On a night when the Academy Awards celebrated the crowning of the very first Oscar-winning K-Pop best original song, one might think the director and producer would allow the award-winning songwriters to finish their thank-yous. But you’d be wrong.
The KPop Demon Hunters songwriting team of EJAE, Mark Sonnenblick, Joong Gyu Kwak, Yu Han Lee, Hee Dong Nam, Jeong Hoon Seo, and Teddy Park was on stage at Hollywood’s Dolby Theatre Sunday night when their acceptance speech for “Golden” was suddenly cut-off, before they could finish. Only EJAE was given time to speak.
Boos and gasps from the audience inside the theater could be heard on the broadcast. Online reaction by fans like Danny, with more than 315K followers, was swift: “The oscar’s are rude af for this i’m sorry😭,” he wrote.
Backstage, where members of the media were assembled to interview and photograph the Oscar winners, one reporter from decider.com asked the songwriters and producers if they’d like an opportunity to finish their acceptance speech. They accepted, to an unexpected round of hoots, hollers, and applause from the crowd of their fellow Academy Award winners that had gathered behind the journalists.
“I would like to thank our families, and 24 my fellow IDO members and Teddy Park. This is an incredible honor,” said Yu Han Lee, the BlackLabel producer who was cut off onstage.
The Academy’s backstage public relations flack then tried to move on, but Mark Sonnenblick, a cowriter on the “Golden” track with EJAE, wasn’t having it. He turned the tables by interrupting her. The out gay man then thanked the people he had been prevented from mentioning:
“My family, some of whom are here tonight. My husband, Isaac, who is here tonight. But also, just to say, everybody who worked on this movie, all the animators, it was a real collaboration across the board. It’s a movie where part of the movie is about looking at someone that you’ve been taught to hate and to fear, and starting to trust, maybe even love them. That’s part of what the movie is about. It’s not, ‘I’m going up, up, up.’ It’s, ‘We’re going up, up, up.’"
“That’s part of the reason that we’re onstage right now. Everything was a deep collaboration. The fans, too, who have loved this movie and made it to what it is, and this soundtrack."
“Everyone else who worked on the soundtrack, everyone else who sang on the soundtrack," he added. "Across the board, a movie is like a village, and we’re lucky to be up here right now, but there’s so many people who have made this what it is.”
As Out magazine has reported, the animated KPop Demon Hunters film may not have any out LGBTQ+ characters, but it most definitely has a queer vibe, with an allegory about hiding one’s authentic self and acceptance.
Just before winning Best Original Song, EJAE, Rei Ami and Audrey Nuna performed an onstage rendition of “Golden.” The Hollywood Reporter reported the audience gleefully sang along and bopped in their seats with light sticks provided by the Academy.
But when it came time to hand out the golden statuettes, the producers apparently were watching the clock instead of giving the winners their full moment in the spotlight.
“Golden” is a breakout hit, the first K-Pop winner of a Grammy Award. Last year it went all the way to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot100. And the Golden Globe award-winning film — chronicling the adventures of Huntrx, a K-pop girl group made up of three members who also just happen to fight monsters from the underworld — won an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature Sunday night. It is Netflix’s most popular title ever.
