[Vision]

Mjmills

7 min read

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Apr 15, 2026

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Marvin Olasky’s 2024 book Moral Vision is an update and revision to his 1999 book, The American Leadership Tradition. Where that book ended with a discussion of the then contemporary presidency of Bill Clinton, Moral Vision ends on a juxtaposition of the presidencies of Donald Trump and Joe Biden. In Moral Vision Olasky presents a thesis that the personal and professional moral vision of presidential leaders (and a smattering of additional non-political figures) is an important consideration in both cultural influence and our own ingrained moral visions. I found this compelling not only when observing the steep decline in moral clarity from Clinton to Trump directly, but when looking at Olasky’s thesis overall and the way decades if not centuries of American political discourse has moulded a populace into the state we find ourselves in today.

At the same time I was wrapping up my readthrough of Moral Vision, I found myself revisiting the 2025 Oscar-winning film K-Pop Demon Hunters. I can say with confidence I am (probably) the only person who will draw any kind of thematic parallels between Olasky’s thorough exploration of powerful individual’s moral grounding and an animated movie about pop stars fighting demons by singing rousing k-pop anthems. I am also aware that I could be writing about normal things (or, heaven forbid, that proposal I keep punting), but I cannot help the kind of thematic throughlines I see between academic texts on political leadership and animated movies with lovely soundtracks so this is where we are. We are forced to ask the question, how does Olasky’s thesis about the ways our leader’s moral vision bleeds into our collective moral foundations play off the themes of the (repeated for emphasis) Oscar-winning film, K-Pop Demon Hunters?

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A plot synopsis of K-Pop Demon Hunters would be slightly reductive. It is a movie where a k-pop group consisting of Rumi, Mira, and Zoey fight demons. There is an additional plot wrinkle of Rumi being the daughter of a demon hunter and a demon which leads to Plot occurring. A rival k-pop group composed of demons springs up, songs are sung, battles are fought, and everything wraps up with a lovely musical number extolling the power of friendship and being true to one’s self even if that means accepting the reality of inherent flaws and insecurities. The plot of K-Pop Demon Hunters is effective at what it is attempting to do, but to say that it is breaking particularly unique ground would be disingenuous even speaking as someone who enjoys the movie quite a bit. It follows a similar trajectory of self-empowerment as any number of other animated movies in a similar vein (and, like the best of them, has an absolutely phenomenal villain song). The connective tissue between Olasky’s work and an (Oscar-winning) movie about fighting demons is their shared emphasis on the power our leaders, be they political or cultural, can have on us.

One of the central elements of K-Pop Demon Hunters is the power of the connection between the titular k-pop demon hunters and their fans. The barrier between the real-world and the realm of demons is maintained through the music Rumi, Mira, and Zoey make in conjunction with the joy their fans feel from that music. When that connection weakens, because of Plottm it leads to a degradation of that barrier and a very real risk that demons will overrun the hunters and wreak havoc on the world. A symbiotic relationship exists between those tasked with protecting the world and those living in frequently blissful ignorance of the dangers that exist out of their line of sight. Hunters must not only promote this symbiosis to ensure they are equipped to face the enemies they fight, but they must hold themselves to a standard that maintains a balance of trust.

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Returning to Olasky’s work, a major part of his thesis centers on the intimate moralities of the men and women he assesses. This not only means considerations of the kind of deals they made out of the public eye to promote their political or personal agendas; George Washington working to set a precedent for presidential restraint; Theodore Roosevelt breaking up corporate monopolies; Joe Biden attempting to balance a personal Catholic faith with long-term political ambitions; but also the kind of decisions they made in their romantic entanglements. Men like Thomas Jefferson, who spoke eloquently of moral rights but failed to keep himself away from a teenage Sally Hemings; Woodrow Wilson who fancied himself a leader of men with innate wisdom that placed him above them allowing this egotism to extend into his view of monogamy; Newt Gingrich condemning sexual exploitation by a sitting president while engaging in the same kind of predatory behavior for over half a decade. While it is true, and Olasky acknowledges, sexual fidelity is not the only barometer by which we should measure personal morality, it is a simple means to question the ways we excuse or obfuscate our own foibles when arguing for greater moral visions for everyone else.

K-Pop Demon Hunters does not traffic in those particular types of questions. However, Rumi’s demonic heritage does drive a wedge between herself and Mira and Zoey in a way that breaks the bond between the trio and, subsequently, the fans they need to maintain the defenses against the encroaching demon horde. Rumi views her demonic genetics as a flaw to be hidden from her trusted confidants, Mira and Zoey, unknowingly, distance themselves by arguing that no one with any demonic influence can be trusted. This rift borne of mutual distrust is ultimately healed and evil is defeated, but it reinforces the idea that personal morality, maintaining trust and ethical boundaries, is something that can and will bleed into other realms whether intentionally or not. While we each bear responsibility for our own actions, if we allow our moral vision to cloud it cannot be fully compartmentalized.

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That, on its face, is a simple enough parallel to draw and one that misses something intriguing about K-Pop Demon Hunters. At risk of being reductive, this is a film aimed at young audiences: the music is full of fantastic pop melodies, the lyrics are joyful, the characters make various faces, it is a film meant for widespread appeal but remains primarily focused on youth. Youth who, resoundingly, have gravitated to the film in a way that has set records and turned what seemed like a fairly niche property to one of the more ubiquitous films of the current decade. All of this in spite of the fact that K-Pop Demon Hunters seems to be fundamentally opposed to the philosophy of our current moment. Cultural nihilism is seemingly on the rise and youth are increasingly of the mind that their future prospects are withering on the vine. In this moment, why is a movie this bright and colorful the one that captures such a large slice of our collective cultural consciousness? I believe at least part of it stems from the same spiritual compunction Olasky notes throughout Moral Vision. K-Pop Demon Hunters presents a world where leaders are imperfect, strain under pressure and don’t always respond as they should, but ultimately seek to move in a direction that benefits the collective whole. Strip away the hyperbole and musical numbers and you have a movie about three women attempting to hold themselves to a moral standard, fighting demons and protecting the vulnerable, aimed at a youthful audience who, more often than not, lack cultural leaders with a moral vision worth emulating.

It is simple to write off K-Pop Demon Hunters as the kind of fluff entertainment children consume and move past once the next obsession comes along. I would push back on this conceptualization on two fronts: on the one hand, the movie is a heck of a lot of fun so from that level alone it has earned its notoriety (and its apparently forthcoming Criterion release). But more notably than that, children’s entertainment is frequently aspirational, but it is worth asking the question why we are content allowing such things, frivolous or not, to be bolder in their explorations of moral grounding than we expect from our leaders in the real-world. Maybe not all of us will gravitate toward Rumi, Mira, and Zoey as young people overwhelmingly have, but it is worth asking what it is here that seems to have captured the imagination of so many young people compared to the real-world leaders lacking in moral vision we have allowed ourselves to be captured by.

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I readily acknowledge the inherent ridiculousness of this entire premise.

Not that anyone was asking —

1. This is What it Sounds Like
2. Your Idol
3. Golden
4. How It’s Done
5. Soda Pop
6. Takedown

And my wife’s amended list —

1. Golden
2. This is What it Sounds Like
3. How It’s Done
4. Takedown
5. Anything from the boy band.