Fun, Slick, and Cool Evil – An Attractive Recipe for Your Daughter’s Destruction
What do you really want for your child as a parent?
This question is central to the huge issues with K-Pop Demon Hunters. It is the super popular animated film on Netflix. The movie is well made and well loved. It features catchy songs. However, it may actively harm your child. This is because it is filled with messages that oppose what is good for them and you want for them. Let me put it this way:
Do you want your daughter to have body image issues and an unhealthy relationship with food?
Do you want your young daughter to be boy crazy, shallow, vacuous and focused on appearance – theirs and others?
Do you want your daughter to be intrigued by someone based on appearance? Does you want her to try fix someone she knows is bad?
Do you want your child to believe that being popular and attractive make someone good?
Do you want your child to see the world as people being mainly stupid and idolatrous?
I trust the answer to all of these questions is “No”. If so, then you should have problems with K-Pop Demon Hunters, if you examine it closely. The movie either overtly or subtly promotes all these negative points in fun and colorful packaging. Additionally, the entire plot centers on Korean shamanism. The result is a movie with a peppy, candy coated, and cool facade. It will catch and hold your child’s attention. Still, it also has a core that is simply toxic to them in so many ways.
I would strongly recommend skipping it. If your kids have already seen it, parents should watch it yourselves. Then break it down with your kids.
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An Unpopular Opinion
Judging by the reception of the general public to K-Pop Demon Hunters, I am in the minority with my intense dislike for everything linked to it. Many Christian teens and tweens talk about it, sing the songs, and wear the gear. In some ways, I can understand why I am greatly outnumbered as, on its surface, the movie is tremendously appealing. It is a seemingly fun and adventurous story. The movie features a girl K-Pop group, Huntrix. They protect the world against demons through their songs. Their fans’ adoration plays a crucial role. This may seem strange. If you don’t think about what that says, it just seems like another superhero plot in the film. This girl group is cool and attractive. They dress in fancy costumes. They fly in private jets. Their faces appear on giant posters. They have all the world has to offer. They possess money, power, and fame. The movie presents these aspects of wealth and fame without comment. It portrays them as normal and good. They sing fun songs that seem to be about empowerment. They have dance routines. Fans adore them and make fools of themselves as they go crazy over Huntrix and later the Saja Boys, the demon boy band. There is humor at times. There is romance. Both are shown in a way designed to appeal to young girls of the social media age. In this age, everything is oh so exciting and super duper dramatic. The overall story is also depicted as one of good versus evil. I have seen many use this as a justification of the movie’s value.
On the surface, K-Pop-Demon Hunters may seem like a fun movie. It may seem like it has an overall good moral despite the whole “demon thing.” I understand that many reviewers view it as such. However, digging deeper reveals a clear anti-Christian worldview and dark, harmful themes hiding beneath the surface. The shell of goodness helps the disturbing parts go down smoother.
Dark World Building and Troubling Messaging
The story of K-Pop Demon Hunters builds its entire world around myths of Korean shamanism. The main characters are called demon hunters. The initial bad guys are called demons. However, these titles have little to do with their biblical definitions. The demon hunters have nothing to do with God. They are, in fact, more like the shaman or witch doctor of various pagan religions. They rely on elements of pantheism.
Interestingly, there is a bad guy in the K-Pop Demon Hunters world, but notably no God.
The central figure harness the forces of the natural world through them to fight against evil. This is done through the adoration of their fans. Their power over the forces of nature or the force with them increases as their fans love them more. All of this is obviously troubling, as a Christian, since the movie drops you in the middle of a compelling story in a world that is directly opposed to Christianity. These facts alone would make me hesitant to have my children see it. However, it is the depiction of the various characters and story lines within the pagan worldview that makes it so offensive.
The three girls who make up the “good guys” seem like they were copied from a bad teen drama. They also resemble social media influencer reels where everything is exciting and overly dramatic. One is the distant, angry tough girl. The second is the manic pixie stereotype. The third is the girl who has it all together on the outside. She is really hiding herself out of fear of what others would think if they knew all about her. All three are extraordinarily privileged and universally popular, attractive people. At the same time, they are silly, boy crazy, and self involved. The fate of the world rests on them and, yet, their free time involves constantly talking about spa days and couch days where they eat and watch tv. They also spend a considerable amount of time ogling the demon boy band. The world loves them, but it is on a very shallow basis. Their entire appeal is singing and dancing on stage in very small costumes. This does not make them the bad guys. Many of the struggles that are touched on with the characters are real. However, it creates a strangely immature, materialistic, and empty picture of a hero for any young person. This is especially concerning for young girls. It is like taking the popular clique in your high school, making them rich and famous, and then presenting them as a role model for teens and tweens. There is no room for normal in this world.
I know the mention of small costumes may raise an eyebrow since this is an animated movie. However, consider the targeted audience of this film. The animation and usage of the Huntrix and their male counterparts sends messages range from troubling to downright creepy. I know they are cartoon characters. However, all three of the Huntrix characters are drawn to present an unhealthy image of women. Their depiction is mature and sexualized. They are in perfect shape and elaborately done up. They have great hair with elaborate hairstyles and on stage wear very small skirts, high heels, and small tops. Again, these are cartoon characters, so there is certainly some amount of the unrealistic. Yet, we live in a world where people have correctly identified how harmful body image and fashion expectations can be. This is particularly true for young girls. This animated embodiment of this toxic message seems to have gone unnoticed.
The main girls are shown in a scene having a dramatically exaggerated snack pig out. They shove food down their throats while their faces transform into near demon masks. They generally indulge in snacks in private moments. Despite this, they are able to fit into very small, revealing costumes. As a result, the K-Pop Demon Hunters combines its unnatural body and fashion image expectations with what seems to be binge eating. It is a very unhealthy combination. I feel sorry for any young girl who tries to apply these standards set by Huntrix to herself.
Yes, it is an animated film. However, it mimics the strange culture of K-Pop and portrays unrealistic and unhealthy expectations. Additionally, it includes sexualized costumes in a way that is simply ugly.
This treatment of Huntrix, the female band, is something I can only describe as “yucky.” The Saja Boys, the demon boy band, only reinforce this sentiment. They even supercharge it.
Who would ever have thought that “demon boy band” would be part of a movie for children.)
They are demons disguised as young men. The viewer is aware of this fact from the outset. However, the story has the female band go entirely crazy over them at first sight. It takes great pains to show their appearance is the cause. The girls fawn over the boys, shown in slow motion details. The heroes of the movie, the good guys, objectify the demon boy band. They drool over abs and respond to smoldering looks. They make no apology for doing so, even after the band is revealed to be demons.
Even as I write this, I wonder, “What in the world?”
The Saja Boys appearance combines heavily sexualized and childish aspects. It is simply creepy. They include one man who acts like a baby, sucking on a pacifier. There is one with purple hair whose eyes you never see. Another has chiseled abs that define him as a person. These characters are shown repeatedly and cause dramatic reactions from the fans.
These Saja Boys are an immediate hit and threaten the popularity of Huntrix. This is a fascinating commentary on the world presented in the movie. The Saja Boys are demons. Yet, the world of K-Pop Demon Hunters is shallow and superficial, and popularity is based on appearance. The fans of the two groups at the center of the plot are depicted as superficial. They are also shown as fickle and somewhat idiotic. Their look earns the adulation of the world as a result. The heroes of the story are even captivated by them, ogling in slow motion.
If you break down the underlying plot, you find a competition. The battle for the entire world is over which very attractive band, wearing inappropriate clothing, gets idolized more.
But there is more, so much more…starting with the darkness, oh the darkness.
The movie features demons with twisted and leering faces being hacked apart by the girls of Huntrix. The demons are cartoons, but they have human shaped bodies. These bodies are shown being sliced in half and otherwise killed by the blades of the girl band. Hordes of ugly zombie-like demons swarm towards the girls on a number of different occasions. The most notably of these is when a large group of bald purple demons swarms on all fours towards the girls on top of a train. The animation has the demons disappear after being killed, but not before showing the above followed by a pink mist. These are dark and gruesome things to include in a animated movie. The film also shows demons literally sucking the souls out of unsuspecting people.
I don’t think you can ever watch scenes like that as a child and not be affected.
A Troubling Love Story
The love story that takes place in the middle of all this darkness would seem to offer something positive. There is some redemption, self sacrifice and love depicted. To a young girl watching, the love story of Huntrix’ Rumi, and Jinu of the Saja Boys seems romantic. It may even seem sweet until you realize that Jinu is a demon out to destroy the world. He also treats Rumi badly from the moment they meet. Rumi’s “love” for this demon is based on, first, his appearance and then because he seems mysterious and wounded.
When the “good guy” falls in love with Jinu, he had not changed, is not good, and is still a demon. The hero knows Jinu is a demon trying to cast the world into darkness. Her excuse for loving this demon is she can’t stop being interested and thinks she can change him. This seems like the foundation of thousands of past and future abusive relationships.
I have to admit that K-Pop Demon Hunters really bothered me. This was not only as a pastor or Christian, but just as a dad concerned for my kids and yours. I know that one movie is not the end of the world. Watching it will not automatically lead them to struggle with body image issues to an abusive relationship. However, children are already under enough pressure to conform to the stereotypes pushed by social media. It seems almost unfair this very attractive, highly confusing, and super toxic movie to that burden. It is a really bad idea.
As a result, I would stay far away from K-Pop Demon Hunters.
