241 - KPop Demon Hunters

It does not matter how much I disagree with y'all: you know so much about musical theater that I will keep listening to you until the heat death of this part of the universe

Also, y'all keep commeting how it is so weird for characters to think about the power of fandom, but in the last scene the power of fandom is like a Genkidama. The importance of fandom power is not only shown on screen is literally the thing that gets to the finale. Did you really watch the movie?

I can say as someone who worked at a summer camp when this came out (gymnastics, so basically all girls) that the real secret to the soundtrack's success is that you can play it in the background very easily (ask me why I now hate Golden). Not to say it isn't good, but my theory as to why the music is so listened to us that you can play it for kids, their parents won't hate it when they sit there for twenty minutes watching their kid do a cartwheel, and the counselors don't have to worry about any swearing. I'm not going to pretend like I don't like the music or that I didn't subject my parents to an unconsionable amount of Disney princess songs, but the infinite replayability in those settings is, I think, the real secret.

"I was not expecting to bond with my coworkers and as a result of that we improved the quality of your output" Is the most right wing stuff I ever heard on this podcast

"Her eyes turn into XXX" have you never seen a comedy anime in your entire life?

"deuteragonist" sounds much better than "co-protagonist"

People keep saying that this movies' songs won't get out of your head, but I have listened to the ost multiple times, and the only song I can remember is soda pop, and I explicitly remember it because it is bad.

I have a weird cognitive dissonance where I try to think about kpop very ~intellectually~ as a marxist and generally normal person, but then i hear a buzzword and i start reliving twitter fan wars. For example the mention of SuperM as a group and a sensation. Facts dont really matter in fandom spaces so i feel like the general vibe around SuperM is like, "fun but flopped." Somehow it makes no sense to me that theyre considered famous in the US even tho its literally 3 generations of SM's best men in a group and also lucas. Obviously theyre selling out! But with like 2/3 of the group now gone from SM theyre more like a ghost story lol

Listing York over U of T for Canadian universities is crazy work

When I got to the Soda Pop section I was surprised because I remembered the song being so much worse... and then the chorus hit. Yeah by far my least fav song of the movie and one of my least fav songs ever, so much so I thought the bit would be the Saja Boys use demon magic to make people like it - but no, based on the rest of the movie and also real reactions, people somehow like that. (Fav track is "What It Sounds Like", or what I thought Golden would be like before I actually watched the film)

Golden is not a hard song. I guess, it has a relatively wide range for a pop song. And I guess it's hard to sing the high notes if you weren't born with the right voice and/or have little to no training. But anyone can write a song with high notes. That alone doesn't make a song difficult. The melody is simple, the harmonies underneath even more so. If you struggle with it - just transpose it. No law against that. I generally wish people would stop being overly impressed with high notes. I'm not trying to downplay the importance of vocal control. And if you hear the aria of Mozart's Queen of the Night "Der Hölle Rache" and you're not even a little bit impressed, I suspect you have neither ears nor a soul But the fixation on high notes is just a bit annoying and I strongly suspect it's because it's the part of a vocal performance that requires no musicality, no deeper understanding of the art of singing. A high note is recognizable even to an untrained ear. And there is so much more to that: the ability to express emotion with the tiniest nuances. A sense&control of your rhythm & volume. Controlling your breath so you can don't have to interrupt the flow of the melody. etc.

That Canadiens Stanley Cup intro hit like a shotgun blast to the chest

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Appealing to all four quadrants…? I knew executives were trollish but hm

There was definitely a treatment were Jinu is Rumi's dad

Maybe this is incredibly cynical, but I think the intro sequence with all the different past groups is possibly a studio note framing up potential sequels or prequels?

The let the fire go out song is so beautiful & has the structure & placement of A Prophecy of Ill Omen being levied against a tyrant. Like Tiresias saying "Alas alas how dreadful it can be to have wisdom that brings no benefit... this I let myself forget or I would not have journeyed here" as he steps into Oedipus's court (like is it himself that he speaks of or Oedipus ) So I would want to see how the verse unfolds into a full song & a DOOM

But which Sanderson sister are you?

GO TERPS!

also Golden sounds like a Eurovision song. as do a lot of the songs in the movie

ok i think this movie might actually be demonic; fandom in place of society is the ultimate victory of capitalist spectacle, radical self acceptance is israeli coded, i swear if this is the direction our culture is headed i am going to become a salafist

The dramaturgical tension with this flick seem from your description is that, to borrow from Kill James Bond, the story is about 911 and Rumi's story is about being Trans. the action thriller that the story world is showing aren't fully meshed. I think an easy fix would be to make a man human character to link Gwi-Ma to men. I noticed that demons are almost exclusively masculine and demon Huntr/x are a very modern form of feminine is their style. If it's a trans metaphor Rumi is Transfemme and The Honmoon is a metaphor for Terf patriarchy. Only by tearing it to shreds can we, through the power of love and honesty, institute a new better Honmoon that that allows for Rumi to be allowed into the womens Onsen at the end of the movie. Celine is there to give a reason to explain why Rumi feels such deep shame over her body without giving her too scary of a back story for a kids movie.

The thing i can't get over is how the saja boys have a more authentic idol existence whereas Rumi has the power to set an entire promo cycle in motion from her phone. Feels like class war on the side of the elite

Also, this marks only the second time I've cut off mid episode in order to actually go watch (or finish in the case of Clair Obscur).

This makes me want a Spider-Verse episode badly, although I feel like there would be a lot of repetition

Call me crazy, but I kinda like Aviation Gin 😛

the interstitial is grim and weirdly melancholy but it's also perfect. Exactly how I've felt about Mr. Reynolds for years. Surprisingly evocative.

Happy 5th anniversary!

It's really interesting to me that you guys felt that Golden was out of place in the movie, because musicologically it's designed to fit exactly where it is in the story. Golden is the lie that Rumi is telling the world: it's a song that claims to be about going "Up, Up, Up" but is actually about being stuck; an I Wish song masquerading as an anthem. It starts and ends with completly identical 6 bar synth runs ending on the big thumping bass note like a door slamming shut or wall slamming down. It's written in e minor, but moves in and out of G major flipping between the bright and sometimes nostalgic feelings of the latter and the restless meloncholy of the former, and on all of the big moment lines it's not in the major, but the minor. It's overpriduced to an almost ludicrous degree except on Rumi's dressing room scene where she's talking to her reflection about what she's hoping for. It's really wonderfully constructed example of the music telling the truth when the lyrics lie

"Grow up, get pegged" is prime merch material

Heads up, small typo in the patreon description. The director Maggie Kang is currently Maggie Kand 😅

Ive been trying to convince people to do a double feature of this movie and Josie and the Pussycats ever since i first saw KDH so i’m feelin real validated by yall commenting on them both here lol I think KDH is a charming and fun time, but any time a movie has a plot of “mixed person struggling with being mixed because it’s Bad in the universe of the film” i get leery and my Tragic Mulatto Sense acts up. I dont think this movie really reckons with that beyond the “accept who you are and the people who care will always love you” message (theres no interest in demon society or exploring why demons are fucked up guys) and i don’t think it necessarily NEEDS to, but it still sticks out to me. Maybe other mixed race viewers who really like this movie feel validated by it, that would be cool. Anyway, great episode!! Thanks, lads

GROW UP GET PEGGED on the next batch of t shirts?

I love this podcast, but I'm worried that you're not appealing to all four quadrants

I’m enjoying this so far but that is a distressingly good Ryan Reynolds impression

I doubt I ever fully seen KDH through but I know most of the songs because my little one would be singing them or watching the movie with her cousins. I dont think I truly understood how much of a cultural powerhouse Kpop has become until I started getting messages and clips from family about BTS in CDMX. Hell they even got the presidential treatment at Zocalo.

“fit check for my napalm era” pokes some deep weird spot in my brain and I haven’t been able to let it go for months

If not the best media analysis, certainly the most Dutch

The thing about stuffing as much into a work of art as you can because you're not sure if you'll get another chance is something that resonates hard. I think the first time I noticed that as "a thing" was the book Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan - I'd argue it's one of the most important Cyberpunk books of the past 25 years, and the ideas contained within would have supported 4-5 books but instead you get this incredible vomit of concepts and consequences that just. Never. Ends. Until it does, but still.

As someone who graduated in 2013, and who's music taste has stagnated since my brain has matured, I agree that girls generation and Shinee made some real bangers. Gee and Lucifer are on constant rotation at our milenial ass household.

Hey guys, at the hour, 22 minute mark there's a lot of dead air. It seems like the clip you are playing didn't render properly? (On Spotify)

Finally, some fucking culture

Anyone else here from Ballin Out Super?

In the history of K Pop section and have not heard a single mention of Seo Taiji nor Boys

I refuse to watch this movie because the K-pop industry is horrifically exploitative, and I don't condone a movie whitewashing it to children. I'm sure it's a good, fun movie, but I cannot get past that brutal underlying truth.