BTS Army: Forever We Are Young
(USA, 100 min.)
Dir. Patty Ahn, Grace Lee
Pop star documentaries are everywhere nowadays. Everyone from Madonna to Machine Gun Kelly has a doc to accompanying an album release, an announcement of a long-awaited comeback, a concert film, or an attempt to squeeze out the last breath of brightness from a fading star. These films are often quite formulaic and, at times, they confuse self-obsession for self-exploration, resulting in a surface-level, manufactured, portrait that reveals nothing that the celebrity’s Wikipedia page already didn’t have. However, the recently released BTS ARMY: Forever We Are Young is a nuanced and novel take in this increasingly saturated sub-genre of docs with its look at the South Korean boy band. Forgoing the lives of the stars (or “idols” as they are called in K-pop culture) for the fans, the film works as a feature-length exploration of how BTS’s rise to nuclear fame was in large parts made possible by their fans, globally known as BTS ARMY, with ARMY short for Adorable Representative M.C. for Youth.
In contrast to other pop star docs, the fans aren’t an acknowledgement in this film, but rather the entire story. The doc’s hyper-focus on the lives of the ARMY and their respective emotional and parasocial connections to BTS quickly builds them up as something more than just a fan base. The film, which is effectively being marketed as “By ARMY for ARMY,” is exactly what it advocates to be. As we learn about the multiple lives that make up the ARMY, we are introduced to the unnatural and incomprehensible affection that the fans have towards this K-pop boy band. “When I think about my life before and after BTS, I feel like I am not alone anymore,” says Kaitlyn, a proud ARMY, who got into BTS in high school. The film is rife with stories of people who discovered BTS during a difficult time in their lives and how BTS and the extended ARMY helped them in forging a path for themselves.
The doc introduces new ARMY expeditiously making it hard to keep track of recurring people and remembering those who’ve made a brief appearance. However, this ultimately plays into the broader conversation the doc generates about the global impact of BTS. Fans from across the world discuss the phenomenon of how a South Korean boy band creating primarily Korean music has successfully infiltrated the music markets of essentially every single country. The film, which delicately balances fan commentary with interviews of pop-culture and music scholars, offers several intelligent ideas regarding the unprecedented acclaim shared by BTS.
Most ARMY talk about the authenticity that BTS had that separated them from other K-pop groups and helped people forge a genuine connection with the members. Most K-pop groups are intricately curated, formulaic, and conduct their operations with a machine-like precision whereas BTS was rather non-linear and non-traditional in their outlook towards music and surrounding sub-cultures. Through vlogs, YouTube videos, cooking videos, and random behind-the-scenes footage, BTS was able to project themselves as a genuine group of friends instead of a musical project manufactured by a major label. In the seven members of BTS, fans saw friendship, camaraderie, and relationships that they could access and consider their own. “We were raising them, and they were raising us,” says Mhia, another ARMY.
Beyond the construction and dissection of these parasocial relationships in propelling BTS to stardom, the doc briefly explores the immense power of mobilization that these fan armies wield. In extending the viral moment where Taylor Swift fans supposedly helped decrease the price of eggs across several states in America, the doc explores how BTS ARMY played a crucial role in political movements including Black Lives Matter and the Chilean presidential elections. Drawing from a nexus of commonalities, the doc explores how ARMY members are often of similar socio-political outlooks, promoting inclusive values of diversity, anti-fascism, and queer-friendly culture. In pursuit of these values, they not only expect reciprocation from the BTS band members, but they are also able to unite across the world to protest against or for causes that they consider relevant. With BTS ARMY having sub-groups and meet-ups in nearly every single country, they are quick to mobilize for a specific cause should the need arise. In discussions like these, the doc is both well-research and thoughtfully considered, which offers something new and informative to the viewer about a phenomenon that everyone has heard of but not a lot of people really know about.
For readers who consider themselves part of the BTS ARMY, this doc would be a truly entertaining watch as it takes audiences through the rise of BTS across the world. For anyone unfamiliar with BTS and the ARMY, the doc is measured, informative, and entertaining enough to avoid alienating them–and has the potential to make them new BTS ARMY recruits.
