Can we spare Kelly some privacy?

I totally understand if the title of this story sounds completely ironic, considering it is yet another one on the video bombed professor as he attempted to calmly express his views on Korean geo-politics on BBC. But the number of angles and opinions were so sharp in themselves, yours truly had to react. (Also, I have not seen anything on the latest Karan Johar interview, so don’t know what’s going on in that land).

Ok, so for those of you who have not had a chance to catch up on this latest viral gem, the background is that Professor Kelly, a political scientist at the Pusan National University in South Korea was live on BBC sharing his views, when one of his kids walked in with great aplomb into the room, to park herself next to where daddy was sitting. Ostensibly the clueless dad had not figured out by then what was going on behind him, and when the BBC anchor told him that one of his kids just walked in, he gently tried to push the child away from the camera with little effect. Just as he was doing so, his younger one also decided to have some share of the limelight, strolling right in, in a walker. Kelly’s embarrassment is palpable, and so is the horror on the face of the children’s caregiver who runs in a few seconds later only to drag the children (quite literally) out of the room after some banging into doors. Leaving the door open, she makes a final appearance, not even getting a chance to stand up before closing it, finally leaving the poor professor in peace to discuss the Korean situation.

The video is hilarious and it is adorable. And it is the kind of thing that can happen to anyone, because kids, are kids. And that is the beauty of it. Many people clearly think so too (or some version of it), but there are others who don’t. And this post addresses some of the issues raised by those who don’t see the warmth of family in it.

For instance, one commentator thought the video was a reflection of a patriarchal culture, in so far as the dad gets to do his work while he is confidently assured that someone is taking care of his little ones. I don’t even know where to start on this one. It is a less than 3 minute video, and it could well be that the dad had exactly those minutes away from his role as the caretaker for the children before he ran back to take care of them. To suss out a feminist angle from this minute slice of an individual’s life is a bit rich. And I am all for feminism, as any reader on this site would well know.

The next criticism levelled against the hapless dad is that his pushing his child out of the picture is a corollary to the above, in that, the manner in which he moves the child away suggests it is not his responsibility. To that, I will only say, the guy was caught completely unaware, possibly couldn’t even see how much of his action or the room is visible on TV and he possibly reacted in panic. God knows if our nightmare moments start getting filmed like that! It was not the most politically correct reaction, but a completely believable one. He might or might not feel responsible for the child in actuality, but I am not sure how a derivation of the kind can be made from this video.

The third criticism is about the identity of the female caregiver, which most assume to be a nanny, but actually turns out to be Kelly’s wife and the children’s mother. This is being seen as a racist comment, but it is probably not. Kelly is a white guy, his older kid looks like a regular white child and so does the younger one, though in the latter case it is harder to make out. An assumption that would very naturally be made from this is that both parents are whites. It is just driven by probability. As is the assumption that the caregiver is the nanny. Again, too much derivation is being made from a very small video.

The fact of the matter is, this looks like one sweet family, and maybe it’s time we left them to themselves and lead ourselves out of their private lives.