Kpop Demon Hunters: Oscar Winner and an Allegory for Womanhood?

I was introduced to KPop Demon Hunters one night when my niece was over for a sleepover. We did our traditional, turn my sofa into a bed, make a big bowl of popcorn, dump tons of candy into it and binge watch movies until we pass out. As a 13 year old girl her choice in early fall was Kpop Demon Hunters. As the cool auntie I obliged obvi, but I rolled my eyes (in my head) at the thought of watching an animated kids movie. Cut to me sobbing on the sofa during “This is What it Sounds Like” three months later watching it by myself on a Friday night. 

Now that this animated film is coming off of the film’s Oscar wins for “Best Animated Film” and “Best Original Song” with “Golden”, it feels like this movie is getting the recognition it deserves outside of Millennial parents and their kids. 

So why am I singing the praises of what is, by all accounts, a kid’s film? What is it about this movie that appeals to me and my fellow millennials so deeply? Well, when I really watched it I found somethings that deeply resonated with my journey during womanhood. Maybe I’m overthinking this incredible Korean animation but here we are once again crying on the sofa, fearless and undefined, relating it back to my own journey. 

I’ve never been a feminist who bashes Disney princesses because I’ve seen the value and evolution they’ve made over the years. They’re not perfect models of girl or womanhood but we must always allow context for the zeitgeist. In my mind, Ariel was never a girl who gave up her voice for a man, to me, she was a girl who made sacrifices and mistakes to go on an adventure and the man was a fun side quest. 

It’s true that too often we get so derailed on these fun side quests and see the cost to countless women but if we look back at who Ariel or Belle were to us at the time versus who our mothers and grandmothers looked to, we were still pretty lucky to be sold adventures and a man rather than just a man and quaaludes to make life manageable.

Fast forward to the night I watched Kpop Demon Hunters with my niece, while I respected and accepted the narrative of my youth, I noticed I’ve been actively celebrating the narrative this movie is selling to the current generation. I’ve mentioned to anyone who will listen that Huntrix are the Spice Girls for this generation and I wholeheartedly believe that. While the Spice Girls said « if you wanna be my lover,  you gotta get with my friends » Huntrix raised their lyric « we’re shattering the silence, we’re rising, defiant shouting in the quiet » making it ok for girls to be whatever they want to be in life, darkness and all. What a healing message, that these kpop demon hunter fans will not understand until they’re older, if ever.

In the 90’s we were sold girl power and we rode that wave hard and I couldn’t be more proud. In the 2020’s these kids are being sold the power of female friendship, how to avoid the mistakes we made and not take on generational trauma that isn’t their weight to carry. As I watched it again I began to see an allegory for the journey that is womanhood, or at least the one I’ve been on so far and it healed something in me knowing that future generations are being encouraged through their characters to build connections, be themselves and “forget the bs”. 

Where The Allegory Begins…

Netflix Kpop Demon Hunters

Girlhood/Innocence

The carboloading of it all. The opening scene of the girls are sitting in the plane preparing for the show by loading their faces, giggling and generally having a good time. Love this for all of us. We all remember a time in our lives where we kikied with the girls and shoved food in our faces without a care in the world about where that food sticks on our bodies or how many macros or grams of protein are in what we are eating. We circle back around to that (hopefully) at some point but it is a vital part of the girl experience. 

“Listening to that voice in your head, heart, stomach and sometimes even butt that tells you something is off is vital, ignoring it is often the choice we make early on.”

Trusting your intuition

During their cabo loading they’re confronted by their demons. Rumi notices something is off with the flight attendant but kind of brushes it off and goes about her business. We have all been their sister! Trusting your gut is one of the most important lessons a woman can learn in early life. It will literally save your life on more than one occasion. Listening to that voice in your head, heart, stomach and sometimes even butt that tells you something is off is vital, ignoring it is often the choice we make early on. Mine personally was when I married the wrong person and a month before I was to say “I do” I was washing my face and heard “If you marry this person it will end quickly and very badly” my intuition was right but I of course ignored it and those demons kicked my little behind into Christmas. I digress. Rumi, unlike me, brushes it off quickly and then goes back and TRUSTS herself. She, Mira and Zoe call out the demons, kick their asses and get to their show on time to rock the stage. 

Netflix’s Kpop Demon Hunters

Losing Your Voice

We all have a moment in our lives, as women, where we lose our voice, let go of our power and let our metaphorical demons take control. We see this beginning to happen with Rumi when they release “Golden”. She pushes herself to a place that she can’t reach, thinking that is what will fix her problems and make her life better rather than living a life that is authentic to her at a key she can since. We can also say it’s a symptom of the Millennial generation’s inability to relax and allow our bodies to recover because, as the girls are celebrating the fact that they get to now rest Rumi releases their new single right after they get off stage, chanting “couch couch couch couch couch”, excited to relax, forcing everyone back into work. I know this inability to relax all too well, to the point that a French therapist once asked me if I felt like I was about to burn out when I was particularly proud that my life was actually pretty calm. She begged me to go on vacation, that was 4 months ago and I am sad to report much like Rumi, a vacation has not been had. I digress. Whatever the case maybe, the result is that Rumi loses her voice. It’s clear in the story that it is because she isn’t able to fully be herself. She is hiding her true self from the public because she has, what she has been taught, is a shameful secret. 

“I know this inability to relax all too well, to the point that a French therapist once asked me if I felt like I was about to burn out”

Avoiding the Work

There is a time and place in our lives, usually our early twenties, where we start to peel back the layers and understand ourselves better but that is scary. More often than not, we do everything possible to avoid those realities and/or seek outside “healing” in order to get rid of these feelings. Here we can see Zoe, taking Rumi to a doctor who can heal her wounds to get her voice back. Rumi is desperate and willing to try anything, haven’t we all been there? So Rumi heads to the doctor that Zoe suggests to her to try to fix her voice and thus herself. While there the doctor lays on some deep wisdom that again the teens won’t get until much later like “in order to heal a part we must understand the whole” and “focusing on one part, leads to ignoring other parts”. Could this man be more right? However, too many of us as women (and humans) don’t want to enter into those scary places leaving us stuck in this phase. Rumi doesn’t, she realizes that the tonics are nothing more than grape juice and moves on to find another solution. 

Next time we will explore the Mother wound, the responsibility of women, healing generational trauma, the power of female friendship and so much more.