Sunmi Leans Into the Wild and the Weird

Credit: Abyss Company

In “Heart Burn”, SUNMI plays the role of a summer temptress. Her hair is worn at waist length and is a fiery red that resembles a hot, burning sun. When she smiles she looks as if she is holding back a secret that you must come close to listen to. Of course, this is how SUNMI’s character in “Heart Burn” draws her victims in. Overcome by madness and obsession, she poisons her lovers one by one across different generations. 

“The lyrics to “Heart Burn” are about a woman suffering from a love fever. She loves someone so much that she “develops a fever and heartburn,” SUNMI explained in a recent interview. 

“Heart Burn” confirms that SUNMI is one of the most compelling, versatile stars of her generation. She’s been in the industry since 2007, debuting as a member of Wonder Girls, but with each comeback the singer has found a way to shapeshift and evolve. SUNMI is adept at playing a new character each era. Perhaps this started in her JYP days when she portrayed a Dreamette (from the musical “Dream Girls”) in the video for “Nobody”. She’s been transforming into characters that lean towards the weird ever since.. Last year she channeled Regina George as she fought off zombies in the video for “You Can’t SIt With Us”. Halfway through the video, she brandishes a hot pink shotgun and brazenly asks, “Who do you think you are?” Then chides, “You can’t sit with us!” 

The personas SUNMI portrays in each comeback, particularly with “Heart Burn”, reflect an artist interested in the concept of women who are perceived as difficult by society. Her new tour name “GOOD GIRL GONE MAD” also builds on this narrative. But what makes a woman go mad?

“It’s important to take some time off when you’re having a hard time,” SUNMI said in an episode of “Running GIrls”. Nearly six years ago the singer was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. The diagnosis answered questions SUNMI held for years about her mental health.  “I left Wonder Girls to take some time off. At that time, I was dealing with mental illness rather than physical illness. I debuted as a solo artist, I promoted with Wonder Girls again, I left the agency, and I had a lot of time to think about myself. But that time started to eat away at me.” 

At the time of her departure from Wonder Girls, SUNMI was a trailblazer in K-Pop. In an interview with SUNMI this year, a writer for Teen Vogue hailed K-Pop’s second generation the “golden age”. I would argue that instead of being the genre’s peak, it is actually the start of K-Pop as we know it.  

 But debuting as a child can be brutal. With the benefit of time, SUNIM began to see how punishing the workload was for her mental health. “I debuted at such an early point in my life. I got my start in society too young,” she reflected in the same episode. “We’re supposed to develop the ‘self’ in our teenage years, but I spent most of that time in a car.” Without the opportunity to make mistakes or to feel like a normal teenager, SUNMI instead only felt pressure. 

“About five years ago, I was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. That was what had been tormenting me so much. It was such a relief. After I was diagnosed, I got treatment and medicine, and it got better,” she said. 

“You have to take care of those fundamentals so that the people around you can be comfortable as well. I learned that borderline personality disorder is often hard on the people around you,” she continued. “I want the people around me to be happy and not be hurt because of me. I want to love them, but that also comes from something inside of me that wants to be loved in return.”

With the freedom to talk about her mental health, SUNMI’s work became more complex. Her sultry, raspy voice evolved into a tool to portray characters who take risks and explore the dangers of intimacy or love. To be exact, SUNMI’s characters reflect different pieces of who she is. 

Take the “Borderline” video, for example, which is about living with mental illness. “I’m trying to be a good girl,” she sings dressed in all black as she dances inside of a white box. “Didn’t meant to fake it/ Getting used to saying I’m okay/ And yelling to myself don’t push me away” 

The woman in “Borderline” knows what you think of her: she’s crazy, she’s difficult, she’s unhinged. But she’s tired of everyone asking, “What’s wrong with her?” Instead, she counters their accusations with a protest: “It’s been years taking Xanax, and I’ve gotten so much better,” she argues.  

What SUNMI seeks in “Borderline” is understanding. “Don’t put me in a bad light,” she asks at the end. 

The fiery red temptress of “Heart Burn” is a woman fed up with trying to be good. She’s sly and cunning. She’s unapologetic in her recklessness. SUNMI portrays three different women who use their looks and charm to overwhelm their lovers and kill them. In a 1960s villa, she sneakily poisons her wealthy husband but feigns distress as she tries to cool him off with a washcloth as he dies in bed. 

Cut to a new scene and SUNMI has assumed a new identity. “Summer heat doesn’t cool off all night,” she sighs, costumed as a cowgirl in a western city square. “I keep dancing dangerous moves.” In a new scene, the singer’s hair is rolled into bouffants and she wears a gown. SUNMI’s sophisticated look contrasts with the wood paneled motel room and the grungy man who creeps up behind her. He’ll be dead soon, too. 

The heat inspires SUNMI to commit crimes but she remains unbothered in her madness. Instead, she dances around the motel room as a new man dies. Later, she spreads flower petals at a graveside and leaps like a child playing jump rope (which, to note, is part of the stage choreography). 

Throughout her work, SUNMI disassembles and reconfigures what it means to be a woman driven to the edge. She’s learned to tell stories that are a series of wrong turns. Her characters are women who taunt those that upset them. “Don’t call me honey cause I ain’t gonna be your sweet girl,” she pouts in “You Can’t Sit With Us.” 

SUNMI’s work describes women who rip apart at the seams. She works best within complicated combinations that don’t nicely add up. Billowy fans. Ballet slippers. A few pills to wash down the pain. The women in her songs  seek self-empowerment but might self-destruct along the way. She pursues pleasure and intimacy but admits that she might be a danger to herself.  Sometimes, she suggests, she might work against her best interests and ruin what could be a good relationship. “I’m not much of a drinker, but I’m a dream girl,” she wistfully declares in “Tail”. 

SUNMI warns that her beauty can deceive her sharp thorns. Don’t be surprised if she digs her “sharp thorns in” as she tells an ex-lover in “Gashina”. These thorns are a form of self-preservation though. She wasn’t always like this. This vengeance comes naturally to her lover, but not her. “You already bent and twisted me. So don’t act like you’re sorry,” Sunmi continues. “But you’re the one who’s really twisted. It’s not me, it’s you.” In the choreography, her hands represent soft flowers while her fingers twist into the shape of a gun. 

SUNMI primes her music with this seductive anxiety. She was an artist of mass production when she debuted in Wonder Girls, but SUNMI’s finds the weird to be more of a home for her. She embraces the madness and the wrong in her art to create something that reflects the disillusionment of our aimless millennial generation. Even as her women fall apart and tilt into incoherence, SUNMI knows that being an anti-hero is more interesting than simply winning.