{"id":296653,"date":"2025-11-20T08:29:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-20T08:29:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/296653\/"},"modified":"2025-11-20T08:29:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-20T08:29:09","slug":"kpop-demon-hunters-banned-at-uk-school-over-demon-references","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/296653\/","title":{"rendered":"KPop Demon Hunters banned at UK school over \u2018demon\u2019 references"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cFor some Christians, references to demons can feel deeply uncomfortable because they associate them with spiritual forces opposed to God and goodness,\u201d Allington wrote, per the British public service broadcaster.<\/p>\n

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He added that the school was not asking parents to tell their children there was something wrong with enjoying the movie or its songs, should they align with their family\u2019s own personal beliefs.<\/p>\n

The school\u2019s role was, according to Allington, \u201csimply … to help children understand that some of their peers may hold different views and to explore how we can respect and support those peers in upholding their faith\u201d.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not the first time pop culture has resulted in a \u201csatanic panic<\/a>\u201d. After kicking off in 1980 with the release of Michelle Remembers<\/a> (which has since been discredited), conservative Christians became concerned with tabletop role-playing game Dungeons and Dragons<\/a> (though creators Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson were themselves devout Christians).<\/p>\n

Then, as J.K. Rowling\u2019s Harry Potter book series grew in popularity, some conservative households banned the novels for their promotion of the occult<\/a>. \u201cBehind Harry Potter hides the signature of the king of darkness, the devil,\u201d said the late Father Gabriele Amorth, who was the late Pope Benedict XVI\u2019s \u201ccaster-out of demons\u201d at the Vatican.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The voices of KPop Demon Hunters: Ji-young Yoo (voice of Zoey), Arden Cho (voice of Rumi) and May Hong (voice of Mira).Credit: Netflix\/Ricky Middlesworth<\/p>\n

KPop Demon Hunters, which has been available for streaming in Australia since June, became Netflix\u2019s most-watched movie of all time in August. It took 91 days to rack up 325 million views \u2013 surpassing the previous record holder, Red Notice, by 94 million views \u2013 and is, per the Los Angeles Times<\/a>, a driving force behind Netflix\u2019s third-quarter revenue jumping 17 per cent to $US11.5 billion ($17.7 billion).<\/p>\n

Part of its popularity can be attributed to the catchy original songs, three of which \u2013 Golden, Your Idol and Soda Pop \u2013 have been mainstays on radio for months.<\/p>\n

Golden, which has been nominated for a Grammy Award<\/a>, was dethroned from its #1 spot on the Apple Music Top 100 (US) singles chart only when the most powerful woman in music, Taylor Swift, released her new album The Life of a Showgirl<\/a> in October. It\u2019s still in the top three, behind The Fate of Ophelia<\/a> and Olivia Dean\u2019s Man I Need<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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But to ignore the film\u2019s narrative and its themes would be a disservice to creator and co-director Maggie Kang.<\/p>\n

The story is centred on fictional K-pop girl group HUNTR\/X, whose three members \u2013 Rumi (voiced by Arden Cho\/Ejae), Mira (May Hong\/Audrey Nuna), and Zoey (Ji-young Yoo\/Rei Ami) \u2013 secretly fight demons and protect humans from them. In the process, they show those watching at home the power of self-acceptance and friendship.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been so popular that Lilliput Church of England Infant School may have to issue another ban in 2029. That\u2019s when, per Variety<\/a>, Netflix and Sony plan to release the film\u2019s sequel.<\/p>\n

Find out the next TV, streaming series and movies to add to your must-sees. Get The Watchlist delivered every Thursday<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cFor some Christians, references to demons can feel deeply uncomfortable because they associate them with spiritual forces opposed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":296654,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[64,63,134,136],"class_list":{"0":"post-296653","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-music"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296653","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=296653"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296653\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/296654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=296653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=296653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=296653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}