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‘Turning Red’: BTS and older-gen fans clash over Pixar characters of BIGBANG and 2PM

ARMY previously thought Tae-young of the fictional boy group 4 ★ TOWN was based on BTS' Jimin

Pixar’s latest animated film ‘Turning Red’ is turning heads but not for all the reasons they might have wanted. The fun family comedy has a fantastical twist as 13-year-old Mei Lee explores her youth while trying to keep her secret, which is her ability to turn into a giant red panda whenever she gets excited. The cast includes several POC actors like Sandra Oh, ‘Never Have I Ever’s Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, Jordan Fisher of ‘To All The Boys’ fame, and newcomer Rosalie Chiang. And with K-pop taking over the world, it is no surprise that we will be seeing the international phenomena in the film.

The trailer of ‘Turning Red’ gave us a glimpse of Mei’s favorite boy group 4 ★ TOWN and ARMY were convinced that one of the members, Tae-young, is based on BTS’ Jimin. Right from the button nose and lips to his iconic blond hair and mannerisms, fans saw similarities between the two. Tae-young’s description of taking care of injured birds during tours had ARMY confident about their deduction as Jimin has often tried to help injured animals. However, the filmmaker, Domee Shi, shared that the fictional boy group was actually based on BIGBANG and 2PM members.

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BIGBANG and 2PM as inspiration

Older-gen fans now think that the character Tae-young is based on none other than BIGBANG’s Taeyang. ‘Turning Red’s director Domee Shi shared that the members of the animated boy group 4 ★ TOWN were inspired by 2000s boy groups like Backstreet Boys and their personalities were based on the K-pop groups BIGBANG and 2PM as she is a big fan of both. In an interview with Billboard Japan, she said that she “was inspired by legends who can be said to be the forerunners of the recent Korean idol boom.”

But if anyone has ever stepped their toes in K-pop Twitter, they'd know that the question of who pioneered the Hallyu Wave is very controversial. With BTS being arguably the biggest K-pop group at the moment, ARMY have often taken it upon themselves to trend ‘BTS paved the way’ to celebrate any historical achievement or milestone. However, many fans do accept that before BTS came into the picture, second-gen groups like BIGBANG and 2PM were responsible for the global Hallyu Wave in the 2000s.

Unfortunately, there are some toxic ARMY who have taken to insulting and discrediting the achievements of older groups while toxic fans of other groups send hate to BTS in return. With Domee Shi’s latest revelation, some older-gen fans took to teasing these ARMY who are retaliating by claiming that the makers’ original intention doesn’t matter as the world will only see Jimin in Tae-young.

Update: On March 14, Domee Shi added that she was also inspired by BTS for Tae-young as she said, "We definitely give a nod to K-pop boy group BTS with Tae-young in the movie."

‘Why’d they steal Jimin’s story’

Some BTS fans made tweets like, “Nobody outside Bb's Fandom knows Bigbang. Idc if the director made it because of them and one f**kass 10pm group. The ting isn't our concern 😂 At the end of the day, if I ask a random person on the street who bb is they would have absolutely nothing to say.” Another ARMY posted, “Then why’d they steal jimin’s story with the bird with the broken leg? 😧 bcs nobody knows bigbang and 2PM so they gotta steal jimin’s story.”

One fan pointed out, “Yeah no one saw them characters and thought ayo isn’t that the guy from BIGBANG?” Another said, “Whoever was responsible of drawing this character googled these 2 groups and was not happy with the results so they switched up to jimin.” One fan tried to rationalize, “No one is salty ,this won't add or reduce b7s  and let be fair they do not look like any of 2pm or bigbng member Anyway good for them.”

‘Y’all so riled up’

On the other hand, a BIGBANG fan commented, “No matter what you say. Your faves can't still be at par with BIGBANG's skills. You may have the quantity but we got the quality.” Another said, “I just don’t understand how anyone can call bigbang irrelevant and mean it when every trivial thing they do gets y’all so riled up.” One fan added, “2nd gen paved the way.” Another commented, “That fandom really want their faved that this cartoon based on. they fcking mad 😂 lmfao.” However, there were some fans who tried to resolve it peacefully, “Jimin is an it boy. GD will always be a king of Kpop. Both can exist.”

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