Free and open to the public

 

With Kate Fortmueller (School of Film, Media, and Theater, Georgia State University), John Gibbs (Theatre and Film, UGA), Benjamin Min Han (Entertainment and Media Studies, UGA), and Hyangsoon Yi (Comparative Literature, UGA). 

 

KPop Demon Hunters is, to put it mildly, a cultural sensation. The film swept the awards for Best Animated Feature Film and Best Original Song at both the Oscars and the Golden Globes. It became the most-watched film ever on the Netflix platform and the biggest box office hit yet among the streaming giant’s limited slate of theatrical releases. Its music topped the soundtrack charts and yielded four singles in the Billboard Top Ten simultaneously, a feat no other film has equaled. “Golden” spent eight weeks at no. 1, marking the first time a song by an all-female K-pop group has held this position. KPop Demon Hunters has even landed a coveted spot in the Criterion Collection beloved by film snobs. 

 

Beyond the numbers and the critical accolades, the film has been hailed as a cultural milestone. In an emotional Oscar acceptance speech, originator/co-writer/co-director Maggie Kang celebrated KPop Demon Hunters as a long-overdue win for Asian representation onscreen, stating “For those of you who look like me, I’m so sorry it took so long for us to see us in a movie like this. But it’s here, and that means that the next generations don’t have to go longing. This is for Korea and Koreans everywhere.” Yet the film’s audience cuts across demographics and national borders. Its massive popularity signals a growing, if somewhat belated, embrace of hallyu (the Korean wave) in the United States. Encompassing K-pop, film, television, and even cuisine and beauty products, hallyu’s global popularity is the product of a carefully calculated—and staggeringly successful—campaign by South Korean industries to crack global markets with government backing. 

 

The Korean-ness of KPop Demon Hunters is a complex matter, however. The film was animated in Canada; its production company Sony Pictures Animation is part of a multinational corporate conglomerate headquartered in Japan and its distributor Netflix is US-based. Many Sony and Netflix productions and releases lack a clear national origin; both companies often commission (or repackage) films and television shows shot abroad to maximize local and global viewers.   

 

Panelists Kate Fortmueller, John Gibbs, Benjamin Min Han, and Hyangsoon Yi will explore what the KPop Demon Hunters phenomenon means for the recording industry, animation, streaming and theatrical exhibition, and global pop culture.