Pop Star Academy: KATSEYE

Redundant title, but that's the point. Watch it if you like reality tv, competition shows, cliffhangers, and twists.

The show has a very unique perspective. I came into the show after I discovered Katseye. I personally loved building a deeper appreciation for the newly formed group.

Some aspects were slow. The competition itself does not start until episode 5, and the first 4 episodes consist of the training before the competition starts. This makes you build a connection with the girls that have been there at the beginning of the bootcamp.

I've only watched singing competitions; I like this more. It takes a lot of dedication and hard work to be in a girl group and this shows that hard work. The show also displays how dedication and hard work are the basics. There are 5 categories to consider such as Dancing, Singing, and Star Quality. This becomes more prevalent when the girls start to compete against each other. Unfortunately, the girls don't really understand until the competition really starts.

Is it cruel? Maybe, but the audience needs to decide it for themselves. The twists may push some girls over the edge. I was on the edge of my seat due to twists and cliffhangers. Despite knowing who makes the group I did have the occasional trainee that I was secretly rooting for. You'll never see the twists coming.

Just like any competition/reality show, there's gonna be drama. It's easy to pick a side but every result has an underlying reason.

Overall: I liked the perspective and execution of the show. In the end, despite already knowing the results, I was crying for one of my favs that didn't get in. It really takes you through all of the emotions and perspectives, so if you feel a certain way then this show did its thing. I wasn't planning on crying but the music and timing really had me crying then happy for all of my favorites. If I could rank on making me feel something alone it would be a 10/10. However, the show is slow. I think it's valid to criticize the show for not telling the trainees it was as a competition show until the 5th episode. Then I go back to loving how intentional every aspect of the show was. I really only removed 1 star because I wish episode 1 started with the competition versus the very beginning of this training bootcamp. The title of the show is accurate, but I wish it was just "PopStar Competition". Or, "Popstar Academy to Competition", which is wordy but is more accurate to the show. Instead it focused on the origins on Katseye. It's easy to be confused by the rules for each mission but I recommend making sure you understand the rules before watching the elimination rounds or you might find things unfair. Again, everything is intentional.

Shoutout to the Philippines 🇵🇭

This series amounts to an 8 episode advertisement for a new global K-Pop band. The documentary makers retain some integrity for not shying away completely from the cruelty of the process the girls were put through, but ultimately they seem to have made several editorial decisions intended to soften those cruel edges.

The filmmakers can't be blamed for the awful management of the project at the heart of the show, but you do detect a deliberate decision to refrain from tarnishing the image of HYBE and Geffen Records too much (the music megacorps behind what can only be describe as an extended theatre of cruelty performance), lest Netflix not be invited back for another season.

The show follows an international group of very young women (14-21), as they're put through a two year training camp for what they think will be an internal selection process by the record label to create a new 'global' k-pop group, only to discover that they've signed up to a 'survivor show' at the end of it to decide the final members of the band. A 'survivor show' is the K-Pop version of the old TV pop talent shows from the west like 'Popstars' franchise - but conspicously more sinister.

Many of the girls come from clearly disenfranchised backgrounds (including one girl who is a refugee), however little is made of this by the producers, who give everyone's backstory a few glossy unsentimental minutes. Only one of the girls gets a huge amount of backstory - and even then it's all very superficial.

Nothing is explained in regards to income for the girls, we don't know if they're being paid during this years long process (some of the girls mention having no money as they pack their hopes and dreams into suitcases after being ejected from the program).

We also never linger over what these very young girls are giving up to be here, one girl mentions taking her place as a trainee has prevented her from graduating high school - but this is treated as nothing more than a funny anecdote, and no further enquiries are made.

Equally, a discussion between the girls about being away from home - in which one girl admits not being able to speak to her family for weeks - simply drifts by onscreen, unexplored.

Perhaps the most obvious of these attempts to shield HYBE and Geffen Records from public scrutiny regarding the cruelty of the process, comes at the expense of what would otherwise be a rather critical scene for a show like this.

Once the girls have made it to the 'public' survivor show part of the process, they take part in three elimination rounds which are judged partially (and it is only very partially) by members of the public.

The elimination scene for the first round is heartbreaking, the second elimination scene is harrowing, and the third elimination scene was presumably so brazenly vicious that it's given the 'off screen death' treatment, where we skip from the girls arriving to hear whether or not they've wasted the last two years of their girlhood from a disembodied voice on a television screen, to a montage of the survivors tearfully calling their loved ones to report their Kpop dreams are still alive - giving strong disaster survivor vibes.

Yet there is a slightly less obvious, but none the less very telling detail in the documentary that belies the filmmakers obedience to the HYBE/Geffen machine - the lack of follow up.

Unlike other Netflix shows following a bunch of kids as they try to achieve their dreams in time limited settings (Cheer competitions, Basketball finals, Football drafts) - after the final 6 have been picked, and the credits start to roll - we do not get the usual 'where are they now' pre-credit closure snippets of the one's who didn't make it on the show. Indeed, it seems, that like the rest of the whole show, the ending is an exercise in minimisation and distraction - nudging the audience not to think about the brutality of the process, rather to just enjoy the shiny happy teens who've emerged victorious from a process none of them fully understood they were consenting to when they skipped over the small print in their application forms.

The access the producers had for the documentary could have been used for that most noble of documentary pursuits - making tangible change in the world. It would have taken barely any effort to turn their footage into an expose that could have led to mass calls for reform in an industry that consistently exploits minors.

Instead, hemmed in buy cowardice and perhaps corporate interest too, the filmmakers leave their audience with an uneasy sense of being complicit in an extended episode of emotional and financial abuse - without our concent, much like the girls featured in the show.

I watched this to the end but by then it left me feeling very unsettled because of how the girls were kept in the dark about the end result of all the work they put in. If they had known at the outset that this was nothing but a reality show and only 6 would get through, they may have decided not to do it. The way they were eliminated was cruel in the extreme and such an unkind way to treat young girls. The woman in charge was almost laughing about this - as long as the punters get to see something dramatic, that's all that matters. And in the real world Mannon would have been booted out, although clearly someone at the top loved her because you could see that she wasn't going anywhere, however badly she sang or danced.

This is John Marrs' Family experiment in reality. So freaking scary and upsetting. I know that this is not a new thing in Korea, but that does not make it any less freaked out.

A testimony to the extreme capitalism we're in right now.

As we're no longer happy with adults doing weird stuff on tv, we now need young girls selling overly sexualised behaviour on screen. Which is astounding but also kind of spooky, as they become a commodity while also something young girls across the globe aspire to copying.

On the show, the girls all have language for emotions they have, without the actual knowledge of those emotions, as they're too young and influenced by social media to do other than copy what they hear online. It's not their fault; it's what they've learnt. And they need to know in order to be on this kind of show. So all in all, the reality show taken to an extreme, now with teenagers in the main cast.

Is that really the best humanity can do?

I marveled at what an amazing training opportunity this was for the tremendously talented girls aspiring to be professional entertainers. 1-2 years of coaching every day by the industry's best. Seeing how the coaches polished the participants who already had natural talent, and in most cases, many years of training already reminded me of the many levels between better and best.

Is it good television? It is a documentary of two major entertainment companies investing in a project with potential billion dollar returns. Every decision made is a business decision, with the girls as business inputs. Nevertheless, I appreciated getting to know the trainees.

Some of my favorites did not get chosen in the end. Good luck to both those who made it in the group and to the ones who didn't make it, who no doubt will go on to successful careers in the entertainment industry.