that there were any danger of that, she would be trying to discourage him. She's like, It's a little fun flirtation. That's fun.
Lauren: I like attention. It's only right that he should ask me to have the first two dances. Of course. Who else would he ask? Jane? Imagine. Yeah, there's much ado over where it's going to be held. Will it be held at the Westons' home? If so, how many couples are there going to be? Because five seems like it's too small, but then 10... is it really gonna fit in the space?
You're gonna be crowded, you won't really be able to dance properly, and then they decided they're going to have it at the inn, which Mr. Woodhouse is vehemently opposed to because you know that they don't ventilate those spaces properly. How is he supposed to go? Everyone's going to get sick.
Emily: Mr. Woodhouse, oh my God.
Lauren: He earns a 'Bless your heart,' every section.
Emily: Every single section, he gets a bless your heart.
Lauren: And meanwhile, Frank Churchill's also kind of like, egging on Emma's idea of who the real person responsible was for the piano forte. And to Emma's mind, it looks like he's teasing Jane Fairfax about who the real person is who had, has given her this piano forte.
And Emma's actually like, has the grace to be embarrassed for whatever she perceives is going on, because she's like, No, I think you're taking this a little bit too far. She's going to figure out that you're teasing her. This is just supposed to be between us making fun of her. We're not actually supposed to be [00:12:00] making fun of her to her face.
And she's seeing that Jane is blushing and that she kind of picks up on what's happening, however, she knows that Jane is blushing. She doesn't know why Jane is blushing.
Emily: Mm-hmm.
Lauren: could be a multitude of reasons, that's all I'll say. But the prospect of a dance is very exciting because again, as we've talked about before, nothing really happens in this town.
Highbury's a little sleepy small town which Frank Churchill clearly anticipated because even Emma says, 'I bet you like it a lot more now that you've been here. You didn't think you were going to encounter anything much,' and he's like, 'I mean, you're not wrong.'
Emily: Yeah. Apparently there's more going on than he anticipated, and there's more going on than at Enscombe in Yorkshire where he usually lives with the Churchills. So he's apparently appreciative of what little busyness there is about the village.
Lauren: You know, does he still go 16 miles to go get his haircut in London? Sure.
Yeah.
But he likes Highbury when he's there.
Emily: Actually, that reminds me one of the very first things that I noted in this section was about the trip to get his haircut.
Lauren: Oh, yeah.
Emily: And Emma talking to Knightley about how they should interpret this in terms of Mr. Churchill's character. And she says, "I do not know whether it ought to be so, but certainly silly things do cease to be silly if they are done by sensible people in an impudent way. Wickedness is always wickedness, but folly is not always folly. It depends upon the character of those who handle it."
Lauren: She truly has a way to justify everything.
Emily: She really does. And no self-awareness whatsoever.
Lauren: None. Okay.
Emily: Queen of justification.
Lauren: Bless her heart. Just the Woodhouse clan.
Emily: they all get bless their hearts.
Lauren: They really do. But before this dance can happen and more interest is added to Highbury, Frank Churchill's called away on urgent, urgent business.
Emily: He has written to his aunt and uncle to request their [00:14:00] permission for him to stay slightly longer than his allotted fortnight so that they can see the culmination of their planned dance and they sort of begrudgingly give their permission, but then like the next day word comes that his aunt is gravely ill.
Lauren: Mm-hmm.
Emily: and he's not entirely convinced by this. It seems awfully convenient timing. And he even says something to the effect of his aunt's illnesses being basically to suit her.
Lauren: Mm-hmm.
Emily: It seems like she may have a bit of a reputation for being the woman who cried wolf.
Lauren: Exactly. And then he has a very interesting conversation with Emma before he leaves.
Emily: Yeah. Yet another instance of him being super weird.
Lauren: Yeah. So first of all, let's talk about the fact that he went over to the Bates house before he came to talk to Emma. That's kind of glossed over over the course of the conversation because Emma, of course, assumes that he's come to Hartfield first because of course he would come to, you know, commiserate with her about having to leave. And so she says, You know, not five minutes to spare even for your friends, Miss Fairfax, Ms. Bates, how unlucky, blah, blah, blah. And he says, oh! I actually did call there.
Emily: I was there first, before.
Lauren: Yeah, but he, he tries to play it off as "I have called there, passing the door. I thought it better, it was the right thing to do. I went in for three minutes and was detained by Ms. Bates being absent, so only Jane Fairfax was there. She was out and I felt it impossible not to wait until she came in."
Emily: Mm-hmm.
Lauren: Interesting! And then you came-- anyway, so there's, there's that little piece of information that Emma doesn't really process.
Emily: Which we can also combine with earlier, during Emma's coerced visit to the Bates' where they come in and Frank has apparently for like 15 minutes, been trying to screw in this spectacles screw for. Mrs. Bates.
Lauren: Mm-hmm.
Emily: And they're like, Wow, you haven't done that yet. And he's makes some offhand comment about how, oh, well he was, he was helping Miss Fairfax with the piano the whole time. So he is [00:16:00] just gone back to it. I'm sure. I'm certain that's what was happening.
Lauren: I'm positive.
Emily: But continue with this later scene, please.
Lauren: So then he kind of, he's acting a little shifty, says he hesitates, he gets up, he walks to the window and then he turns around and he says to her, "in short, perhaps Miss Woodhouse, I think you can hardly be quite without suspicion." And then it says, "he looked at her as if wanting to read her thoughts. She hardly knew what to say. It seemed like the forerunner of something absolutely serious, which she did not wish. Forcing herself to speak, therefore, in the hope of putting it by, she calmly said, 'You were quite in the right, It was most natural to pay your visit.'" Then she's not really sure what it is that he thinks is so obvious, and so she doesn't know how to respond. And that's clearly not the response that he was expecting from her
So it just says that, "he was silent. She believed he was looking at her, probably reflecting on what she had said and trying to understand the manner she heard him sigh. It was natural for him to feel that he had caused a sigh. He could not believe her to be encouraging him." I don't know that that's why he's sighing Emma.
Emily: Yeah, I don't think it is. She, of course, thinks that he was about to like declare his love for her or something.
Lauren: Mm.
Emily: I don't agree that that's what's going on here.
Lauren: I don't think so either. I mean, it's such a classic case of miscommunication where each party thinks that they perfectly understood the other, and the other has understood them, and in reality, they come away with completely different interpretations of that conversation.
Emily: I can believe that he was perhaps about to reveal something to her.
Lauren: Mm-hmm.
Emily: But I don't think it was about his feelings for Emma.
Lauren: Yeah. I was like, it's about his feelings for someone.
Emily: Mm-hmm.
Lauren: I dunno that it's for Emma.
Emily: I wonder who send that piano forte.
Lauren: Oh my god. I don't know. who would be so--
Emily: who spends an unusual amount of time concerned about Jane Fairfax and also has a lot of money.
Lauren: Who also went to London, presumably just to get his hair cut. And makes really imprudent decisions.
Emily: Oh my god! I didn't even make that connection. Was he there [00:18:00] ordering the piano forte?
Lauren: I don't know. But it would make more sense for him to go to London for that than to get a haircut.
Emily: That's true. I was fully ready to believe that he just made that trip for a haircut.
Lauren: I honestly was too, and then I thought about it and I was like, Hmm.
Yeah. So Emma thinks that he's completely in love with her and was about to propose. And then she believes, you know, I must be at least a little bit in love with him. Like that would be natural, right? But she's rationalizing herself into believing that she has feelings for him. That's not how that works.
And what also cracks me up is that she seems to equate being bored with being in love. You just don't have anything to do! Because she says as she's trying to convince herself that what she's feeling is actually like, some form of regard for Frank Churchill, she says, "This sensation of listlessness, weariness, stupidity. This disinclination to sit down and employ myself. This feeling of everything's being dull and insipid about the house. I must be in love."
No, I think you're bored.
Emily: Yeah.
Lauren: I think you're just out of things to do. And so you're imagining what being in love feels like.
Emily: Frank Churchill came in and kind of shook up the neighborhood. He was a new person to be in company with, and now he's gone. And you also miss being flattered.
Lauren: Mm-hmm.
Emily: I think that's just what it is. I don't think you're in love with him.
Lauren: Would that we could tell her that.
Emily: Oh, if only. Emma, perhaps more than any other Austen heroine so far, maybe excepting Fanny Price, is the one that I most want to just take by the shoulders and say, please. Listen to a single piece of advice.
Lauren: I think she has the least amount of sense.
Emily: Yes, I agree with that.
Lauren: All of the wealth, and I don't wanna say none of the brain power, because that's not true. She is quite smart. She just doesn't really have the reasoning.
Emily: She has more money than sense.
Lauren: Exactly. Okay. Now that we've gone through all of the, all of the events, where can we find beginnings in the varied happenings of this section?
Emily: Geez, I don't know. [00:20:00] God, I feel like the closest I got to finding beginnings was the talk of there possibly being a connection between Knightley and Jane.
Lauren: Mm-hmm.
Emily: But even that's a little bit of a stretch. I don't know. Did you see anything more?
Lauren: I took Emma's visiting the Coles as the beginning of like, a new social structure.
Emily: Oh, that's good.
Lauren: Since she had been so vehemently opposed to it before, her visiting the Coles and actually enjoying herself might change what the social fabric of Highbury looks like moving forward. Maybe not in any drastic fashion since the Coles had already kind of been working their way up before.
It's not as though they would've gone from zero to hero immediately, but it is a significant shift in what those dynamics look like amongst the top dog families of the town.
And then I think other places where we see beginnings. I, well, this is the first time that we've seen Emma actually try and believe herself to be in love with someone.
So that's the beginning of something.
Emily: That's true.
Lauren: Of her at least trying to imagine that not that she would marry him, but that she could have feelings for someone. There's feeling somewhere in there, but not for the person she thinks. But we at least have seen her start to consider the idea. And this isn't necessarily a beginning because it's clearly been ongoing, but I think the readers are starting to see the beginning of the relationship between Frank Churchill and Jane Fairfax.
It did not start in this section, but I think we start to see behind the scenes or between the lines really what they're really, what their relationship is.
Emily: Yeah. I think it becomes a lot more noticeable here.
Lauren: Mm-hmm.
Emily: because we get these accounts of the time that they've actually spent together, whereas before it's just Frank's comments to Emma about Jane.
Lauren: Yeah, so that's kind of shoehorning it a little bit because it's not really beginning, but we as readers are beginning to understand.
Emily: good enough for me.
Lauren: Thank you.
Emily: I'll count it.
Lauren: I'll be here all week, all [00:22:00] season even. But yeah, those I think were the, the big places where I saw beginnings where I wasn't really like, really twisting things to get it to work just so that I could find a beginning somewhere.
Okay. So it sounds like we'll probably have more with beginnings in historical context and pop culture connections.
Emily: I mean, I can make it fit with beginnings, but.
Lauren: Okay.
Emily: It was, Look, it's been a rough week, guys.
Lauren: Whatever you have is magical and perfect.
Emily: Thank you. I appreciate your confidence as always.
So this topic came from just an offhand line by Frank about how he had wanted to travel abroad more, but the demands of his aunt and uncle had kind of ruined that plan. I decided to look a little bit into what the Grand Tour would've been.
Lauren: Ooh. Okay.
Emily: Which is something that would have marked the, the end of a young man's education and the beginning of his future career, whatever it might be.
So that's sort of where it fits in with beginnings, because it, it marks a social transition point.
Lauren: Mm.
Emily: So the grad tour was travel throughout Europe that was meant as sort of a finishing touch on a wealthy young gentleman's education. It could last up to three years, which is--
Lauren: it's a long ass tour.
Emily: Amazing. I would love to just go spend three years bopping around Europe. That sounds great. Unfortunately, I'm not a wealthy Georgian gentleman.
Lauren: You don't just have unlimited money to not work for three years and gallivant across an entire continent?
Emily: You think I would be doing all the things that I'm doing right now if I were?
Lauren: You wouldn't be hanging out with me?!
Emily: I would be hanging out with you, but everything else in my life...
the grand tour was most popular in the second half of the 18th century, although there was some form of it [00:24:00] from like the mid 17th up through the 19th century. It paused somewhat with the outbreak of the Napoleonic Wars, which lasted from around 1805 to 1815, which kind of made travel on the continent a little more complicated.
Lauren: Given.
Emily: Yeah, there was a small resurgence after that. So the publication of Emma does fit into that period. So it's possible that Frank would've just been going on some kind of small travel to a specific site or something like that. But the Grand Tour was what came to mind, so.
It was really intended to expose these young travelers to the cultural legacies of antiquity and the Renaissance, which was why Italy featured really heavily in the sort of classic itineraries of the Grand tour.
The typical travel for an English tourist would've been initially crossing the channel, the English Channel, to either Belgium or France. They would study among French high society for a while, getting some experience with language and dancing and fencing and writing and manners and fashion and all those things that Paris is supposedly really good for.
Lauren: So bougie.
Emily: I know, right? They would often spend a little time in urban Switzerland, which is like the heart of the Protestant Reformation. So I don't know, we get a little theology in there, I guess. After Switzerland, they would cross the Alps into Italy for the bulk of this tour. they would visit cities of the high Renaissance like Florence and Milan, Venice, visiting ancient ruins and artistic masterworks around Rome.
Some young men might study music in Naples. They could see the beginnings of archeology happening at Pompeii and Herculaneum and Sicily. Occasionally they would even travel over into [00:26:00] Greece. On the way back, they would often go through German speaking areas of the continent and possibly spend some time studying at universities.
And then there would often be a stop in like the low countries, so Netherlands and stuff like that before they returned to England.
Lauren: That sounds like a dream.
Emily: I know.
Lauren: I wanna go.
Emily: I would love to take this trip, actually.
Lauren: Oh, thank you for sharing that and inspiring us to want to go on our very own grand tour. We can dream.
Emily: We can dream. What was your pop culture connection with beginnings in this section?
Lauren: So I am going back to a tried and true topic, but a specific element of it. So when I think of beginnings, I think of the word debut. I think of Regency era debuts, but I also think of K-Pop debut. Which is a very specific thing.
So for Western pop artists, there is a concept of like a debut solo or a debut album. You know, it's your very first entry onto the scene, but it's not as much of a concept as it is in Idol K-Pop. I think when we think of K-Pop, and usually when I say that, we are referring to Idol K-Pop, but that's not the only type of like pop music there is in Korea.
It's just what's most popular and exported.
Emily: Would you explain what the difference is between Idol K-Pop and other kind of K-pop?
Lauren: Idol K-pop is very specifically produced usually by the big three companies or labels, so SM, YG, JYP entertainment. Those are the labels that are usually putting together like trainees from the time they're very young, so like 12, 13 years old.
I think is usually the youngest. I don't think they have trainees younger than that, but somebody who's much more into K-Pop might listen to this and correct me. If that is not accurate, someone let me know.
Emily: And also for the record, Lauren's not referring to any notes right now. This is off the top of her head.
Lauren: I told you I didn't have notes, we're going based off of [00:28:00] vibes this episode.
Emily: All right. Please continue.
Lauren: So those, those three companies will have trainees that are living on a campus. They're learning how to sing, they're learning how to dance. They're learning how to do both simultaneously with the hope of becoming an idol, either solo or most likely as part of a group.
You can be a trainee and never debut, which is rough, but the sad reality of things. Regular pop music, none of that.
Emily: Like luck of the draw, kind of like it tends to be for Americans.
Lauren: Yeah, so what is most popular is obviously like, Idol K-Pop. That's what's exported across the globe. That's what most people think of. But there are, I mean like indie pop artists in Korea, just like there would be indie pop artists here. So just wanted to make that distinction, that idol K-Pop is not the only type of Korean pop music that there is, but that is beside the point.
So in Idol K-Pop, specifically, there'll be like a rollout of a group, not just a rollout of like their song or their first album.
So they'll announce, first of all, that let's say YG Entertainment has a new girl group debuting. You won't know anything else, but you will know there will be a new group on the scene from this company specifically in 2022. We'll say --there's not this year, but just for example.
They will have selected the group members ahead of time. Cause that's the other thing with idol K-pop groups, because they're all trainees with a certain company, the company will choose which trainees are going to be in the group. So it's been chosen ahead of time and there's just a specific date when they're going to debut. One notable exception for companies choosing the group members is Stray Kids, which is a third generation boy band, so like a more recent K-pop group.
And the leader of that group actually got to choose who was going to be in the group with him. So they chose him, but then he got to choose the other people, which is very rare and super cool.
Emily: Interesting.
Lauren: And then they'll start to post information about who's in the group. So for example, they're start posting pictures of each member. You'll get like their ages, their names, what their role is in the groups, so are they a singer, are they a [00:30:00] rapper? Are they a dancer, Are they a visual? You'll start to get that type of information ahead of time, and then eventually you'll get the song and visuals.
So K-POP is as visual as it is meant to be auditory and listened to. Visuals in K-pop go hard. So you'll get the song and you get the music video simultaneously, you'll have teasers for the music video specifically. So at the time of recording, Blackpink is getting ready to release Pink Venom, which is their latest comeback single, and they had been teasing the single for weeks first by just concept photos for each member, there are four members in Blackpink, so there'll be a concept photo for each one.
I think there's been two different concept photos and then there's been individual teaser concept videos for each member. They are not that long. They're only like 15 seconds each, but just enough to like get you a sense of what the vibe of the music video is going to be. Get people excited to see their favorite member and a new look because of course they're all going to debut new aesthetics for this music video and this new era.
And then teaser music videos with all of the members and posters and all this stuff, all of this before the song is released.
Emily: Wow.
Lauren: So a debut is a big thing, especially when it's the very first entry of this group into like the halls of K-pop, you know, to be known to the general public and hopefully to the international world if that happens to be a thing.
It made me think about like Jane and Emma aren't like debuting specifically in this section, but thinking about the Regency era debut and what it meant for a young woman to debut into society, and also how structured and monumental that was for you to be out. So like there was the whole conversation in Mansfield Park last season about whether or not Fanny was out or not.
And if you were a, a lady of a certain social circle, that debut was a big deal. You know, obviously for people who were not like super upper class, like in the ranks of the, in the Queen's court, it wasn't as big of a deal. But for those select few who were, I can only imagine how carefully orchestrated that [00:32:00] entry in society was.
About as carefully orchestrated as a K-pop group's entry into, into the public eye.
Emily: That's so cool. I had no idea about all the production that goes into that kind of thing. I mean, even for like American music, I'm definitely more into like indie--
Lauren: mm-hmm.
Emily: --stuff. And so usually the only way I know a new album is out is like I happen to see a tweet from the band or something.
Yeah, but wow, that's, I-- cuz I knew there was a lot of like production and training that goes into that kind of thing, but Wow. Even doing like concept teasers for individual members before even a music video comes out.
Lauren: Oh yeah.
Emily: Is so much.
Lauren: They've been teasing this Blackpink single, So the single drops this upcoming Friday.
So, ha. You guys are gonna be able to tell when we recorded this episode, but they've been teasing it for at least a week. So they would post maybe two videos per day on their Instagram story and on YouTube. So it'll be, you know, these two members this day, and then these two members a different day. It'll be concept posters and then videos and images and all this stuff.
And that's after they already started generating excitement just by saying there would be a new single and a new video or a new album, rather, because this group specifically their label tends to keep them in a box. Because they know that it generates so much demand because they're already so popular. And so they had been a group for four years before they released their first full length album.
Emily: Wow.
Lauren: So they kept dropping mini albums and it was generating a lot of excitement. They went on a world tour, they went to Coachella, all before they actually released an album.
Emily: They went on a world tour before they released an album. Man, Korean pop is on a completely different level of marketing.
Lauren: I think at the time they went on that world tour, they maybe had 10 songs. Maybe.
Emily: That's incredible.
Lauren: I would have to go back and like look at the chronology of when their singles were released, but I don't think they had that many songs because they just kept releasing like mini albums that had four songs on them. [00:34:00] They had not released like a full length actual album until 2020 and they debuted in 2016.
Emily: Absolutely nuts.
Lauren: So for them it's a little bit different because they can literally post like a picture of one member and it will get 5 million likes.
Emily: How do we get that kind of engagement?
Lauren: K-pop marketing honestly needs to be studied more than it is. I know it is being studied, but I need more because the level of devotion and parasocial relationships that they can create is honestly incredible.
Emily: Yeah, man, those marketing teams have really figured out how to use that to their best advantage.
Lauren: Yeah, and I was thinking about merch as like part of a rollout of also the idea of scarcity. So they'll keep things up on the website that are sold out just to show you that you didn't get to it in time. So if there's something from a last era, it won't just be, Oh, there's nothing on the website.
And we'll restock our merch store later. Like, no, it will show you, Here are all the things that had you decided to jump on this train earlier, you could have had, to be like the other fans who show up to concerts with like all of their merch and their t-shirts and era specific content. You could have had that, but you can't because it's sold out and we know there's demand for more and we will not make any.
So that as soon as we produce more merch, you buy it at the drop of a hat because you don't want it to be gone. You want in, you wanna be part of it.
Emily: Yeah. Producing artificial scarcity.
Lauren: Mm-hmm. they can make more t-shirts.
Emily: But it serves the brand to not do that.
Lauren: Exactly.
Emily: Man, The psychology of marketing is unfathomable to me.
Lauren: Even knowing the psychology of marketing, like it still sometimes works on me where I'm like, Oh, I wanna get this before it sells out. I'm like, Oh, I don't need this. I don't need to spend $50 on like an album bundle. This is ridiculous.
Emily: But you could miss out on it.
Lauren: But I could miss out. And what if I get to be part of something that like it becomes limited edition later.
And why?
Emily: Because it works! Even when you're aware of it, it works.
Lauren: Mm-hmm. And that has been my pop culture connection for today of beginnings. Beginnings, and debuts of all [00:36:00] kinds.
Emily: Thank you for sharing that. I love learning new things about the pop world.
Lauren: I am still definitely learning K-pop, so I feel like there might have been some like details that got a little fuzzy, but it is endlessly fascinating to me, so I am glad that you enjoy learning about it because I also enjoy learning about it and then sharing it with other people.
Emily: This is why we love doing this podcast.
Lauren: It really is.
Emily: Alright. Well, I recapped first, so it's up to you to kick off our final takeaways today.
Lauren: Hmm. Everything is not what it seems. The end.
Emily: Works for me.
Lauren: That is my final takeaway.
Emily: Okay.
Lauren: What's yours?
Emily: I think mine is sort of related to yours, but that our perspectives can get in the way.
Lauren: Yeah, that makes sense. That our perception can cloud reality somehow.
Emily: Yes, definitely.
Lauren: Thank you.
Emily: Glad you appreciated it. I think it's your turn to pull our tarot.
Lauren: I believe you are correct. Seven of spades.
Emily: Our theme for next time is assertion.
Lauren: Ooh. Okay.
Emily: Seven of spades is the chariot. Coachmen in a horse drawn carriage are in control and know where they're going.
Lauren: I wonder if the illustration on this card is, Willoughby and Marianne? Cuz that's what it's reminding me of.
Emily: Oh, it does look like that. There's a man and a woman in a horse-drawn carriage who seemed to be going very fast.
Lauren: It suits the two of them, I think.
Emily: It does.[00:38:00]
Lauren: Thank you for joining us in this episode of Reclaiming Jane. Next time, we'll be reading chapters 31 through 35 of Emma with a focus on assertion.
Emily: To read our show notes and a transcript of this episode, check out our website, reclaimingjanepod.com, where you can also find the full back catalog and links to our social media.
Lauren: If you'd like to support us and gain access to exclusive content, you can join our Patreon @ReclaimingJanePod.
Emily: Reclaiming Jane is produced and co-hosted by Lauren Wethers and Emily Davis Hale. Our music is by LaTasha Bundy, and our show art is by Emily Davis Hale.
Lauren: See you next time, nerds.
I don't know who wants to sponsor this, but can we open this opportunity up for people who are not straight white men from the British Isles? Cause that would be great.
Emily: We can be your test program. We'll, we'll be your pilot trip.
Lauren: We volunteer as tributes.
Emily: Mm-hmm.
Lauren: Yes.
Emily: You know, it would just be really deep immersive research for the podcast to be able to experience what a, a young gentleman of the English gentility would have had the opportunity to do during the regency.
Lauren: We'll even produce content about the entire experience.
Emily: That would be amazing. This -- we'll do a bonus season just on this. If someone will sponsor us.
Lauren: Oh my God, I'll become a travel vlogger.
Emily: I love this idea. Someone make it happen, please.
Lauren: We have passports. I just renewed mine.
Emily: I'll get back on Duolingo.
Lauren: I'll be back here in 2032. Actually, you might not ever see me again. 10 years of not being in the US, I don't know that I would come back. Maybe for Popeye's.