"Children, and adults too, are constantly being told they have to conform to the norms of a narrow nonconformity. Be yourself, and make sure that self is the same different self as everyone else’s..."
Netflix has shown in the past that it would rather underwrite animation that follows this formula than any other kind, to the expense of animators doing more innovative work. And as long as they keep creating "hits" like this based on data metrics they won't share with the public, they are going to keep doing it.
For all that gen x has every right to be cynical, having been raised first on the corporate sponsorship of (XTREME) rebellious individualism, I gotta think this generation’s kids will have them well beat.
We've talked about this before, and what you have here is a much more limited and defensible argument, but I still think you just watched the movie through a filter that makes it hard for you to see what it does well and why people - especially young women - react to it the way they do. Rumi's not supposed to be a "nonconformist" and the message is narrower and simpler, more about contrasting self-acceptance with perfectionism than this broad "countercultural" narrative you're looking for here. It isn't a radical film; it doesn't advance radical aesthetics or radical ethics in any way. There's no "Make It New" here; it's just "Free to Be You and Me." The starting reference point is the culture of perfectionism - and yes that is a huge factor in kpop corporate aesthetics, but it's also, more importantly, a constraint on individual identity in many Asian cultures. Asian-American women frequently reference that as a major psychological burden for them, and that point has been a key message in the film's marketing. Kang works to bring those specifically Asian values and Asian cultural experiences into focus, and that's primarily what Asian viewers have commented on, how much it represents them without the added noise of Western culture they typically see from big American films. Although we could dig deep into the functioning of Kpop in the film (I think it's more interesting than you do), primarily K-pop is an allegory here for "Korean culture" overall, and Korean culture is a metonym for values around society and work and family prevalent in Asian cultures more broadly.
There is a critique of that culture in the film, but it is a very gentle one, focused far, far more on psychology than culture (to the point that Inside Out is really a better comparison than Turning Red or Incanto) and the film wholly rejects the idea that Asian culture needs to completely transform and just "become more Western" in order to be less burdensome to the individuals within it. You're looking for that assertion of radical Western individualism, even of the Western anti-hero, and that is absolutely not the value system of this film; that value, in this context, would be cultural imperialism. Western women and girls also feel various pressures to be "perfect" so it's resonated with us, but as a matter of cultural analysis, I think there's no question that the American context and American culture are mostly irrelevant and that emphasizing them distorts what's actually on the screen. Other than a faint gesture at the cultural observation that "art is more powerful when it isn't constrained by perfectionism," the root message here is primarily psychological: "we are happier and our relationships are stronger when we are unafraid to be wholly ourselves." That root message does return to collectivism and culture writ large, but it does so largely just to assert that the collective is stronger when individual expression within it is more free. But the culturally specific social collective is left intact; it is not disrupted and rebuilt in a Western mode.
I agree that psychological message isn't earth-shatteringly insightful or original, especially to an American viewer, but I do think the film is wholly committed to it and consistent about it across the entire thing. You seem to have watched the film entirely with an American consciouscness, trying to insert a more countercultural value in the mix and then viewing the failure to realize that, to be anything other than mainstream (even corporate), as intrinsically dishonest. I think that's entirely wrong, because the film is ABOUT the mainstream, specifically the Asian mainstream, and Western counterculture is wholly out of the picture. The reference archetype here is successful and upper-middle-class.
You're saying it doesn't commit to a message that I think it doesn't try to send, because you're assuming "non-conformity" means what it means within the American context, far more radical and individualist than it means here. This just asserts a fairly narrow value around self-expression that Western audiences in the US mostly take entirely for granted. I think Kang mostly, merely, intended to be "validating" of women's individuality and the power of our consciousness - especially Asian women's individuality and consciousness. That feels good, necessary, and rare. We don't need grating abrasive "radical" pop - or whatever else you would find adequately subversive - to drive it home and close the circle; that would, largely, miss the point.
Is it a fair critique to say this isn't a radical film? Sure. It is definitely not a "radically anti-corporate" film, which is what you seem to be looking for; there's no guillotine here even though there are tangible critiques and corrections. But having said that, especially in Asian cultures where Western feminist goals are much more emerging than they are here in the US, even validating women's individuality is perhaps a bit more radical than you allow yourself to acknowledge.
I think that it's reasonable to look at a massive american hit in light of american mores?
I think that insisting on only one context is not a great approach to art or criticism. kpop demon hunter is a massive US hit which was created in part by Americans. it's messages are not just to Koreans, but to people in the US. for instance, "you don't have to be perfect, but you'd better be thin" is one message I think the film is broadcasting in both Korea and the US, though perhaps without necessarily planning to.
one place I talked about the Asian context of the brutal constraints on dating imposed on k pop stars? like, the film pretty actively misleads or lies about the relationship between kpop performers and management. I think that's of a piece with its not entirely honest relationship to its own themes.
also...like, queer Korean people and biracial Korean people and fat Korean people and Korean people who want to have romantic relationships all exist? I just don't think it's somehow irrelevant to talk about these issues, and the film's failure in addressing them, in a south asian context, unless you are asserting that Korea is somehow a monoculture. which the movie kind of does assert, which is what I'm arguing is the problem.
Whether it's reasonable depends on what you're trying to do. Are you trying to warn American audiences not to take it seriously or internalize its message? Fair, but you're not being entirely transparent about that, and being misaligned with what Americans need to see and hear isn't intrinsically 'dishonest', even though it might be bad. One of the things that I think is missing here is a recognition that the critique of American culture from Far Eastern cultures is not a Western subaltern critique; it's a critique from an alternate dominant. This film is very on side with that alternate dominant and I think acknowledging that is valuable even if your goal is to help people resist it.
If you're trying to understand the film as such, though, I think it's much less reasonable. It's hard, as I say, to see what the film does well - or even to just see how the film works - if you over-Americanize it. I think you really need to get the context thoroughly in place before advancing a genuine analytic critique, but in this version you definitely are saying things that fit better into that more limited US-centric frame as I say in the first sentence.
As for the industry stuff, I don't think the film is "lying"; I think the film fabricates an alt-universe fantasy version of that world to make the critical point via contrast and comparison. I don't think that is dishonest; I just think it's a narrative mechanism that doesn't work for you. But I think anybody who is reasonably close to kpop recognizes it as wish-fulfillment.
there can be a range of valuable things. but pointing out that the film claims to be fighting for individuality by using metaphors of queerness and biracial identity which it does not deliver on is valuable I think whatever the national context, imo.
I think Mississippi Burning is a dishonest film, and I do not think defending it by saying it's fabricating an alt universe fantasy version of the world to make a critical point would be a good argument. Erasing injustice so you don't have to confront it is in fact dishonest, imo.
They're definitely not metaphors of biracial identity; I can see how you get that but I think it's just a straight mistake to read two fully Korean characters from different social groups - Korean archetypes, even, because that's very much what they are, the "ghost" and the "idol" - as biracial. The demons and the hunters are the same race. They're different (the film claims related) facets of their singular culture, but the difference is deeply internal - and that maps onto the internal psychological argument the film is trying to make. Jinu and Rumi are different groups within their society, but that's a very different metaphor that does different cultural work from one on race. I think the best place you can get to is "this film doesn't work as a race allegory", and I agree with that, but ... it isn't trying to be that, so it seems intrinsically dishonest to me to try and read it that way, especially without establishing why you think it needs to speak to an issue so distant from the creators. (Insofar as racism is a theme in the film, it's the racism of the "model minority", very distinct from the anti-Black racism of miscegenation anxiety; the prejudice this film is concerned with, however, is misogyny.)
I know the film and characters do resonate powerfully with queer audiences; I'm not convinced it fails to deliver on that universally. But I have to go teach so I'll have to pick that back up later.
I think it's fair and accurate to say that KPDH does not get anywhere close to Western ideals of queer sexual expression; I do, however, think that it does a better job of navigating these issues than the girl crush videos do, and I think there are at least some queer viewers who have really embraced the film and that subtext. Without question, the film actively engages and critiques the way the K-Confucian norms impact women and there's obviously some overlap there with queer identity (and queer women in particular).
I do think there's an element in Kang's character-building of "I want everybody who has ever not fit in in some way to be able to identify at least in part with these characters", and that means her "metaphors" aren't crisp, they're intentionally cloudy and loose, and the ones that are the cloudiest do not really hang together that well narratively or critically. I just don't think that extends to "dishonest", though; I would characterize it more along the lines of the criticisms I used to frequently make of Iowa writers, that they're just overly concerned with first-person-voice. I think that's very true here, but I also think that its situation as "female genre fiction" significantly mitigates how much that bothers me, and I definitely think they're very honest and up front about that.
I think it's kind of condescending to say that female genre fiction can't or shouldn't handle metaphor or marginalization with nuance? Romance novels often do.
I don't think the problem is too much concern with first person voice. It's not especialy confessional; again, the issue is the refusal to actually think about the ways in which biracial people (for example) would actually experience prejudice and what that would mean.
And again...it doesn't just not get into specifics. the narrative actually demonizes (literally!) the aspects of her identity that read as biracial, the aspects of her identity that are linked to desire, the aspects of her identity that are uncomfortable with working 24/7. The conclusion of the film is very explicitly saying that certain kinds of identity are *not* okay and must be suppressed/rejected for acceptance. And I don't think the film is honest or up front about that.
"Children, and adults too, are constantly being told they have to conform to the norms of a narrow nonconformity. Be yourself, and make sure that self is the same different self as everyone else’s..."
Netflix has shown in the past that it would rather underwrite animation that follows this formula than any other kind, to the expense of animators doing more innovative work. And as long as they keep creating "hits" like this based on data metrics they won't share with the public, they are going to keep doing it.
For all that gen x has every right to be cynical, having been raised first on the corporate sponsorship of (XTREME) rebellious individualism, I gotta think this generation’s kids will have them well beat.
We've talked about this before, and what you have here is a much more limited and defensible argument, but I still think you just watched the movie through a filter that makes it hard for you to see what it does well and why people - especially young women - react to it the way they do. Rumi's not supposed to be a "nonconformist" and the message is narrower and simpler, more about contrasting self-acceptance with perfectionism than this broad "countercultural" narrative you're looking for here. It isn't a radical film; it doesn't advance radical aesthetics or radical ethics in any way. There's no "Make It New" here; it's just "Free to Be You and Me." The starting reference point is the culture of perfectionism - and yes that is a huge factor in kpop corporate aesthetics, but it's also, more importantly, a constraint on individual identity in many Asian cultures. Asian-American women frequently reference that as a major psychological burden for them, and that point has been a key message in the film's marketing. Kang works to bring those specifically Asian values and Asian cultural experiences into focus, and that's primarily what Asian viewers have commented on, how much it represents them without the added noise of Western culture they typically see from big American films. Although we could dig deep into the functioning of Kpop in the film (I think it's more interesting than you do), primarily K-pop is an allegory here for "Korean culture" overall, and Korean culture is a metonym for values around society and work and family prevalent in Asian cultures more broadly.
There is a critique of that culture in the film, but it is a very gentle one, focused far, far more on psychology than culture (to the point that Inside Out is really a better comparison than Turning Red or Incanto) and the film wholly rejects the idea that Asian culture needs to completely transform and just "become more Western" in order to be less burdensome to the individuals within it. You're looking for that assertion of radical Western individualism, even of the Western anti-hero, and that is absolutely not the value system of this film; that value, in this context, would be cultural imperialism. Western women and girls also feel various pressures to be "perfect" so it's resonated with us, but as a matter of cultural analysis, I think there's no question that the American context and American culture are mostly irrelevant and that emphasizing them distorts what's actually on the screen. Other than a faint gesture at the cultural observation that "art is more powerful when it isn't constrained by perfectionism," the root message here is primarily psychological: "we are happier and our relationships are stronger when we are unafraid to be wholly ourselves." That root message does return to collectivism and culture writ large, but it does so largely just to assert that the collective is stronger when individual expression within it is more free. But the culturally specific social collective is left intact; it is not disrupted and rebuilt in a Western mode.
I agree that psychological message isn't earth-shatteringly insightful or original, especially to an American viewer, but I do think the film is wholly committed to it and consistent about it across the entire thing. You seem to have watched the film entirely with an American consciouscness, trying to insert a more countercultural value in the mix and then viewing the failure to realize that, to be anything other than mainstream (even corporate), as intrinsically dishonest. I think that's entirely wrong, because the film is ABOUT the mainstream, specifically the Asian mainstream, and Western counterculture is wholly out of the picture. The reference archetype here is successful and upper-middle-class.
You're saying it doesn't commit to a message that I think it doesn't try to send, because you're assuming "non-conformity" means what it means within the American context, far more radical and individualist than it means here. This just asserts a fairly narrow value around self-expression that Western audiences in the US mostly take entirely for granted. I think Kang mostly, merely, intended to be "validating" of women's individuality and the power of our consciousness - especially Asian women's individuality and consciousness. That feels good, necessary, and rare. We don't need grating abrasive "radical" pop - or whatever else you would find adequately subversive - to drive it home and close the circle; that would, largely, miss the point.
Is it a fair critique to say this isn't a radical film? Sure. It is definitely not a "radically anti-corporate" film, which is what you seem to be looking for; there's no guillotine here even though there are tangible critiques and corrections. But having said that, especially in Asian cultures where Western feminist goals are much more emerging than they are here in the US, even validating women's individuality is perhaps a bit more radical than you allow yourself to acknowledge.
I think that it's reasonable to look at a massive american hit in light of american mores?
I think that insisting on only one context is not a great approach to art or criticism. kpop demon hunter is a massive US hit which was created in part by Americans. it's messages are not just to Koreans, but to people in the US. for instance, "you don't have to be perfect, but you'd better be thin" is one message I think the film is broadcasting in both Korea and the US, though perhaps without necessarily planning to.
one place I talked about the Asian context of the brutal constraints on dating imposed on k pop stars? like, the film pretty actively misleads or lies about the relationship between kpop performers and management. I think that's of a piece with its not entirely honest relationship to its own themes.
also...like, queer Korean people and biracial Korean people and fat Korean people and Korean people who want to have romantic relationships all exist? I just don't think it's somehow irrelevant to talk about these issues, and the film's failure in addressing them, in a south asian context, unless you are asserting that Korea is somehow a monoculture. which the movie kind of does assert, which is what I'm arguing is the problem.
Whether it's reasonable depends on what you're trying to do. Are you trying to warn American audiences not to take it seriously or internalize its message? Fair, but you're not being entirely transparent about that, and being misaligned with what Americans need to see and hear isn't intrinsically 'dishonest', even though it might be bad. One of the things that I think is missing here is a recognition that the critique of American culture from Far Eastern cultures is not a Western subaltern critique; it's a critique from an alternate dominant. This film is very on side with that alternate dominant and I think acknowledging that is valuable even if your goal is to help people resist it.
If you're trying to understand the film as such, though, I think it's much less reasonable. It's hard, as I say, to see what the film does well - or even to just see how the film works - if you over-Americanize it. I think you really need to get the context thoroughly in place before advancing a genuine analytic critique, but in this version you definitely are saying things that fit better into that more limited US-centric frame as I say in the first sentence.
As for the industry stuff, I don't think the film is "lying"; I think the film fabricates an alt-universe fantasy version of that world to make the critical point via contrast and comparison. I don't think that is dishonest; I just think it's a narrative mechanism that doesn't work for you. But I think anybody who is reasonably close to kpop recognizes it as wish-fulfillment.
there can be a range of valuable things. but pointing out that the film claims to be fighting for individuality by using metaphors of queerness and biracial identity which it does not deliver on is valuable I think whatever the national context, imo.
I think Mississippi Burning is a dishonest film, and I do not think defending it by saying it's fabricating an alt universe fantasy version of the world to make a critical point would be a good argument. Erasing injustice so you don't have to confront it is in fact dishonest, imo.
They're definitely not metaphors of biracial identity; I can see how you get that but I think it's just a straight mistake to read two fully Korean characters from different social groups - Korean archetypes, even, because that's very much what they are, the "ghost" and the "idol" - as biracial. The demons and the hunters are the same race. They're different (the film claims related) facets of their singular culture, but the difference is deeply internal - and that maps onto the internal psychological argument the film is trying to make. Jinu and Rumi are different groups within their society, but that's a very different metaphor that does different cultural work from one on race. I think the best place you can get to is "this film doesn't work as a race allegory", and I agree with that, but ... it isn't trying to be that, so it seems intrinsically dishonest to me to try and read it that way, especially without establishing why you think it needs to speak to an issue so distant from the creators. (Insofar as racism is a theme in the film, it's the racism of the "model minority", very distinct from the anti-Black racism of miscegenation anxiety; the prejudice this film is concerned with, however, is misogyny.)
I know the film and characters do resonate powerfully with queer audiences; I'm not convinced it fails to deliver on that universally. But I have to go teach so I'll have to pick that back up later.
On the queer question, I think you're picking up on some of the things discussed in this article: https://commons.library.stonybrook.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1007&context=soj-articles#page=118
I think it's fair and accurate to say that KPDH does not get anywhere close to Western ideals of queer sexual expression; I do, however, think that it does a better job of navigating these issues than the girl crush videos do, and I think there are at least some queer viewers who have really embraced the film and that subtext. Without question, the film actively engages and critiques the way the K-Confucian norms impact women and there's obviously some overlap there with queer identity (and queer women in particular).
I do think there's an element in Kang's character-building of "I want everybody who has ever not fit in in some way to be able to identify at least in part with these characters", and that means her "metaphors" aren't crisp, they're intentionally cloudy and loose, and the ones that are the cloudiest do not really hang together that well narratively or critically. I just don't think that extends to "dishonest", though; I would characterize it more along the lines of the criticisms I used to frequently make of Iowa writers, that they're just overly concerned with first-person-voice. I think that's very true here, but I also think that its situation as "female genre fiction" significantly mitigates how much that bothers me, and I definitely think they're very honest and up front about that.
I think it's kind of condescending to say that female genre fiction can't or shouldn't handle metaphor or marginalization with nuance? Romance novels often do.
I don't think the problem is too much concern with first person voice. It's not especialy confessional; again, the issue is the refusal to actually think about the ways in which biracial people (for example) would actually experience prejudice and what that would mean.
And again...it doesn't just not get into specifics. the narrative actually demonizes (literally!) the aspects of her identity that read as biracial, the aspects of her identity that are linked to desire, the aspects of her identity that are uncomfortable with working 24/7. The conclusion of the film is very explicitly saying that certain kinds of identity are *not* okay and must be suppressed/rejected for acceptance. And I don't think the film is honest or up front about that.