Speaker 1: Welcome to Popcorn Psychology, the podcast where we watch blockbuster
movies and psychoanalyze them. My name is Britnie Brownfield and
I'm a child therapist and I'm joined by Ben Stover,
individual therapist, Hannah Espinoza, marriage and family therapists. We're all
licensed clinical professional counselors also known as therapists who practice
out of Chicago. Even though we are licensed mental health professionals,
this podcast is purely fronted him and purposes and to
fulfill our love of dissecting pop culture and all forms.
Speaker 2: Please remember that, even though we are all licensed therapists,
we aren't your therapist.
Speaker 1: If you are struggling with mental health symptoms, please find
a local mental health provider.
Speaker 2: Welcome everybody to Popcorn Psychology. Today we will be doing
the movie of the year ka pop demon Hunters. That's right,
We're going to be golden today, y'all.
Speaker 1: Here we go.
Speaker 2: So today we're going to be talking about cape hop
demon Hunters, self acceptance barriers, trusting others.
Speaker 1: And opening up.
Speaker 2: Then we're going to be getting into treatment and final thoughts.
Just like always. Right off the bat, today Hannah is
not feeling well, so it's just gonna be me and
Brittany today on this episode. Hello, but we are looking
forward to this and we've been watching the memes and
gifts go NonStop, I know, even amongst dudes.
Speaker 3: Like literally, I was at a police station for work.
Speaker 2: Nothing but dudes cops in this police station and Golden
was the first.
Speaker 3: King that came on.
Speaker 1: That's so interesting.
Speaker 2: They're all just jamming it out to it. I don't
know what to tell you. This has become a cultural phenomenon.
Netflix released it to the theater and that was the
only time I have seen the theater packed in years,
full every seat cool. My daughter loves it, so we've
watched it forty seven times.
Speaker 1: I have seen it twice, and one of those times
on one point five speed, which will make you feel crazy.
So I wouldn't necessarily recommend, but I had to do
a rewatch for today's episode, and I had limited time,
and it was an interesting experience to rewatch very quickly.
Speaker 2: I don't think I could watch anything on one point
five speed.
Speaker 1: I think I'd lose my shit. It's not as bad
as you think. It just like feels like something's kind
of wrong, you know, Yeah, But it's not like it's
more just like everything's going really fast. Yeah, I can't.
Speaker 2: The pacing of things is important. I think I'd be like, well,
I wouldn't do it for the first time watching this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I just had to make sure to nail down
some info that I wasn't retaining. But yes, I would
say I know about this movie from how much Ben
has told me, all the things that he just shared
with you all. So Ben, can you take it away
with introducing this movie to our lovely audience for people
who maybe are childless like me and aren't familiar with
this movie.
Speaker 2: Yes, so in K Pop Demon Hunters, which I discovered
because my daughter took a chance on it when it
popped up on Netflix, and ever since then, including last night,
I've watched that movie many many times over and listen
to the music over and over again. Produced four number
one singles. It's just outrage as nothing has done that
since In Conto Are come Close. This movie sets off
right off the bat with establishing that in this universe
there have long been a history of demons trying to
invade the regular world, and a group of three women
who are using music and song in addition to melee
and bladed weapons to eliminate demons and create a magical
barrier called the hon Moon to keep the demons contained
in their world unable to invade ours, and when they
do happen to breakthrough, because faith in the hun Moon disappears,
then the Hunters are there to eradicate them with awesomeness.
Throughout this film, we see Rumi, who is the main
singer and leader of the pack as it were, in
addition to Mirah, their main dancer, and Zoe, who are
our three leads.
Speaker 1: In this film.
Speaker 2: And as we go through the story of K Pop
Demon Hunters, we learned that Roomy is the daughter of
a former Hunter and was trained by one of her
mother's partners, and that she's a legacy thing. We catch
these girls right at the beginning, at the end of
a world tour where demons have kidnapped them, and the
girls defeat the demons readily and handily before we get
launched into the demon world, and we see that the
demons concoct a plan to battle the girl band with
a boy.
Speaker 1: Band of demons.
Speaker 2: Because what really solidifies the honey Moon isn't in fact
the Hunters themselves, it's the fans. So if the demons
can capture the fans more nummy souls for them, and
so this plan launches. And of course, of course Rummy
who happens to be part demon because her dad was
a demon, which is unexplained.
Speaker 1: We don't have the answers to that. Yeah, and her
mom's not around at all. She died as a baby.
Maybe when she was a baby, she was a toddler. Okay.
Of course Rumy falls in love with a demon, with
a demon, it's swishy, swishy hair.
Speaker 3: With very swishy hair.
Speaker 2: But of course then she's able to save him and
rescue him, and he then rescues her. Because it's a
kid's movie and it's a tween awakening.
Speaker 1: Yes, I believe what I said very crassly to you,
Ben is that this movie is spank bank material for
seven to nine year old girls. You can no And
I only am saying that use as a seven to
nine year old girl at one time in my life myself.
The first time I watched it, take a drink here,
because this is my catchphrase. This is more final thoughts.
The whole time I was watching it, The first time
I watched it with Hannah, because Hannah did watch this
movie one and a half times, even though she couldn't
be here today. I was just kept saying, this is catnip.
This is like tween or even kid pre tween catenip
for girls. Oh yeah, Oh every single beat. I was like,
this could have been made in a lab to attract
young girls.
Speaker 2: I'm sure it was, and they did an outstanding job,
because the entire theater when we went to see it,
let alone, everyone who has kids of this particular age
group have been attracted to this like moths into flame.
Speaker 1: Yeah. It makes me think of one of those movies
when you're young and you don't know why you want
to keep watching it so much. Yeah, but you can't
stop thinking about it. But you don't really know and
understand sexuality yet, but you know that you just want
to keep watching the thing over and over again. Yeah.
Speaker 3: They're not subtle about it being there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I can definitely respect that about this movie.
I was like, no, this is the this is fun
times for a lot of I could just see my
younger self in this movie as someone who grew up
watching Boy Meets World. And you know, I was right
in the midst of the first wave of swishy hair.
The Sean Hunters. The Devin sawwas like, I see it.
Speaker 2: I mean, t Pega is an entire generation of dudes first.
Speaker 1: Cunch about fabulous hair. Correct couldn't have had better. I
mean she was famous for it to cut it off
to make a point in the show, and our hairs
got better.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but she still has it and still looks, oh yeah,
Well she shows up like social media always like yep,
we're still good. But that in this movie, of course,
all of these same things are providing that.
Speaker 3: For this generation.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And something you didn't mention that I think is
important to mention, is that also a goal of like
a final goal sort of of the continue continued trios
of the Demon Hunter. Is this idea of creating the
Golden Moon. Yes, that'll be like the final boss of
the Hunt Moon. Once they do the Golden One, they
won't really have to worry about demons anymore. It kind
of feels like they're they're working up to that and
then they can be done.
Speaker 2: Correct, Like they can steal it forever and the demons.
Of course, notice that right in the beginning they almost
got there. The one moon flashed a little bit gold
and then the demon's urgency to launch. This plan was
prompted by that because they see this future coming where
they are sealed out and can never feast on souls again. Yeah,
as we get to know these characters and get to
know a little bit more about what they're going on,
plus a dope soundtrack that just makes this kitty crack,
and then eventually, because you hear it enough times, the
songs are infectious and all parents are now.
Speaker 3: Going like, damn, it is an earworm. It's just an earworm.
Speaker 2: It's like stuck in my head, to the point that
one of my friends from where who also has a
little girl in this age group, sent me a glorious
meme of somebody like just cutting completely across traffic.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, and then they flashed to what was.
Speaker 2: Going on inside the car joke, and it's just a
mom like straight up whaling golden, whaling, golden. The number
of memes I've seen, like we all know that you're
sitting at stoplights singing golden and like you see like
metal heads doing and even going like with the windows
rolled up, and like see if people just like bagging
her head.
Speaker 3: What you think I'm listening to? What I'm actually listening to?
Speaker 1: Golden.
Speaker 2: It's a cultural phenomenon and I'm excited we're talking about
it today.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So, I know, the big idea we wanted to
hit with this episode is the idea of self acceptance,
because that is the obvious main message of the movie
and all the elements to it. And I know where
we wanted to start with that idea is actually starting
with what are the barriers to self acceptance? Because as
we're meeting the main character, Roomy, she is someone that
has not accepted obviously the demon part of herself, because
I guess one thing we didn't mention is that if
you're a demon, you have these things called patterns on
you which look kind of like tribal tattoos, yeah esque,
And she has those on her body that no one
knows about, but her foster mom Feline are kind of
like aunt mother figure. In the start of the movie,
we're meeting someone who does not accept their actual self,
their full self. She does not.
Speaker 2: She has been taught yes, not too because of how
it will be seen by others. There's many powerful scenes,
even going back to and Roomy is a clearly maybe
oh like a six year old that Selene is having
her cover up those patterns because of the way those
will be seen. And she's Selene's telling her you're not
like them. Those patterns are just remnants, but you still
have to cover for them up because of how people
will see them, especially other hunters.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so we come into the story where there is
this very rigid idea about demons, obviously, and about any
sort of association with demons or anyone who is a
part of the demon world, like Ginu. There's this rigid
id idea that Rumy has been taught. Well, they've all
been taught that demons are capital E evil, capital B bad.
There's no wiggle room around that they are bad. You
can even tell us they're writing that takedown song later
that their ideas are really extreme, and that becomes more
and more highlighted as Roomy is creating more flexibility within
herself of like how she appeels about the idea of
demons as a total right.
Speaker 2: We even see they're all programmed with this song. Even
as kids and kids sing songy wait we are Hunter's
voice is strong, slaying demons with our song fix the
world and make it right when darkness finally meets the light.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so truly actually black and white, thinking light and
dark thinking very yeah, very extremes, no gray area, no nuance,
no negotiation. And so then when someone like Roumy comes
into existence, she's literally like the gray. She is indeed
the gray. And so we see someone like sele Lean
try to reconcile that kind of do mental gymnastics around
that by by trying to like make this like all
of a sudden, these exceptions, but still with this idea
that this part of you that is obvious and like
literally on your skin and growing and growing is bad.
And so she like that rigidity still remains in the
messaging that's Lene's giving Roomy basically her daughter, like she
can't wiggle that for her.
Speaker 2: She can't, and she struggles to accept or know what
to do with it herself because she got the same messaging.
Speaker 1: I mean, Unfortunately, she's doing what a lot of parents
and adults will do when they've been raised within like
a rigid cultural belief for very understandable reasons, you know,
Like I don't want to ignore the fact that a
lot of people were getting hurt in this movie by demons.
Yeah they wema, you know what I mean, Like they're
not misunderstood bad guys overall.
Speaker 2: No, this movie kept the ideas real simple bad guys
are bad. And the number of missing posters we see
for people that the demons of their souls, it's quite
clear they're hurting people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And so there's an understanding of where Sleine's coming
from and why she feels like it's the right thing
to do to continue these ideas, these strict ideas with
Rumy and the sacrifice of that, or the cost of that,
is Roomy being in this place where she thinks there's
something bad about her, because that is the message you're
saying that demons are point blank, no negotiation bad. I
am obviously part demon, right, So something is wrong with
me that I need to fix. I mean, that's literally
what she's saying for most of the movie. I need
to fix myself.
Speaker 2: And each time we see her struggle with that kind
of thought and that shame that goes along with it,
the patterns grow mm hmm, yeah, up to the point
that they start covering her throat when it starts damaging
her voice.
Speaker 1: Yes, Which is something that we'll be getting into more
is how, at least in the work of the I
do when people have these ideas in their heads about themselves,
negativity about themselves, shame about themselves, especially if it's something
that's been reinforced by beliefs in their childhood, beliefs in
their parents, beliefs from society at large. Sometimes a way
that people deal with it is by hustling really hard, overfunctioning,
trying to be perfect, to like overcompensate for what they
perceive as bad about themselves. And I think with her,
you see right, I mean, this is how kind of
the movie kicks off, is that she has this anxiety
and urgency to make the Golden hone moon, because then
she'll be good and what's wrong with her will be fixed.
And ironically, this is how I perceive it is that
her rush to do that and over well, the pressure
she puts on that actually gives her what they call
in sports psychology the yips yep where she loses her voice.
And that to me, I don't know if you thought
read it differently or more as part of a demon
mythology stuff, but I read that more as just how
like a psychosomatic response to the stress and to the
situation she's in.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's certainly what they're metaphorically representing Yeah, absolutely,
and that plus the deeper motivation to be fixed and
be good enough and finally be able to be okay,
to have more than one person see the real her.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because she can't.
Speaker 2: And it's beautifully woven into this whole metaphor and within
the narrative that when they're all trying to relax after
this tour, what is the name of the song that
gets dropped right after they do the couch Couch Couch.
Speaker 1: Golden And she doesn't allow that, she can't tolerate them
waiting any longer to release that. Nope.
Speaker 2: Well, she saw flashes of the Golden hun Moon, Oh
yeah during that last show, and she wants to capture
because she's I think the director said like twenty two
twenty three somewhere in there. And the lack of ability
to connect to other people's limited I guess developing ability.
Speaker 1: I guess what why?
Speaker 2: I say the developing ability to connect to other people's
experience is a little restricted by her deep want and
need to be accepted as she is, but she can't
do it until she's good enough.
Speaker 1: And a prime example of the limiting factor of it,
like a concrete example is how they talk about going
to the Korean spa, the spa as a way to
relax and how bath house. I love a Korean spa.
I always just thinking it was Krireans spouse. I love
to go to the Korean Spa. There's one in Niles,
Illinois that's stove called King Spam fevor in the area.
Hit it up forty dollars for twenty four hour, be
bopping around, and it is like a cultural touchstone of
Korean culture to go to the bathhouse and relax, But
you will be full naked as someone who goes to
the Korean spa, you get full naked in front of everybody.
So it is limiting her ability to engage with her
friends in an activity that they all share, to engage
in a relaxation technique that's very connected to their real
friendship and also their culture and community. Yep. And so yeah,
things are being kept from her and also things that
she's having more more difficulty explaining away. So it's also
the pressure of secret keeping.
Speaker 2: Correct In a culture where there's not as much body shame, yeah,
but there's conduct shame. People are much more free, especially
with same sex. Opposite sex would be no go which
they make clear like this is the men's bathouse. Oh sure,
you know, the body shame is much different in their
culture than us here in the especially Midwest USA.
Speaker 1: Because my wife actually.
Speaker 2: Had gotten us tickets to the Kingspa thing, and like,
once I looked more into it, I was like, yeah, no,
I don't think I want to spend my day off
being naked with a bunch of dudes.
Speaker 3: This does not actually appeal to me.
Speaker 1: You should do it, you'd love it. I love it.
I've got to Kingspa all the time. I don't think
that I would get naked with other men. Ben, everyone
start chanting, send us email, say Ben, get naked at
the Korean Spa. I don't think it's going to happen,
but it's not. And also that's like twenty five percent
of way I know are a.
Speaker 2: Lot of the things looked really nice and if that's
optional to do all that side of it, and I
get that it's pretty freeing.
Speaker 3: It's not like they make you do that.
Speaker 2: If you want to go in the pool or do
that thing, that's that's kind of how that goes, and
that's fine.
Speaker 3: People can do that if they want to.
Speaker 2: It's just not my jam But the thing that I
think is really important with that is recognizing how odd
it is your roomy won't go where her friends or
the other girls in their band are like, dude, because
everybody does this, why will you not go with us?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's so common that they can't stop trying to
talk her into it, which I think is something we
do when there's something that's very obvious. Yeah, and a
culture is like eventually when we're down, she'll go to
the bathouse of us, because yeah, it is such a
part and you're right, like when I go to the
Korean Spa, when I go to Kingspa, I didn't start
going until I was in my thirties. Yeah, and I was, Yeah,
girls girls of all ages, like old women, younger women,
kids are in there. I don't think younger than like
maybe nine or something. There is like an age limit,
and it is really rad to see. You're right like
about the body, except in part that it's all bodies,
all different kinds of bodies, and everyone's very chill about it.
And I remember even thinking the first time I went,
it would have been so cool, as like a younger girl,
to see so many different body shapes so normalized and
so relaxed.
Speaker 2: And this movie did a pretty good job of showing
very different body topes just in the background characters. Yeah,
the main characters are pop stars, so I mean everybody's
and they're also like warriors, right, and even the.
Speaker 3: Demons, like everybody's pretty fit.
Speaker 2: But the general population, they did a really good job
of being pretty representative.
Speaker 3: But people look lots of different ways.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then going into the bathhouse to kind of
tie these ideas together would still unlike here where people like,
if my body doesn't look the way I wanted to,
I'd never go.
Speaker 1: Or just like our puritanical modesty culture where people would
just I know so many people I guess you included
Ben who die at the idea of being naked, amongst others.
Speaker 2: It's not that, it was more of the situation of
taking a day off for that that I wasn't mentally
prepared for.
Speaker 3: It's not like the modesty right, Like that's just weird.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: Sure my wife and I are doing a thing for
us and then being separate and being uncomfortable and like
adapting to a new thing.
Speaker 3: That's nothing wrong with it, just very new.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it's definitely a culture shock. Thing from someone
who was raised in the Midwest and raised to be
very modest and puritanical about my body and nudity, right,
you know where I'm still getting shipped from my mom
about wearing shirts where the shirt doesn't touch my pants.
Speaker 3: To shee you sit about you know, your shirts being
beyond your fingertips too.
Speaker 1: No, it was never that intense, so I'm but I
didn't also try to wear short skirts, so maybe that
would have made a difference. A part of what we're
going into as well is how the rigid cultural ideas
and messaging from Selene then translates as secret keeping, which
then translates into these situations for Roomy where she is
very isolated, yeah, and has to keep she Yeah, she
has to keep a part of herself truly locked away
from her friend. She has to lie to her closest confidants,
the two women that she puts her lives in their
hands every day.
Speaker 2: And presumably they're making millions of dollars because they've got
like their own more than that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, probably they're billion billion.
Speaker 1: They're the way that pop stars are nowadays.
Speaker 3: They've got an entire industry.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and so how lonely she must feel from
well that standpoint if you think about that, like being
a pop star and the loneliness of that lifestyle that
I think is very true for most people that are
at that level of fame, And.
Speaker 2: I think they touch on that in this movie pretty well,
like kind of illustrating the isolation that they have to
kind of go out incognito so they don't get more help.
They can't just have their own life without taking precaution.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so so there's some loneliness and that true,
and I think that would be maybe like an acceptable
sacrifice because of the greater good that they're doing with
their cause, not just pop stars, but you know, keeping
humanity safe. Yeah. But then Roomy can't even be fully
transparent and close to the small circle that she has
because of the messaging that she's gotten from her parent basically.
Speaker 2: Right, which in Asian cultures is in particular, it's really
important to understanding the collectivism and the impact of shame
on how people see themselves. So it's not just the individual,
it's also how she fits into society as a whole,
So like multiple layers of shame and impact on what's
happening to her and the motivation to keep it restricted
from both her and Selene, her mother figure. And I
think all of those really factor into how we see
the character of Roomy develop and grow, and why when
she sings the last song, it's so the last.
Speaker 1: Two free and what it sounds like.
Speaker 2: What it sounds like, Yeah, free and what it sounds
like are really illustrative of her working on breaking free
of how constricted she feels, and her and Genu both
even though they're four hundred years apart, recognizing, yeah, this
is kind of the culture here, and we all feel
the impact of this well.
Speaker 1: And also because the jumping off of that, what genus
darkest shame is and what makes him vulnerable to Guima
and to staying on the side of I guess demon
the demon world is the fact that he chose himself
over his family, that he chose a life of comfort
in the palace, Yeah, over his family, which is something
he also keeps a secret fully from Roumy, for the
same reason that room is keeping secrets from everybody else,
which is, you know, if you tell me that a
part of me is inherently bad and our culture reinforces it,
then I can't tell their people that because they will
think I'm bad, I won't have anyone in my life.
Speaker 2: Right, because they don't just reinforce, they enforce yes. And
if I'm seeing as shameful, that's intolerable.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm.
Speaker 2: And I think to kind of build up that, it
seemed like, though we don't see it, it seemed like
the subtext that Gino was giving us was that it
was grimand that tempted.
Speaker 3: Him to do that in the first place. It kind
offered him a deal.
Speaker 1: He made a deal with the devil basically, right, made
the deal with the devil, though in a very desperate time.
It seemed like it was very survival oriented. Yeah, and
desperation oriented absolutely, that he made that decision. How we
can all make really horrible decisions when we are feeling desperate,
when we are feeling unsafe, when we need to survive,
and also when we're really young. So I assume he
was also probably a teenager or twenty when that happened
as well.
Speaker 2: I presume he was around the same age that yeah
she is now, or maybe even younger. That he started
like sixteen and then moved into that palace life as
he got into his early twenties. Before we dive deeper,
into kind of the impacts of that. We should probably
take a break here, so in order to cover up
for that shame, that inherent guilt and the cultural pressures
that later that on top of the individual shame and
guilt their regrets to shame the guilt that they feel
personally plus societally. Right, it affects both of those characters,
and also it affects Zoe and Mira too.
Speaker 3: We just only get little glimpses of it here and there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's the shame as well. Not to use
that word that we've been using all episode already, but shame.
The shame of it is that are you feeling shameful
about using the word shame? Maybe because I feel shame
that I should have a bigger vocabulary than that. You know,
let's not pathologize me right now, then, I'm not pathologizing
Gil that in keeping the shame too. It also when
we do seecret keeping out of shame, right, especially with
people that are very close to us, which is usually
honestly who we keep them secrets from. Sometimes too, we
feel the most at risk of losing those people like
we read them the most. We can counterintuitively keep more
secrets from people closer to us because we want to
keep them or we're more invested in their opinion. Like,
there's a lot of elements that can make that happen.
Speaker 2: Yes, we are wired to be social creatures for pack animals,
and love in its rost form, at least according to
Sue Johnson, who's created emotionally Focused Therapy, which is a
couple's love is a survival mechanism that we form these
bonds with the people who create a reliable, dependable source
of needs getting met. And absolutely the people closest to us,
the ones that have earned our trust.
Speaker 1: It's invaluable. Yeah, And where you were going with the
mirror and Zoe part of it is what also is
awful about the secret keeping. They don't know what's going on,
but they can tell over the course of the movie
that something obviously is wrong. She has the yps. She
is being even more secretive and avoid ye of them
and with drawn, Yeah, withdrawn. And then when the finally
the secret comes out at the end and she tries
to go towards them, but she's like fully patterns out
and they're like, oh, is that if then your secret
comes out after the fact, or if your friends or
close loved ones are making assumptions. The long story short
of what I'm saying is you also can no longer
control the narrative if you rely on secret keeping, because
other people in your life, if they do give a
shit about you, we'll start picking up on whatever weird
stuff you're doing. Character weird, avoid any behavior you're doing,
and they may come to their own conclusions, or they
might think that you're mad at them or something, and
then their response to you you might misunderstand. As see,
they can tell that I am bad, and then it
can perpetuate this secret keeping shame spiral.
Speaker 2: They can get stuck in absolutely and there is no
accident in this movie. This movie is clean. And we
see this all explode on stage in front of an
entire stadium full of people where the demons imitate Mir
and Zoe and this song Takedown that they've been working
on to it kind of get into a diys war.
Speaker 1: Yeah, distracts going around.
Speaker 2: Right with the Saja Boys, the Demon band, and you
see Roomy struggling with like trying to rewrite the lyrics
as she's getting more empathy for Genu, but the hate
part of it it comes out is that these the
demon sees and imitate Miror and Zoe and seeing this
song to her, that's clearly they're breaking up the band
because she sucks and it's happening in front of everybody,
and then they pull her sleeves off to show her
patterns to the whole world to the point where it's undeniable,
that visceral feeling of nope, hmm, nope, that's why. That's
why you don't tell anybody, because it'll blow up in
your face.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it starts to become a self fulfilling prophecy because
what her friends are really mad about is that they
don't know what's going on. They're just forming their own
conclusions based on their own belief systems, their own messaging,
and the fact that if you've been keeping this a
secret for me, then it must be bad because that
self perpetuating idea.
Speaker 3: Mira looks at her and says this whole time.
Speaker 1: Exactly, and someone like Mira, you can not keep secrets from.
Speaker 2: Mira goes into her room and like hasing a moment
vulnerability is asking.
Speaker 1: Her, Sup, Yeah, you're being weird. This is your opportunity
to come clean.
Speaker 3: Kind of talk to me. Because Mira has revealed.
Speaker 2: I wish we got to know more about Miraa and Zoe,
but we get I agree that kind of snippets at them,
and I'm sure we will later. But the looks at them,
we see Mira is clearly insecure and has been kicked
out of her family or left it and isolated from them,
and views these girls as her found family, and she's
profoundly attached and terrified that she will lose them. And
then to see that this whole belief system that they're
all supposed to have been adherent to. The demons are bad,
but one of them has patterns, lows her whole narrative
that she traded everything for, and you see her she
says something like I knew none of this or I
knew this was all too good to be true.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she has like a nihilistic statement. She makes very painful,
very painful, and like I said, it's this is where
secret keeping and the shame can really start to like
eat itself and supply itself. At this point in the story,
Rumy does look like more of a demon, right. She's
got the one eye, she's got the voices kind of changing.
The one hand is demony she does unfortunately looks scarier. Yeah,
and she's transforming. And also because she waited so long
to tell her friends what's going on, which that can
happen I think a lot in real life, which is
people will sit on a secret, well, they'll secret keep
about something they think shameful about themselves or something they've
done that they think shameful, and then the longer they
sit on it, the worse it gets. Then it's like
they're lying on lying and lying. The thing that they're
secret keeping maybe gets to a point where it might
actually be pretty.
Speaker 3: Bad and dangerous to everyone.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And then they finally tell the people, and then
they get their reaction. They're fearing, not because the people
wouldn't have accepted them in the very beginning, but they
waited un till it got to a point where it
is really hard to explain away or to get people
to have the patience to listen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because now you put them in danger as opposed
to everybody approaching it from a point of safety.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: But now it's out in the open, and not only
are Mirah and Zoe finding out that she's part demon
and has been her whole life, everyone else knows it too,
m or I mean, I guess it doesn't.
Speaker 3: The general public doesn't know.
Speaker 1: What's going on. They maybe think she has these They
just know that the band's fighting and broke up, right.
Speaker 2: It's just like they're a little ambiguous about whether regular
people even see the demons.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because they talk about how all the things as
they do are like special effects, right, Wow, they have
such cool stage production, right when they're flying in the air.
Speaker 2: I guess that's the one inconsistency because they when they.
Speaker 1: Show like the rules of the world in that way, right.
Speaker 2: When they show like the feudal people, they clearly are
aware of the demons and are afraid of them. And
then the hunters come in and like people are clearly
hiding and cowering from the demons when the hunters are
destroying them, like sweeping through town when they're Yeah, which
is telling the legends.
Speaker 1: Yet the biggest celebrities in the world aren't being recognized
as slang demons correct on top of trains and stuff
like that.
Speaker 2: Correct that that is the one inconsistency that I found
in the film, And I was kind of like, well,
hold on, yeah, what are the rules of the world?
What are the rules here, like can people see the
demons or not? So it's where if you feel even
confused now, it's like.
Speaker 1: Or even like do they do something to them that
like wipes people's memories or like can they not see
them even the hunters themselves. Yeah, you're right, there's a
little because I watched a lot of Buffy the Vampire
Slayer when it first came on TV, so like eleven on,
maybe even younger, and a big part of that show
is what you're talking about is where she's like trying
to make up bullshit reasons for why she's out at
night doing this, why you might have saw her hit
that guind face, why she's got a bruise on her face.
You know, Like a lot of her stuff is the
stress of being incognito doing something very wild, pretty out
in public. So you're right, especially Cain, they given the
recognition of our main characters.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you would think that there'd be some awareness that
demons are real in the world and.
Speaker 1: Like that it's their job to take care of them,
and that's part of why they're so.
Speaker 2: Loved, right, unless that's one of the functions of the hound.
Speaker 1: Maybe to kind of keep people in the dark no
pun intended, right that they don't.
Speaker 2: They don't see it, and part of the Houtmon's magic
is to make it so they.
Speaker 1: Keep us signorant. Yeah, maybe I could see that. Maybe
if we knew more about the cultural understands too, whatever,
like under context, cultural context. I'm sure this a lot
of this stuff comes from. Sure, maybe would help us
if everyone knows and we're just ignorant to it. Email
us or me suggests on Instagram or Facebook or someone, right,
which is where are not Korean? We are end? Yeah,
So like, if there's something about this, we're being very
and if anyone's like screaming at their car radio or
they're into their headphones or whatever, you can let us know.
We're open to learning. Yes, we're very open to learning.
Speaker 2: The things that we see in this film, you know,
come from a new culture understanding being introduced to us,
which is part of the power of this film that
we're even talking about it. And I think that's a
good thing that we're getting exposed to more cultures in
film and more nuances about so many things, instead of
it being like and here's the pretty White Princess and
her world in France and here's the pretty white princess
in Germany, and what about the pretty white Princess Norway.
This is a good thing that we're seeing people from
different parts of the world and different things and learning
about different cultures through this beautiful art form.
Speaker 1: And there's lots left to learn.
Speaker 2: What we do see on this lovely counseling, and we
see the impact of this shame and guilt and the
isolation it creates. We definitely see some overfunctioning and perfectionism.
Speaker 1: Well, and that also goes back into like the all
or nothing thinking, which is you're either like all good
or you're all bad. And how that matches the rigidity
of the messaging given to to all the girls and
to Selene you know what I mean that they all
have been carrying for generations, generations and generations. Yeah where,
because it's so rigid there, Like I said, there isn't
any room for an anomaly like Roomy. There's no framework,
there's no schema, there's nothing, And so Selene's kind of
trying to shove Roomy into the schemas that she already has, yep.
And all that does is perpetuate that rigidity, like I'm saying,
and it gets to the climax of the movie If
You Will, where after the sort of breakup on stage
where everyone sees her patterns, she goes to Selene and
she's literally like, you should just kill me. She kind
of actually says like you should have killed me as
a baby. You missed your chance. You should just kill
me now, which that is such a that's like taking
that all nothing thinking to like the farthest realm that
it could go, which is either I am good and
I stay alive or I'm bad and I am I
should be dead. And that does show up in real
life when people are like I could argue that is
roomy suicidal in that moment, you know what I mean,
and how that does show up. She kneels down with
the sword. Yeah. I thought she's, yeah, gonna take it
to the chest. For a second, I was like, I'm
sure a movie like this for kids wouldn't have done that.
So I was like, oh my gosh, where this is going.
Speaker 2: Well, she's shown even more shame by like offering it up,
offering it up and saying, I you know, I won't
fight you.
Speaker 1: There can be passivity to sudicidal ideation, which is I
will just let something happen to me, right, or I
will put myself in situations where something is more likely
to happen to me. Like it's not always I'm going
to stab myself with the sword. Nope, it can be
like I'm gonna put myself in a position for someone
else to stab me with the sword. Right, I don't care
for myself. I won't fight it.
Speaker 2: I won't fight hers suicide by cop yeah, or like,
I mean that's a more active one, but the passive
suicidal ideations can be much more difficult to see.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And even in the situation like Roomy, you could
argue that she's just trying to fulfill her cultural thing,
you know. I mean there's honor with that, you know,
there can also be like honor within these ideas, yeah, and.
Speaker 2: Honor of taking herself out or she's the problem, yeah,
and it's getting taken out.
Speaker 1: And like Selene has that big reaction because obviously she
loves Roomy and she's known room of her whole life,
and Roomy is a good person and her daughter more
or less exactly, and like the last thing she has
of I'm assuming her best friend, which is Roomy's biological mom.
I assume we don't know their story yet, right, And
we don't see the other song It'sister, either, which is
also weird. It's like everything, it's like life starts, like
history starts kind of in this movie, right where we
started with movie. But this is where kind of the
rubber hits the road in the sense that Rumy is
trying to honestly fulfill the rigidity of the cult, of
the messaging and the belief system that she's been shown
her whole life. And Selene's the one that has the
conflicting reaction, Right, I love you, don't do that. I
don't want you to be gone. I want you to
be here with me. But and I know I usually
say and, but this is a butt situation. There's definitely
a butt situation. I am still not going to address
or challenge the ideas that got us in this fucking situation.
Like Selene is the one I was the most irritated
with and disappointed with. Yeah, I can see where she's
coming from, of course. And she fucked this girl over,
you know, and then did it again. And then it's
shocked when this girl's like fucking kill me, you know.
And then yeah, and then she doubles down like, which
is a product of hypervigilant, like the ideas we just
have to keep covering it and then we have to
keep lying to your friends.
Speaker 3: We can fix it by staying the same.
Speaker 2: And that scene I think is the most powerful one
in the entire film.
Speaker 1: That was really a good moment, Like when she's like,
we'll just cover it up and we'll just tell Mira
and so we that it was all a trick by demons,
And I'm like, that's like the worst thing you could
have said, doubling down on the messaging when this girl
is clearly could not be in more agony and she
came to you for help, and she came to you
and she's so vulnerable, And I think vulnerability as created
by shame is a topic. I don't know if we
want to take a break and then jump into that.
Speaker 2: I think so, because I definitely have a lot to
say about in that scene in particular, because I think
it was, like I said, probably the most impactful one,
and I think it's going to be adopted by a
lot of people. So yeah, we can take a break
here and come back to that. Where do you want
to start with that?
Speaker 1: It seems like this well where my brain's going is
taking that idea and going into different scenes. So if
there's more you want to say about this particular scene,
I want to throw it to you. Sure.
Speaker 2: So, I think in this scene, we see this recurrent
place where they've been training, and I think it's a cemetery.
They clearly got this tree with ribbons tied into it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a very momentous place for them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it seems like it's a spiritual place.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yes, it does seem like a very meaningful place
for them.
Speaker 2: As they she goes to find Selene, their Slene's clearly
aware that the world is going to shit because she's armed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and might even be praying. You see this movie
more than me. But it does seem like she's like
having a moment of reflection. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think maybe she's kneeling and then she stands up
quickly with her scythe But she's clearly afraid.
Speaker 1: She's aware of what's happening.
Speaker 2: And the thing I think in that confrontation, like you're
describing where Rumy comes to her, she is full half
demon at this point, like two face.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the one eye, the one hand, the voice is
coming out at times.
Speaker 2: You know, the more angry she gets, like she's less
reserved and guarded and perfect. She's raw and emotional. She
is not measured and logical and driven. She is pure emotion.
And when that demon voice comes out with the echoes
and the modulation on it, it's clearly meant to.
Speaker 3: Show this is odd, scary, it's unnerving.
Speaker 1: It's very again, it's type for her and against type
for culture.
Speaker 2: Oh yes, And looking at that moment where she's confronting
her and saying, why couldn't.
Speaker 1: You love fling? Yeah, as I all of me? Because
she goes like do and she's like oh, and I'm
like that's right, girl, scream at her.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think that moment, like as I was
watching out, this is going to be adopted by a
lot of people, but in particular, I think the LGBT
community is going to attached to that probably has and
seeing that, like, why couldn't you love all of me
instead of trying to only love the part of me
that fit your image?
Speaker 1: Yes? And that's that's fucking real. Like, that's that's a
message that I think can translate overall cultures absolutely some
form of the other. I think of all the cultures
too that have like I said, I think at the beginning,
like rigid religious beliefs too, And how there can be
this idea that there is like a little morality basically,
and I can't hate this in love the center like
that's kind of a version of that pretty much bullshit. Yep.
Speaker 2: I go Amish parents who just have children that are
jerked off as they call it.
Speaker 1: Oh did you know that? You know that I didn't
know that phrase. I'm assuming it means something different. Yep.
Do they know what it really means within the Amish community,
I have no idea, good question.
Speaker 2: It's what it means when people leave the faith and
they do their.
Speaker 1: A and then choose to leave.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it creates a complicated relationship with the parents where
they don't know what to do. How do they love
their child and have contact with them, but the child
is living in a totally different world.
Speaker 1: Which you're right, is like with the LGBTQ community, and
I see a lot of parents try to do a
version of this, which is like I love you, just
keep that part of your life away from me. Yep,
same shit, And that doesn't work because, like Remy was saying,
we all have all of us as all of us.
But it's simply to tell someone to keep a part
of them hidden is to reject them. Yes, And that's
the long and the short of this actually was that
is an obvious part of our identity that is not
something you can hide or you can perform out of.
Like if you are more effeminate and you're a great person,
acting more masks, you know what I mean. Like, it's
just this idea that you have to perform a version
of yourself so that you can be loved, requires then
you to reject a part of yourself, which is rejecting you.
It's masking, it's all that stuff.
Speaker 2: And it becomes a huge issue. And I think that
scene in particular really echoed a lot of social and
cultural issues that just like we're ascribing different things to it.
I think it's a very projective scene that allows people
to see themselves and feeling not loved and that a
person is expressing unconditional love to them.
Speaker 1: But it's not. It's conditional. It is conditional. If you're
telling your kid, I do love you, but that part
of you ew, I don't want to hear about it,
or just don't tell me about it. That is that
is conditional then, and.
Speaker 2: It is therefore cognitive dissonance. You are doing a different
thing than you are saying.
Speaker 1: Oh, and Selina's got cognitive dissonance in droves oh totals,
and you can see like in the acting of the
animation or struggle with that.
Speaker 2: Right and Roomy is flat calling her on it, which
has been fears that she's had for her whole life.
I'm sure of feeling that she's almost lovable, but she'll
be fully lovable. I don't think she feels unloved, but
she's not fully lovable until she gets these patterns off
and fixes everything.
Speaker 1: Which is something that I see a lot in a
lot of my clients and that I've experienced myself. Like
I come from a very I was very impacted by
diet culture, just because I was growing up in the
nineties early two thousands when the fashion was low rise
jenes or really the fashion was being very thin. Yep.
The accessory was your flat stomach, right. And I'm not
a naturally thin person. I never have been, I never
will be. That's like one of those things where it's like,
if I can just get thin enough, then I'll have
act to everything else. And people have that about money,
about status, about relationships, about being more modest or being pure.
If we're thinking of this more in the religious ways,
suppressing parts of yourself, and then if I can finally
just squash that part of me or fit in and
conform in this way, then I'll finally be happy. But
because it's not authentic, really it's a lot of work.
Because even here in the movie, this idea that Selene
has been selling Roomy that once they get the Golden
hund Moon that her demon self will go away, they
don't know that that's not proven. They've never had in
a situation like this before, they never had a Golden
hun Moon, and they've never had someone like Roomy. So
also who knows what would have happened when the Golden
hunt Moon went down, right, Nobody knows. So it's also
similarly magical thinking. The way that when I have to
have had done my own therapy, and also when I
work with clients with this kind of stuff, is that
it's a very it's magical thinking this idea that I'm
only one change of myself alf away, yeah, from having
no problems, right, I.
Speaker 2: Mean, when I was a kid who had to do
therapy on myself of realizing because I got dealing with
bullies because it kept trying to fit in with wanting
to have the things that the cool kids had. But
what I could not see was the the thing was
the exclusivity that they could other be. I didn't have
the Jordans or the right jeans or whatever else. And
it wasn't until therapy had helped me realize, Fuck those people,
They're not going to accept you anyway because you keep trying.
Speaker 3: You try, and you get the cool thing.
Speaker 2: You beg your parents to do the thing, and then
the one thing or whatever you get them to bend on.
You're like, I have the thing, I can be cool now. Nope,
you're still fuck you. You're still not good enough.
Speaker 1: Well, and even like another direction in the similar vein
of that is that you might get that thing and
you won't necessarily feel any different. You probably won't feel different. Nope,
because it's an inside job problem an outside job. It's
both well in how you think about yourself. Also, let's say,
in the example I gave about like being thin enough,
obviously everyone's not meant body wise to be thin. No,
you know that's not how diversity with biology works. For example,
if I were to get as thin as I thought
I should be in my head, that would be my
full time job is being that thin and saying that thin,
I would always be performing thin. It's like there wouldn't
be an end to that game. Whereas in the magical
thinking that I think she has and that a lot
of people have, which is once I get hit this milestone,
then I can finally relax. But because you're trying to
be in an authentic version of yourself, by nature of that,
you're always going to be.
Speaker 3: Working a whole.
Speaker 1: You're never going to take a fucking break. Especially if
you keep building your life around this trait of yourself
that you've manufactured. Right, then you do get in that
situation like we've been talking about, where to maintain the
life that you feel like you need to feel okay,
you have to keep performing, and so then the risk
of being yourself gets bigger and bigger and bigger and
bigger and bigger. So you have to keep the secretcies
is like horrible cycle.
Speaker 2: And the fear grows, and the reactivity to it grows,
and the feeling of being imprisoned and trapped and therefore
in danger. It grows, it grows, and it grows, and
we see that with Roumy and I was so fucking
proud of her. And what this movie is representing is
really like kind of gen Z stepping into the world
and saying, fuck this, we can't win this way.
Speaker 3: I am proud to say fuck you.
Speaker 2: And of course it's a kid's movie, so she didn't
say it that way, but she said something along lines
of if this is what it takes to keep the
hon moon, I'm proud to watch it get destroyed.
Speaker 1: Well, that's a great point too, which I was gonna
I highlight it in my notes, is that also, if
you raise a kid to have very rigid beliefs, then
if when they inevitably freak out about it kind of
we're saying they like reach breaking point, they are then
more susceptible to having a reactive rigid belief a different
rigid belief exact, which for her could be then fuck
you guys. I mean, like in this there's a version
of the story where she's like, you know what, I
will be a demon. You know, if I can't be
a good guy, then I'll be a bad guy. And
I see that a lot with kids too. The reopen
environments where they can't please, they can't fit in to
the rigid ideas within their family or culture that gain
them access to like love and acceptance, then they will
just go the whole opposite direction. Because if you're not
taught nuance in the way that in flexibility, really it's flexibility.
If you're not taught how to be flexible in your thinking,
you have to learn how to be flexible in your thinking,
and you have to you have to make a choice
in like therapy or other things to practice flexibility. You do,
and so you don't just get it one day. And
so in her situation, there is a realistic maybe maybe
even a more realistic version of the story where she
goes full bad well demon because she's like fuck the
hun noon. Then like when she kind of says, like
what good is it? Then yeah, and she goes full
the other way because she only knows how to live
in these rigid ideas.
Speaker 2: She right, And in order to live in rigid ideas
like that, you become inflexible because you're trying to fit
the chaos of the world and the changes that happen
into a narrative that no longer applies to it. Because
it's from a previous generation's viewpoint, and sometimes many times
that wisdom can be taken into account, but it does
not always apply to what's happening now. And it's vital
that when working with kids are people of different generational spots,
that you don't try to force them to adapt to
your narrative, but you listen to what their reality is
and help them understand theirs. Having a seven year old daughter,
I know school is different for her than it was
for me. Some things are not different. Kids are still
the way that they were. They're shitty and mean and
trying to figure out who they are and bully each other.
Speaker 1: But a lot of things are not the same.
Speaker 2: And for me to assume the way things were for
me and how I would have solved problems will work
for her is ignorant and it won't work. And we
see a beautiful moment where instead of going full villain,
we see Roomy going too full acceptance and realize, I
can't win your way. I can't win and keep myself restricted.
If I try and keep doing it this way, it
is going to fail. So she finds that kind of
benefit of nihilism, going like fuck this nothing matters doing
it this way, So why not try another way? Where
she goes, I'm going to try accepting myself. I'm going
to try listening to what Ginu told me. There's a
really powerful statement he made to her that I think
sunk in and prompted this was if hate could have
defeated Guima, I would have done it a long time ago.
Speaker 1: Trust he was being authentic there.
Speaker 2: Ghama punished him for that, and that's what prompts this
whole sequence. He goes through the free song and then
betrays her in the takedown song.
Speaker 3: He orchestrates that. But seeing this is really important.
Speaker 2: It is a really powerful scene where we see a
confrontation of what you taught me and held me to
is no longer applicable to reality.
Speaker 1: And I also think the sealin thing made me think
about how she is hypervigilant. The existence of roomy probably
really scares her, you know, of course, and how it
challenges her and makes her uncomfortable and all that stuff,
And so she's reacting with hypervigilance as the solution to that. Yeah,
And then how that can create hypervigilance in your kids,
It can create nihilism, it can create this idea that
maybe the like I think in more realistic settings, it
can create this idea within kids that the world is scary,
or that the world's full of people who won't like you,
that you have to protect yourself from the world in
a way that makes the world a very unfriendly place.
And how kids can inherit that level of hypervigilance and
anxiety that isn't I wouldn't say that is a generalized
anxiety sword or something like that in its own right,
Like that's something that it can be very learned, and
how when we are too over the top with trying
to protect our children, we can actually just be passing
down this idea about the world and about other people
that can really lead children to very depressed and secure,
frightened places and keep them trapped.
Speaker 2: There would no resources that they can grow or develop
because they are not safe enough to take a chance
to learn the skills to cope and adapt.
Speaker 1: And I think this is a great time to take
another break and be right back. So one thing I
did want to bring up, but then we went another direction,
a good direction with the discussion. But one thing I
did want to make to talk about is how when
you're raised with this rigidity and secret keeping and shame.
How it creates we talked about already like isolation, but
then I think how that isolation can make us very
vulnerable to other people, Yeah, and other messages. Yeah, and
so it's not even just I might view the world
as scary or I might be very isolated with just myself.
I think it also creates what we see in this movie,
where someone like genew can come in and take advantage
of roomy. I know that it goes to a more authentic, genuine,
healthy place. Yeah, but there's a version of a story
where that doesn't happen. I think also this movie really
demonstrates how if you are in a situation where you're
keeping secrets, either because you've been taught to keep secrets
or you think you're supposed to keep a secret, that
then it just it makes you very vulnerable to someone
coming in and taking advantage of you.
Speaker 2: It does, and in a less simple movie, Yeah, there's
way more narrative possibilities and realism that would have hit.
Speaker 3: This movie is very idealistic.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's a kid's movie. Of course, because
I'm an adult watching it, I was like, what's this
guy's game. I have that adult cynicism where I was like, oh,
so he's just telling the truth about all this, still right?
And I think he actually was. I remember it's a
kid's movie, so he probably is being very authentic and whatever.
He also could have been saying the very same things,
but in that more like grooming nefarious way. It reminded
me a lot of and you're gonna get kicked out
of this Ben Star Wars and snuck snoke snuk. Oh. Yeah,
this is very ky janew is very Kylo Rent, very
much in that. And then he tries to then project
that onto like Kylo rendas to write to Ray. You know,
I could talk about that all day, that relationship. How
you know he finds vulnerabilion in her because he's he's
getting the same thing done to him. Guima is his snoke. Oh,
because what is true about someone like Roomy when you're
doing all this secret, keeping all this shame, is that,
like you were saying, Ben, like part of being a
human is wanting to be love and accepted by other people. Yep,
no negotiable, and that isn't something that goes away, no,
as you said. And so then if you are someone
who's very isolated by your shame and feels like no
one will ever love you or no wherever like you.
Then someone comes in, like Genu, who's very cute. All
of a sudden, he's saying all the right things. He's
saying that like kind of scary stuff. Off, no one
understands you like me. Yeah, it's a very scary thing
for someone to say to anyone, because that's that's a
big red flag, y'all if anyone's ever like, no one
gets you like me. Oh, no one understands you like me.
And that's him trying to insert like take well, he's
taking advantage of the fact that that is how she
really feels and she is wanting someone to finally love
her unconditionally, and so there are people in the world
obviously who will take advantage of that. And you see
that in like controlling relationships things like that. Where that
could where this movie could have gone if it was
like a darker adult movie. Is he sweeps in and
he fully like controls her because he has connected unconditional love,
even though it wouldn't be eventually to him creating an
isolation chamber, which is what we see with I'll Go
back to star wars Kyla Ren Snow and then what
he tries to replicate with Ray, which is you're nobody
but not to me right and Gin you kind of
does the same thing to Roomy oh, which is also
so when you engage in shaming your kids or secret
keeping about things, you are opening up the back door
to your kid for someone to sneak in. Who will
tell your kid, oh, no, I love you no matter what,
or actually, like, I really like that about you. And
then if you're already someone who keeps secrets, then you
won't have a problem keeping a secret about this person.
It's just it's a fertile round for a lot of
bad stuff.
Speaker 2: And we've been warned about this thing through media since forever.
Even as you're saying this is what's occurring to me,
is Pinocchio?
Speaker 1: Hm?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, honest, Tom red Flag.
Speaker 1: You want to come be a donkey son?
Speaker 2: No, but he wants them to come perform the donkeys.
I think it's a separate plot line.
Speaker 1: I haven't watched Pinocchio in a thousand years.
Speaker 2: Anyway, You see it like Pinocchio wants nothing more than
to be like a real boy and to be accepted
into like to be seen, and Geppetto doesn't let him.
So the first person that comes along and it's like, hey,
you want to be seen, he's like go on, yeah.
Speaker 1: Because basically, you're creating a starvation within yourself, if it's
you that's secret keeping to yourself, or if you the
parent are encouraging secret keeping, like in this movie, you're
creating a stay of a starvation in your child. And
if they get an opportunity to get fed in this area,
they will eat.
Speaker 2: And this is what attachment theory is really all about, exactly,
because the more that people have a hunger, the more
they're going to seek and be unable to resist.
Speaker 1: They need to get fed in that way. And you
see it, and it doesn't take long for Roomy to
get really sucked into Genu, and I think that's realistic.
It's someone like her who's so isolated.
Speaker 2: Yes, but it also remember like with this movie, a
Ginu is just as sucked in by her.
Speaker 1: And that's also where I was going to go to,
is that he's his own isolated echo chamber right where
he's only getting this one message that I'm a piece
of and I did something really shitty that's like my
defining event for four hundred years. He starts to get
swayed by that. His feels a little, his feels less
problematic because he's his more feels like he's actually getting
out of his isolation and out of zecho chamber in
that like both being part of the Sondra Boys and
when they're at the publicity thing and she's like, maybe
you should listen to these voices, not the ones in
your head. Like he's getting more exposure to alternative views
of himself.
Speaker 2: That's true, but remember his first motivation is to get
the voices to stop.
Speaker 1: Yes, And so he's got his own desperation, and then
that gets pulled back in because then Guema like doubles
down and he does the shame secret keeping stuff too,
where he's like, if she knew who you really were,
she'd fucking hate.
Speaker 2: You right where And Grimaud at the introduction of Genu,
tells us I've known you for four hundred years.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I really know you.
Speaker 2: You've never done a single thing that didn't benefit yourself.
What do you want? Like he clocks him immediately, like
you're full of shit, what do you want?
Speaker 1: Yeah? But also he's been living in this world for
four hundred years where you weren't encouraged I assume to
do anything but self serving bad things of course.
Speaker 2: But then shamed for them. Yes, so that Guema could
maintain control.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so it's a that's a self perpetuating situation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you're seeing him kind of break out of it,
so it gets it is complicated in that way. The
best version of it happened where Ginu is struggling to
escape because what you're saying is true, Like he gets
kind of pulled out of it when he sees someone
with pattern living free.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And I think it's part of the thing too.
We've been talking about where to open up and to
trust others, you have to take risks, whether it's like
actual risks or more just emotional risks, risks against maybe
the belief system you have, So you're taking some form
of risk yep, even when she's saying things like maybe
you should listen to those voices not the ones in
your head, kind of pulling him out a bit. Yeah,
you can feel him acknowledging that he's taking a risk
and that that's like ooh scary obviously, And so he's
in that moment where he is also very vulnerable in
terms of like do I take a risk and really
go for it and be brave, yeah, or do I
go back to what I know? And unfortunately Weima grabs
him during that very trepidacious period. Yep, unfortunately does that
thing that does happen in real life, which is you
can't do that. If they only knew the real you,
they'd hate you, and just reaffirms the things that scare him,
just scares him back into his hole. Correct. Yeah, he's
popping his head out. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think the whole point of his interactions and sneaking
off them, sneaking off to meet each other in very
geen romance thing is like trying to figure out and
find your way, and yeah, have somebody else that sees
you and it actually be like a moment that their
mask is down mm hm and they're telling you the
truth and they're letting you in and it feels really intimate.
But you, unfortunately, when we're young and blinded by love
and lust, we like you before, get a little stupid
that we can't see even sometimes when people are being
genuine with us, that they may not being genuine with themselves,
or they may be being genuine to the degree that
they are capable of, but it may not be their
entire motivation.
Speaker 1: Well. Yeah, and even from the sense of protectiveness to
in guardedness, like the hypervigilance we mentioned earlier that it's
so hard to break out of that. And also part
of that hypervigilance and part of when you're in your
own like shame spiral, is that you can assume that
other people think the way that you do, or that
other people can't like you like you're trying to, like
cognitive dissonance wise, you're trying to make the external stimuli
match your internal beliefs. And so how that can look
too is you're being really nice to me, But are
you being nice to me because you want something from me?
Are you being nice to me because YadA YadA, YadA,
YadA YadA, you know, poking holes in it? Yeah, which
allows us to stay in our little bubble of security,
even though the security can feel hellish in nature. And
I think that's part of it too, even with Genu
trusting Roomy well and vice versa. But I think more
Genu trusting Roomy is that he's coming from such a
place that has well in the hell world he's in.
It's like such a place of everyone's out for themselves,
everyone's intentions are bad. And if that's the belief system
you have, not necessarily about yourself, but about everyone around you,
then it's hard not to assume those things are true
when other people with other people, even if they're showing
you contradictory information, so then your brain will warp that
information to fit here a narrative. I think that's what
happens a lot actually, people that struggle with personality disorders
as much as they get a very bad rap in
our society and a lot of really mean, awful over simplifications,
very much of those diagnoses. When I've worked with people
that have those some version of those diagnoses, it's really
more that they have such a deep feeling of shame
with them themselves, and so whenever other people are interacting
with them, they're like contorting those experiences to match their insides. Yep,
you can't be open other people. You have to be
on your guard. And a lot of people with personal
disorders come from trauma. So like with someone like gen
knew like in that by environment, he didn't just come
up with those ideas on his own Nope, they're reinforced
by life experience unfortunately.
Speaker 2: Right, And he is taking risks to be vulnerable and
explore that trust, but getting pulled back in and it's
a struggle.
Speaker 3: He actually, you know, reminds me a lot.
Speaker 2: I mean, besides Kylo Rn is the brother from slum
Dog Millionaire.
Speaker 1: Oh, I haven't seen that movie since, like it first
came out probably twenty years ago. It's wow, So I couldn't.
I can't grab for that reference for you.
Speaker 2: So the brother kind of falls into the gang world
more or less and realizes he can you know, he
kind of has like a mean streak and manipulate and
kind of fawns when they're going to blind him, and
he starts tricking some of the other people into being blinded,
and they realize that he's kind of he could be
like a you know, part of this is workable.
Speaker 1: He's workable and.
Speaker 2: Kind of falls into that like unethical side of things
the whole way. And then he's part of the reason
that the brother gets rescued and it's him turning back
on the voices. But they struggle in a similar way,
and it's a it's a common trope that we see
of this person who's conflicted, but maybe they're not really bad.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's it's Darth Vader, it's Kyla Ren.
Speaker 1: And for someone like Guema, it's more about control right
of him. Where was Selene? Like we were saying her
thing is more about fear and genuine anxiety that springs
from these generational ideas.
Speaker 2: Right, Guema seems to represent the kind of inherent struggle
with good and evil and Selene represents the societal conformity.
Speaker 3: Yeah, both have their their places.
Speaker 2: And I think this movie did a beautiful job of
showing that both can be villainous, even if one is unintentional.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's take a break here and then we'll be
back with talking about sort of I guess the antidote,
if you will, to what we've been talking about so far.
What do they say like shame grows in darkness? Yep?
How do you fight it? As you bring in the light?
And how do you do that? Is what we see
in this movie, which is you have to get to
a point where you can feel ready to take the
risk we've been talking about, which is can I tell someone, Yeah,
one person, one person, some part of what's going on.
What she said in the movie that I wrote down. Oh,
how like she gets her voice back when she starts
to talk to Ginu about her shame. Yep, which is
if I haven't heard the most simplistic way to talk
about therapy. I was kind of like Yanoda, but I said,
thought that because I'm a therapist. What what if you
talk to someone about what's going on with you? You'll
feel better and not as full of shame. What a
crazy idea.
Speaker 2: You'll be lighter and more functional and not feel so
comps pressed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, wild, and you'll feel like able to do the
things that you love. Crazy. That's such a I mean
that's a very simplistic example. I mean, luckily, like we
were saying, luckily Genos gene Genu. Luckily Genu turned out
to be someone that didn't totally fucker over and take
advantage of her. No, and the end he sacrifices himself. Yeah,
because and everyone, because it is Harry that the person
that she experiences is with is also the person who
is taking advantage of her isolation. Yeah, that's that's a
scary version of this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's like there's there's parts of him that are
at war. He's at war with himself.
Speaker 1: He does.
Speaker 2: He loses that battles, but he doesn't lose the war.
But in real life it's you know, it's quite rare.
Speaker 1: And also in real life it's not as easy as
someone in your life saying I love you, Can you
tell me what's going on? Obviously that will help tremendously,
but it still requires you as the individual to take
the very scary and I always want to acknowledge every
people the very scary risk of and I let someone
see me. Can I tell someone my secret? And I
can't control the outcome of that. I can't control how
they'll respond. I can make an educated guess, like I
can definitely be thoughtful about who I choose to talk to,
how I choose to tell them, and YadA, YadA. It's
still a risk in the sense that there's uncertainty there.
Speaker 2: It's a huge risk. I've been watching Yellow Jackets thinking
about that show. Even the scene where Misty makes a friend.
I forgot that girl's name, but Misty makes a friend.
Speaker 1: Is actually a spoiler alert. I mean it's three seasons in,
so what still just watching Yellow spoiler alert?
Speaker 3: If you start watching Yellow Jackets in.
Speaker 1: A streaming society, Missy, I mean.
Speaker 2: Misty makes a friend and then tells her the truth
about the bananas, saying that Misty did it cause all
of them to be stuck there.
Speaker 3: And she reveals that secret.
Speaker 2: He's like the relief on her, But that girl's face
goes from like they're telling each other benign secrets and
Misty being no why she just doesn't understand it, Like
this secret resulted in everybody being super fucked and people dying.
Speaker 1: Not the same.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but that girl immediately turns on it, and it's
like that moment of shame that everyone fears, yeah, well happened,
that people will reject you because of these shameful things
that you did. But there's only some things like what
Missy did that might actually cause that reaction. And most
of the time it's a it's a dark fantasy we
entertain of if I say this, I'm going to be
rejected just like that, where someone's like, you fucking freak,
I can't believe you are losing all of the love
that I ever gave you.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And also part of the Misty thing is that
what she confesses to is also a bit of an outlier.
Right if Rumy had said to her friends. Hey, guess what,
I'm happy to give it. And also I have been
killing our loved ones and I've been sabotaging all of
our plans behind your back. Hah. That's not really so
much as telling a secret as confessing yeah, differently something bad,
something hurtful. And also, so I think bridging off of
that example is when I work with people and honestly
actually me as the therapist, a lot of times we
are obviously the first person that someone will tell a
secret to. Sometimes I joke that I'm a professional secret keeper.
The reason why people will tell a therapist is because
there's a lot of ethical, expensive consequences that a therapist
will face if they don't keep your secret. Yep. So
it's a very very very safe thing. And also, as
we've talked about before, more often than nine nine nine
percent of the time, you don't know your therapist outside
of the therapy's relationship. Nope. So also, I have no
personal interest in whatever the person in front of me
is telling me. Secret wise, Yep, it doesn't impact me
at all. It do won't hurt my feelings. Even if
they were saying my secret is I hate your guts,
I'd be like, Okay, well after this, I only see
you an hour week professionally, so I'm a safe person
to tell a secret too, right, And so sometimes and
I'm sure you know that to Ben, because I'm sure
you have the same experience. We are the first people.
And then we can help that person through like coaching,
discussing processing how and when, well when if when, how
they feel ready to share that more with other people
in their life. Right, kind of going off the misty
example is something I will tell people, especially if the
secret's pretty hardcore, which and it might be something like
I have to tell you I've been lying to you,
or I'm having an affair or something really bleak. And
if it's directly impacting the person you're going to tell,
then I do tell them. You have to be ready.
Part of the preparing is preparing for the potential ballout
and the outcome. And I think with someone like Roomy, though,
it's more who are people in your life that feel
the most able to encourage you if you tell them? Yeah,
like Selene, she knows the secret, so she wouldn't be
a good person to tell, But I mean that'd be moot.
So basically, like let's say if it was more that
Slee she was part of a family and maybe like
her parents are the most rigid, maybe she's a sibling.
That's not right. I'd be like, what, who in your
life is the person that you think might have the
most ideal response? Sure, oh the manager, Yeah, I forgot
his name. Yeah, that most ideal response to what you
would share, Because you kind of want to warm them
up too, because because it's such a risky thing that
in such a scary thing people are doing, obviously I
want them to feel as encouraged as possible, and well,
at least as less discouraged. Maybe it's more like as
minimally discouraged as possible. So a lot of it can
be really thinking over who's the safest person you can tell,
who think will have the best reaction or the closest
reaction to you want to have them to have doctor Hutt.
And then we would talk about oh no, And then
we would talk about how you would want to actually
say that secret. What's the context, what's the setting, all
that kind of stuff, because also you don't want a
secret to just be blurted out. You don't want to
be telling a secret when the person isn't giving you
the full attention or doesn't know that you're about to
have a capital C conversation. Nope, And you don't want
to tell maybe the highest risk person or like the
highest risk high reward person either. No, you want to
ease maybe ease into it.
Speaker 2: It's important that you do that because people need to
see that. But what I think of the fantasy thing
of the dark fantasy that people have, is they need
to see and feel in their body that when they
choose to tell that safe person, that that person does
the opposite of that dark fantasy where they give them
love and acceptance. And have some clients who are entering
their sixties mid sixties and feel shame for things that
happened when they were teenagers or before. Thinking people in
their life will still see them, yeah, with the shame
that they see themselves and may even reject them because
most people have worked really hard to not be the
shittiest version of themselves. But sometimes people hold that shame
over themselves for their whole life, and it almost blocks
them from being able to love themselves, let alone some
in particular, let someone else love them, which is kind
of the importance of this therapy relationship where you help
them build practice at telling the safest person possible the
deepest secret and getting a non reaction yeah, to a
compassionate reaction of you were a kid.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, I will tell you this when it's a
very specific feeling when a client starts to prep you
for a secret, yep, as if they're about to tell
you the worst thing you've ever heard. And so then
in my brain, so then my brains are doing the
whole like make sure your faceless neutral, Yeah, make sure
your face is neutral. Like a lot of being a
therapist is actually like what did my face look like
in your own head? Do I look calm? And then
they'll tell me something that's so in my experience so
benign usually or just not as like I'm ready for
a ten secret, and usually it's more like a four.
I remember one time you got a ten. Oh, that
is true, I have got but like more often than not,
it's like a four or five. But because also we
are so isolated within ourselves about things that we feel
shameful about, it becomes a boogeyman in our head. Yeah,
And then this also can be really true. More often
than not, you finally tell someone let the boogeyman out,
and the usually the reactions more like oh okay, or
kind of what these girls like mirran Zobe is like
yeah I knew something was up, you know shit, or
even like when people come out as gay and their
family's like, yeah, we knew, like I said, Like, more often,
I don't know if this will help anybody feel better,
but more often than not, when a client finally tells
me something they've been really front loading, yeah, I'm like, oh,
it's almost like I have to make sure not to
like laugh or smile because I'm like, oh, okay, you
you can't invalidate. But it's like I'm so prepared for
something huge that usually when I get told, I'm like, oh, okay,
let's talk about that more. We do think we can tell,
and you're right, like, if nothing else, we give them
the experience of telling someone of them doing the scariest thing,
finally saying the worst thing they could about themselves, and
getting usually probably a pretty neutral response. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean, at therapists, we're largely supposed to have a
neutrally compassionate response, but not too compassionate, because too compassionate
for those secrets can be invalidating.
Speaker 1: For sure, And also I think it can be helpful
for clients to be honest with them in the context
of that's tough. It sounds like you made a bad
choice at a certain point in your life, So it's
like it can and sometimes it can be more contextualizing it.
Speaker 2: Also, Yeah, what I like to do with those It
sounds like it really hurts you still, Yeah, that that
was a true thing that happened, and that that doesn't
feel like the you you want to be or have become, or.
Speaker 1: Even like the fact that it's bothering you so fucking
much means a lot about the fact that you are
a person who wants to be kind or nice or thoughtful.
You know, right, if you are really a monster, you
wouldn't give a shit, not one about this thing you're
carrying within you. Oh shit right, that's the irony of it.
Speaker 2: And helping people reach that point of trust and acceptance
where you are choosing to love you, all of you,
and then allowing other people to see you and seeing
that they can.
Speaker 3: And that you are lovable.
Speaker 2: That's what this is, what it sounds like, which is
ironically my daughter's favorite. But hearing and seeing the way
that there's this huge battle unfolding, and Roomy's showing up
in front of everyone in her half demon form, and
she's singing that this is who I am, nothing but
the truth, nothing but the truth now, and you see
her kind of shattering that idea that I can only
be good enough, like the cultural idea, and God can
only be good enough by being perfect, by conforming to
this ideal that isn't possible. It's unachievable, it's unattainable, it's
not real.
Speaker 1: Nobody can do it.
Speaker 2: Instead of being the one example that can, I'm going
to be an example of somebody who has tried really
hard and decides to stop masking and show you the
real person underneath, not the fantasy that exists, but be
the real person. And through that I can myself enough
to be loved.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I mean because this is a kid's movie
and they want a kid to kids who get a
very specific message from it. It does work out in
that she accepts herself and she walks back into that
arena and her two friends find her. They go to her,
and then they work together. They have a kind of
like an ideal response. They have an ideal secondary response.
Speaker 2: Right, and it took me many times of watching it
to catch the Grima was hypnotizing more or less. Yeah,
the crowd, right, Like the girls are all stuck in
their shit.
Speaker 1: With those little thingies too, right.
Speaker 2: And they're kind of they're just walking with the crowd,
both Mira and Zoi separately.
Speaker 1: Well, because that whole thing too, which we haven't even
talked about, is also how someone like Wima, a predator yep,
I guess, can take advantage of people when they're feeling
vulnerable it. Yeah, so like those two, the two girls
are very vulnerable because their life has been exploded yep,
because of what's going on with Rumy, and so they
are prepped for someone like Wema to just like find
those cracks and just like sink their teeth into it. Correct.
Speaker 2: And as we see that as it's happening, those shame
voices are coming through and hitting everyone, but they're all
just walking like little moths into flame at that point. Yeah,
And it's not until Droomy steps out and starts revealing
her shame and her vulnerabilities instead of trying to be
this like perfect ideal thing that they can be drawn
to to try to be what she's displaying which isn't
real for her either, yea. But by dropping all of
that and being real and vulnerable and showing her scars,
the girls also come out of their dissociation and realize
who they are all together. It's a super powerful positive
message of accept yourself, accept your flaws, and people can
love the real you in the way that you've always
needed to be loved, but you can't attain it without
letting people in well.
Speaker 1: And then also, like you're saying, it can be very
inspirational and aspirational yep, And it does inspire, like Mira
specifically says, she says it once in the beginning, but
then she says it again at the end, which is
that we are part of our like mantra that we're
taught by like Selene yep, and she was taught to
I'm sure that we can't have any what do they say, Like,
we can't have any like mistakes or we know we
can't have any We have to be perfect basically is
what she says. We're not allowed to show any weaknesses
or vulnerabilities. That Mirror is feeling that pressure too, and
I'm sure and Zoe is as well, Like how Zoe's
dealing is by people pleasing, and how Mira's dealing is
by being like that kind of guarded. I don't care.
Speaker 3: I do care, vibe.
Speaker 1: You know I'm conforming to not conforming, okay, Hannah, Yeah,
and I'm Zoe. Unfortunately, I'm working on it. I joke
with my clients that I'm a recovering people pleaser when
I'm teaching my clients how to be less people pleasy,
and it is active work. I have to sit with
my anxiety all the time, be like, girl, don't do it.
I know you want to do it, but it's not
going to work. It's not gonna bebe a letter and
not everyone's mad at you, and even if people are
frushraer with you, and that's okay. This is the what
I tell myself. But also something you're saying to remind
me of something I say to clients all the time.
And I do believe this because something that is corny
but true about me is I do think I am
a optimist. I think part of that is I try
to model vulnerability a lot. I think that's important to
me ethically, and being a therapist actually is being one
a good communicator and two being vulnerable, and the more
vulnerable I am, the easier it is to be vulnerable.
Because what I typically say to people is my working
theory is that everyone wants to be vulnerable, but we're
all kind of playing like vulnerability chicken with each other. Yep,
which is who's going to be vulnerable first? Because in
my experience, as soon as I'm vulnerable with someone, they
tend to be vulnerable back. It's almost like they're weight
They like, oh okay, fine. And I wonder with like
Mira specifically, because she's the one that says that if
like roomy going through this, it's like that she finally
gets the permission herself to take a fucking breath and
cannot be her version of perfect right.
Speaker 2: And even the lyrics that the two characters say as
they're coming off, I think Mira says something white, I
try to keep the colors stuck inside my head.
Speaker 1: Oh, I think says that because she's more bubbly, and.
Speaker 2: Yeah it, Zowais says that, and then Mira says instead
of seeing something other like the colors shining off the
broken glass, and you can tell, like, yeah, that the
two kind of opposite.
Speaker 1: They're seeing themselves and what's happening.
Speaker 2: They're seeing themselves, and they are only doing that once
Rumy's vulnerability is revealed and she shows it, and then
it does inspire them to do the same and accept
themselves and kind of reveal the things that make them
and they apologize to each other kind of through this
song for walling each other off, because yet again, nothing
in this movie is an accident. In the scenes with
doctor Han where he points out each.
Speaker 1: Of their shit, it's a good exposition scene.
Speaker 2: Totally foreshadowing, Yeah, that it is going to take even.
Speaker 3: Though I'm full of shit. Is I'm not full of shit.
Speaker 1: About what I see, but the grape juice I'm selling,
the grape.
Speaker 2: Juice of selling, you know, is bullshit. But the points
that he was making were all spot on for each
of them. That you have to lower your walls. You
have to stop trying to be so scary and like
keeping people out, and you have to stop people pleasing.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And a part of this, too, of like the
dominoes of being vulnerable, is that a lot of this
rigidity and perfectionism is self perpetuating in the group, right yep.
And so I think the pressure of me to be
perfect as Roomy is because Mirror is perfect. It is
always perfect because that's we're all performing perfection for each other.
And so then also when someone finally has a vulnerability
to be messy, I'll put it like that, not even
a sort of secretkeeping would just be messy. And the
other people are like, oh, I actually am messy too
in my own way, and they're like, oh shit, maybe
everyone wasn't perfect and I was the only fuck up.
Maybe we've all just been waiting, or maybe we've all
just been performing perfection because we're assuming everybody else is perfect.
Speaker 2: Correct, which is like exactly what the cultural narrative is
of this film. It's like everyone's trying to be something
that they can't be, but everyone's got shit. Yeah, and
breaking free from that is the way forward. I think
that's why it's resonating so hard. Do you feel like
there's anything else we want to say on that? Or
we kind of covered it all, right, So let's take
a break there and move into truth month.
Speaker 1: I hear first, So I really just thought for I
would do family therapy with Selene and Roomy. They're obviously
gonna need it after this event. Oh, they're gonna need
it because I think they're still gonna I don't know.
They left it very open ended.
Speaker 2: Their relationship, yeah, roomy, just like aperated like it was
Harry Potter's.
Speaker 1: There's no resolution to that relationship. No, So they would
need family therapy, and what I would want to do
with them is repair work. Repair work is this idea
where you walk people through or walk people from a relationship,
whether it's a couple or a family relationship with someone
or even friends, maybe walk them through how to process
something that's already happened. A lot of times with repair work.
You can even google repair work and find very specific
questions and exercises. I use very specific questions when I
do it. Actually just four questions I'm try to remember
on the top of my head, But basically I asked
people to write out what happened. Can you just tell
the story of what happened? What's the story that I heard,
What's the story that I took from that? Basically, what
did I what was the meaning of it, how did
I interpret that, what was the like the subtext of
what happened? How did it make me feel? And then
what do I need now from this other person to
feel better? To and it says feel better and the
exercise just feel better. And I think with Selene and Rumy,
if they want to stay in a relationship of some
sort of rental child relationship or even just be close
at all, Roomy, it deserves and will need repair work
from Selene yep, because what it's going to require when
you do prepare work. And I really have to think
that the two people I'm doing with can hang to
do it, because you may get really brutal information yea
from the will Yeah, like you did this to me
you and what I heard from that is that I'm
a piece of shit or that you don't care about me.
Like it's pretty brutal stuff all the times. And also
it could definitely be like a misunderstanding too. And so
what the other what I really will do to prep
people is you have to just sit there and listen.
Do not defend yourself, Do not try to make sense
of it what they're saying, because this is how they
feel and that's real and reality is subjective. This shit
going on usually and especially when I do with couples,
is building on that moment. If I'm getting every time
you do this X to every time you do X
to me, and I react why and that doesn't make
sense to you? More often than not, you can connect
that reaction to a moment like this where they're like,
it's put a filter on the relationship.
Speaker 3: Yep, because I could no longer.
Speaker 2: I realized that by the thing you said, you were
showing a lack of openness to understanding that what you're
doing is hurting me.
Speaker 1: And also, repair work is very vulnerable, like with the
person that is sharing that with the other person. So
with this situation where I'm not sure where Selene's at,
I would first want to assess that Selene can tolerate
and be encouraging to Ruemy's openness. Because the idea of
doing this and why you put yourself through something like
repair work, is because there's a reward on the other side,
which is our relationship.
Speaker 2: Correct, But the relationship has to be real, because people
will not suffer for no reason.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so both parties have to be committed to
this idea and they have to be able to tolerate it.
I would have to make sure that Selene is ready
to hear whatever Roomy says, and that she's probably needs
to do her own work to be flexible enough in
her own thinking to not push back on what room
we might say, you know, because it would be like
all the messages you sent me about demons growing up
that made me feel like this, that and the other.
What I need from now on is to be more accepting,
to embrace this part of me. Part of what I'm
assessing is how likely is the person going to be
cool about that ask? Because I don't want to put
someone like Rooming in a position where they're being so
vulnerable and asking something like this, so like sincerely to
this love one, and for the loved one to be
like absolutely fucking not, you know, I mean that might
happen no matter what, yep, but you do try to Like.
Repair work is something I would do, like many sessions
into working with someone working with a relationship because it
is such a vulnerable thing. It requires them trusting me
to and I'm asking them to do something that has
value and not is not just a torture exercise for them.
Speaker 2: Both right, right, And it's it's vital that understanding getting
into a repair session that the shitty things are going
to be sett you need to weather them.
Speaker 1: You're gonna you're about to get you're in the hot seat. Yep,
you gotta fucking take it.
Speaker 2: And the one thing you can't do is say the
one fucking thing you know you can't say. So many
times this process gets blown up, just like Selene fucked
it up by saying the one thing you know you
can't say, or you don't know you can't say and
haven't refused to learn, can't do that one.
Speaker 3: We just need to cover you back up.
Speaker 1: Oh nope, or even just I'm sorry you felt that way,
or you don't understand ye.
Speaker 2: All those things are things that like you get that
look where somebody like chucks their offer lip onto their
lower lip and looked well.
Speaker 1: Well. Also, what I would want to do to give
Selene some agency and because obviously if you're doing family therapy,
you want both people to feel like they have space. Yes,
is I think it also could be helpful to kind
of process altogether and where Selene's coming from, not in
the sense of like validating the rigid messages that are
hurting roomy, but more like kind of what we've been
talking about, which is coming to an understanding of like
where why did Selene feel like she had to have
such rigid beliefs and in a way to hopefully make
someone like Roomly understand that it's not about you actually
like that. Selene has her own stuff that spilled onto
you right as her child.
Speaker 2: Which she was able to do with Genu connecting to
that empathy. But she will likely struggle to connect to
that for Selene, and that will require this repair work.
Speaker 1: It would probably have to involve Yeah, like the repair
work allows Selene to also demonstrate change. I do repair work,
you're also giving someone the opportunity to hear concretely what
the other person needs and to give that to them
in a way. It's like a like you know, a
what's the word I'm looking for? Like an alive branch
Like Also it's like, here's an olive branch, like I
recognize and I and I want to meet you where
you're at. I want to give you what you're saying
you need. I want to repair and I'm willing to
do that. I'm going to suck up. I'm going to
take what you're telling me. I'm going to suck it
up and just say I hear you, I understand, even
if I don't quite understand, and then I'm going to
accept what you're telling me you need and then that
can give enough goodwill that there might be wiggle room
to then talk through like Selene, can you help us
understand where you were coming from? And not like I said,
not in a way to like like if this was
more of like a gay client and a parent who
is from a you know, a non gay accepting culture,
me saying this wouldn't be now explain why gay people
are bad or why you think that. It would be
more like, can you help us understand where you got
this belief from and why this belief also important for
you to hold on to to get some understanding where
she's coming from, like I said, And also it can
help hopefully helprew me feel less like it's about me, well,
my parent and their stuff that they got that they
passed down.
Speaker 2: To me yep, and society then the pressure of being
hunters and all of these things that we're a really
small population of people within a population of people, so
the ability for us to be understood is quite tiny.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And then also as a therapist is a time
when you can give psychoed too of like this is
why people do the things they do, Like all this
stuff we've been talking about so far, so I would
want to do family therapy with them. They're going to
need it if they're going to have a positive relationship.
It's very contingent upon how Salne reacts to the end
of this movie, which.
Speaker 2: If I'm going to put on my hat of writer,
it seems like the story left to tell is the
backwards one.
Speaker 1: It's very open ended that part.
Speaker 2: And I think what we're describing would make for a
compelling and natural building point to have a story that
kind of shows the repair work between them, yeah, also
tells us the story we don't know, which is what
happened before exactly, And I think that would be a
powerful storytelling arc, and I hope that's what they do
for me. I think I'm going to build on a
similar idea. I don't think I think there's more than
one family here. And having done a lot of work
like this with teams of police officers in my case,
particularly people who do more risky undercover or swat or
that kind of stuff. I've had clients that do all
kinds of these really niche things that require trust and
putting yourself out there a lot of risk and things
like that, and when something happens that damages the trust
in that team or a response. It's vitally important that
the team gets a chance to process that as a whole.
A person who's stuck individually may need more work, but
if you don't process it as a team and handle
that thing, they won't get very far in the individual
work and will probably leave the team. And I think
for are lovely K pop demon hunters, for them to
stay hun tricks and not have Roomy goll Beyonce on
them is I think we'd need to see the three
of them do very similar repair work, but also processing.
There need to be a lot of processing what happened
during the time when they were apart together, because Mira
and Zoe don't have any idea of what actually went
on for Roomy all those years, and they will need
to hear that to form empathy for her and understanding
how did you get to the point where you betray us?
We're like literally trapesing the world in private planes and
like so intimateously close, but yet you still wall us
off and.
Speaker 1: We knew it. Han knew it. The fucking scammy guy
knew it.
Speaker 2: Because I mean, their grifters are good at that of
being people readers, but man, everybody who knows you knows
you're not.
Speaker 1: You're walling us off. And also to not create a
pattern then where they're all second guessing her, you know,
like this is going to leave a mark.
Speaker 2: Correct, However, there being a reason for that, an explanation
and ability for them to connect to her story, her
experience and demonstrate empathy will vastly decrease the time it
takes to heal from that. But she is also going
to at the same time need to hear why it
hurt them so bad.
Speaker 1: That's true too, there's consequences for yep. Is that even
if you made these choices or kept these secrets of
very understandable reasons, other people are allowed to have their
own feelings about how your actions also impacted them.
Speaker 2: And that's the top mistake people make when trying to
get through these discussions is that no, I told you why,
so it should be fine.
Speaker 1: Now, Like I want one hundred percent blanket validation forgiveness
because I was hurting when I did that thing.
Speaker 3: Right, and I see it with couples all the time.
Speaker 1: Well, and then then that becomes like who's got hurt
the worst? Olympics correct receipts.
Speaker 2: Move's the most right, and then we're layering each other
and it goes poor Lee because it takes recognition that
everybody got hurt by this and everybody wants the same things,
which is to be heard, to feel safe, and to
feel like whatever happened doesn't happen again.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so there's a lot of repair work. Yeah, that
Roomy will have to do with them, Like they might
need over the top transparency.
Speaker 2: For a while, they might, but what they're going to
need before that is for Roumy to witness their pain
and what those little scepters Guima was using to the
little fan things, Yeah, the little fan light things or whatever.
Speaker 1: Only a word for it that we don't know because
we don't listen to K pop music, the word like wands.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm sure it's clearly a whole thing. Yeah, as
I'm not a K pop fan. And they felt weak
and vulnerable when they're used to throwing daggers and swinging
glaves at these things and fighting as a trio that
can take on anything and all of a sudd and
they're vulnerable.
Speaker 3: That's going to be a wound that takes all while
to heal.
Speaker 1: That's very healthy for Roomy too, because you don't want
to create this inverse situation where she can only feel
good if everyone is like super nice and accepting of her. Yep,
that she also has to get comfortable or more be
able to tolerate the discomfort of people can be mad
at you and still love you. They can. You can
be fighting with people and still love each other. You can,
and it doesn't have to be this all or nothing
thing in either direction. So it's good for people like
Roomy to also sit in the discomfort of people being
upset with them and hearing that out.
Speaker 3: It does.
Speaker 2: And I think the one last thing I want to
add to this is because they are a functional team
that actually deals with real danger.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they have to really trust each other.
Speaker 2: They are going to need not only they're interpersonal, but
they're professional. It's their physical side. I guess the way
I want to put it reassured. Because they went through
some fights where one of them fucked off, Yeah what rogue,
and all of a sudden, they weren't functioning all three together,
kind of knowing each other's moves. They were roomies off
by yourself, and you can see Mira and Zobe getting
overwhelmed when they're in the bathhouse.
Speaker 3: Oh mh, they're like, roomy, where are you? We need you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're going to need to.
Speaker 2: Work through those moments of kind of like scuba divers
have to take their mask off and have somebody else
give them air to pass their tests because shit happens,
and you need to have training to train through those moments.
And they're going to need to work through building trust
with each other again in a functional, stressed space. And
you have to do that with sports teams, you have
to do that with tactical environments, you have to do
that with medical environments. People that are under stressed like
that need to be able to repair and refunction and
they're going to need some training to address that.
Speaker 1: I guess kinetic.
Speaker 2: Side, kisthetic learning side for sure said that's all I
have on that.
Speaker 1: I think it kind of covers it all. Right, let's
take our last break care and be back with final thoughts.
So I go first, and because just because in our
tradition where the people who like it the most tend
to go last. If people haven't picked up on that
with final thoughts, so I this movie is fun, it's cute.
I'm not a parent. I'm a child free by choice,
and so I don't think it's a movie I would
have watched necessarily if it wasn't for the podcast, and
it was a cute movie to watch. I don't know
if I'll watch it again unless there's like a child
in my life who wants to watch it. But I
don't have any. I would say my feelings on it
are very neutral. I like all the stuff we've talked
about today. I think it's a great movie for kids
to have. I like the message. I think it's visually
very beautiful. Even that alone, I can see why people
are gravitating towards it. Like even the thumbnail on Netflix
is very like, hey watch me. So I've just seen
the name a lot, and I like that they include
so much Korean, and like the dialogue, not just in
the songs, but also in how they talk to each other.
I like that that's a nice little like we're not
totally centering Western American English in this story, like we're
gonna include like the I guess the Korean version of
Spanglish into the situation. And I like how much the
girls eat, you know, given how active they are. I
think that's how they're introduced. They are very skinny still, Yeah,
but I can accept that because they're so active as
both like dancers, performers and demon hunterrews that. But I
do like to the acknowledge that they carbo load and
eat all this stuff as a response to that, because
they probably be hella hungry after all that work they do. Yep,
And like I said, my favorite song is though what
it sounds like song, I feel like it's very catchy.
I don't know if I'll listen to a lot of
the music though in my free time, But I also
don't listen to a lot of K pop, Like I
could definitely hear like the influence of the K pop
I am familiar with, like in osmosis, like BTS songs
and Catie songs and stuff like that. It's not quite
my genre, so I don't know if I'll visit it
in my life outside of the podcast. But like I said,
like I don't really have any problems with this movie.
I just don't think I would seek it out on
my own volition, but not because it's a bad movie,
just because it's not a movie for like my age,
demographic or my personal preferences and Like I said before,
I would have liked more backstory on the roommate parents situation.
Maybe I will watch whatever sequel comes out after this
to just see what happens. Maybe I'll read the Wikipedia page,
but I'll give the movie a look. And I would
say my favorite part actually was the big tiger with
the little hat, Derby Tiger Bird. That did crack me out.
Derby Bird. Yeah, when he was like going down, I
had to knock things over and then couldn't stop like
a big cat. That was very funny and that did
make me laugh a lot. That and when the idea
of the songa boys are being introduced and they do
the whole like the swishy hair thing and like ummu
Like that was very funny too. I was like, oh,
got them.
Speaker 3: So the girl's eyes like popping corn. That was hilarious.
Speaker 1: And I will say, if I had to like put
this movie against a lot of Disney movies or like
Disney Channel movies, I can see why parents love this movie. Oh,
because this is far and above those movies like a
Breath of fresh Air, and I don't have to watch
any of those kind of movies in my personal life,
so I think that's also why I'm a bit of
a skewed perspective and I've really like not encountered the
phenomenon you're experiencing, ben Like, not even in like I'm
not saying this in like an edge lord way, like
I'm so cool, I don't know anything about this. But really,
what you've told me about how pervasive it is in
your life, I think is such a telling difference between
having kids and not having kids, and being around people
that have kids versus being around people that don't have kids,
Like I don't have any friends really with kids besides you,
And so if I didn't hear this from you, I
wouldn't have realized how pervasive this movie is.
Speaker 2: Oh got so parents are all talking about how much
their kids love it and it's wait till Halloween.
Speaker 1: Oh for sure. So those are my final thoughts, Benjamin,
I feel like we've heard yours kind of, but go ahead.
Speaker 2: So my final thoughts are, I love this movie.
Speaker 1: I think it's fine.
Speaker 2: I get is it the best most amazing film that's
ever existed?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 3: Does anything mind blowing happen in it?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 2: But what I think is perfect about the way it
hit and when it hit? Is it hit? All of
us at a time where I think we needed something simpler,
and I think this movie hit at a time where
everything else is so fucking complicated and we're watching what
feels like the world going to shit. I was just
reading articles about that kind of how millennials in particular
are struggling to be motivated at work as well as
these where the one thing that exers had that we
don't is hope that hard work will go somewhere, it'll matter.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of nihilism out there right now.
Speaker 3: Well it's earned.
Speaker 1: Oh, I mean understand, I'm not making fun of that,
Like I there is it, just there is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's this movie kind of creates some hope
and recognition that. At least what it did for me
is looking at it and being reminded that, you know,
when generations take on the world in their own way
from the perspective of what their problems actually are, not
trying to fit it into the narrative what they're told
problems are and how you solve them, but by approaching
them with that natural flexibility and recognition of like, yeah,
that's nice that we know that, but this is what's
actually happening, and even when it was an Army rotc
in college for a couple of years. Well, it's considering
that path of life. One of the things in the
Army Field Training Manual is literally a message from Colin
Powell or Normous Swartzkoff, one of those two who are
generals in Desert Storm is no battle plan survives contact
with the enemy. Powerful fucking statement understanding that the world
is whatever is gonna happen is gonna happen, and you
have to adjust to it, and you can't defeat it
by confining it to a simple narrative.
Speaker 3: Well it's this, so you do this. That shit doesn't work,
It never has.
Speaker 2: But looking at something so simple, so pure, so full
of like a simple clean message that you can encounter
a bad thing and you can not only band together
but be seen for who you are and have that
be the actual thing that beats it. Not what somebody
else says you're supposed to be, but who you are
be enough is of very powerful message.
Speaker 1: Right about now.
Speaker 2: The fact that the songs are catchy as shit, and
that they are bangers, and that they keep getting covered
and redone and people are just really attaching to this
and each one means something a little bit different to
people because in addition to being K pop, they worked
in a bunch of different genres to stuff to appeal
to a larger audience and kind of convey the message
like be your idol. There's a significant component of metal
to that, so it appeals to me. Where some are
like bubblegum pop and some are more rap focused, and
some are more like fight songs and others are more vulnerable.
It just it covers a full emotional gamut of being
a real fucking person and how to use that in
your way to defeat evil.
Speaker 3: And I think all of us are feeling.
Speaker 2: A little bit like we'd like eeple to be a
bit defeated more than it is right now.
Speaker 1: My approach is more almost like spiteful optimism, like you're
not gonna kill my heart. That's my approach to the
nihilism of world well, or how scary things feel right now,
is you're not going to kill my heart. That would
be a good title for a K pop song, could
be a good title fo metal song. Maybe I'll write
it anyway.
Speaker 2: I think I am thrilled with the way that this
is perming culture and creating hope, and I hope it
becomes a vehicle for more because I think we need
it and we all need to find a little bit
of fight for the darkness and break some light to it.
Speaker 1: Well, on that note, we will wrap up here. As always,
you can find us on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook at pop
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