How K-pop Demon Hunters Explores Collective Shadows
We live in a disembodied culture, one where the mind and external achievements are often elevated above the body and inner experience. This cultural trend is fueled by shame—shame around vulnerability, desire, and authentic self-expression. At the root of this shame lies the collective shadow of patriarchy and capitalism, systems that have historically demanded conformity, control, and suppression of the authentic self in favor of productivity and rigid roles. In the movie Kpop Demon Hunters, Gwi-Ma, the demon king represents the archetype of the patriarchy, thriving off the power we give to it (souls) through our unowned shadows and shame.
From a Jungian perspective, the shadow represents the unconscious parts of ourselves that we reject or deny. The song Free (2025) by Rumi and Jinu of the Kpop Demon Hunters cast, explores the shadow through the lyrics “All the secrets that keep me in chains, and all the damage that might make me dangerous.” As Rumi and Jinu open up to each other, the shame of their secrets is disappated as they realize they aren’t the only one with a dark side.
In Jungian theroy we all have a dark side kept within our shadow, and from psychoanalysis we all have the id—our primal instinctive drives, which makes us all capable of doing “bad” things when we feel our surrvival is at risk. Jinu’s surrvival in many ways likely felt at risk to his psyche as he didn’t have access to shelter or food when he decided to make a deal with Gwi-Ma. This doesn’t make him a “bad” person, but he becomes a demon because he is too afraid to face his mistakes, take accountability, and ultimately forgive himself. In Free, the lines “What if we both tried fighting what we're running from? We can't fix it if we never face it.” illustrate this internal conflict perfectly, awknowledging that the past can never be healed if we are always running from it.
On a collective level, this shadow manifests in societal patterns and belief systems—such as those perpetuated by patriarchal and capitalist ideologies—that marginalize whole aspects of human experience. The collective unconscious contains these shadow elements as a reservoir of repressed cultural material.
In the movie Kpop Demon Hunters, this dynamic is explored through the heroes' journey of facing external demons and their internal shadows. The characters encounter forces that symbolize the oppressive structures of patriarchy and capitalism like Gwi-Ma, technology used for power over others, and the need for external validation from fans, revealing the disempowerment of self to uphold these systems. The narrative illustrates how the heroes, and the populous, must confront and integrate their shadows rather than continue living disembodied and dishonest lives dictated by shame.
The song Golden (2025) from the movie illustrates what can happen as we engage with shadow work from a healing lens in the lyrics “No more hiding, now I’m shining”, referencing the shadows we hide (shame, fear, anger, doubt), and the golden shadow we accidentally supress within the darkest parts of ourselves. The name of the popular song may even be a reference to Jungian therory in which the golden shadow often contains our most authentic gifts, like in the line “I'm seeing all the beauty in the broken glass. The scars are part of me, darkness and harmony” from the song What It Sounds Like (2025) by the Kpop Demon Hunters cast. In Kpop Demon Hunters, the golden shadow is referenced again in the final battle where Rumi reclaims her voice without the lies, Zoey stops hiding her creativity (the colors in her head), and Mira embraces her edginess (letting her jagged edges meet the light).
By engaging in shadow work, the heroes reclaim ownership of their authentic selves—a process parallel to Jungian individuation, where one reconciles the conscious ego with the unconscious shadow to achieve wholeness. This journey is not only personal but collective, as the fans releasing their shame and giving their soul light to help Rumi is ultimately what defeats Gwi-Ma and heals the Honmoon, suggesting that healing from societal shame and reclaiming embodiment requires facing and releasing the inherited shadows of cultural narratives.
Kpop Demon Hunters thus offers a contemporary mythic framework for understanding how confronting the collective shadow fosters liberation from shame and the reclamation of authenticity in a disembodied culture. The heroes’ transformation models how individuals and communities might engage in shadow work to dismantle oppressive cultural paradigms and embody a fuller, integrated self.
