Jimmy Kimmel's "pretty gross" interview with Blackpink was a masterclass in condescension

The Muse

"On Tuesday, Jimmy Kimmel—once a gleeful misogynist on The Man Show, now the fully absolved comedian host of the late night television program, Jimmy Kimmel Live—interviewed Blackpink, the biggest girl group on the planet that just so happens to be headquartered in South Korea," says Maria Sherman. "Kimmel’s segment is a masterclass in condescension; it might be the most atrociously American conversation that I’ve seen with a K-pop act to date. It is so bad, it is essentially a guide to 'what not to do' when interviewing an act from a non-Anglophonic country. Kimmel begins the conversation by saying, 'Do you know I speak Korean?' in clunky Korean as a joke, an icebreaker. Fine, but he repeats the bit throughout the Q&A, placing emphasis on different syllables each time. At first, it reads like a lazy joke on his meager language skills, but with each butchered repetition, the Korean language becomes the joke. After switching to English for foundational questions like, 'Are you able to leave your homes, or would you get mobbed by fans?' and 'Why did you decide to call the band Blackpink?' Kimmel decides to return again to language, speaking slowly and a little too loudly, as if interrogating a small child." Sherman adds: "Maybe the easiest solve is to simply treat K-pop musicians like all other musicians interviewed. Just a thought!"