Even though Parasite was a critical darling throughout the tail end of 2019, the probability of it winning for Best Picture at the 92nd Academy Awards felt somewhat remote when taking into account not just 1917, but two other very political factors: 1) The Academy has never acknowledged a foreign film as Best Picture (something Trump was likely “sad” to see change) and 2) the pervasiveness of coronavirus headlines serving to stoke paranoia and prejudice (new Jane Austen spinoff?). While yes, obviously, South Korea–where Parasite and its director, Bong Joon-ho, hail from–and China are not the same, to those garden varieties still actually watching the Oscars on basic cable, they might as well be. “It’s all Asia,” after all, is the mentality behind the ever-bubbling racism toward anyone from the continent. Ironic–and appropriate–considering the subject matter of Parasite is all about one faction distancing itself from the other. Those “factions,” of course, being rich versus poor. And, by extension, healthy versus ill. For, regardless of universal health care being more of the norm anywhere outside of the U.S., there can be no denying that richies always have better access to the best doctor money can buy when push comes to shove.
Then, of course, there is the current especial unpleasantness of a film with such a title, perhaps Virus being the only name for it that might have kept it from winning–2011’s Contagion didn’t even get nominated with a moniker like that (the narrative incidentally being about a virus that spreads after one of the main characters goes on a business trip to Hong Kong). And for those who are still bleeding heart liberal enough (as most dichotomous members of Hollywood’s elite are) to believe that people don’t treat “Chinese” as a blanket term for all of Asia, they would be sorely mistaken. To most Americans, the distinction of what part of Asia a person comes from is irrelevant. And now more than ever, anyone with the “look” is suspected of being “unhygienic and carriers of disease,” as one article about the recent rash of Sinophobia in North America phrased it. What’s more in Italian, cinesi is an all-encompassing word to describe any person of Asian descent.
So again, it has to be said that for the Academy–as accused of out-of-touchness and Aryan propensities as it is (P.S. Jojo Rabbit won for Best Adapted Screenplay)–to acknowledge for the first time in history that a foreign film–no less from Asia–is the best, when would expect such avant-gardism from the Golden Globes instead, feels very much like progress. Even if the ceremony was still punctuated by the bitterness stemmed from a lack of female nominees (something Natalie Portman threw shade at yet again) and other ethnicities (something Steve Martin and Chris Rock took the time to mock onstage together, commenting on how little the ceremony has changed from the 1920s to now in terms of represented minorities), Parasite was the so-called “major bone” tossed in the direction of change and even tolerance. As though to tell all those good people in the Midwest and the South that they ought to give subtitles a chance.
And even if China is the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak, now having just freshly surpassed the SARS pandemic of 2003 with a death toll of 813, new cases reported in South Korea can only fan the flames of fear that Americans and Europeans alike whip out toward anyone they deem to be “yellow.” During Bong Joon-ho’s acceptance speech for Best Picture, intermixed with help from his translator, it was stated, “Writing a script is such a lonely process, we never write to represent our country. But this is very first Oscar to South Korea.”
Because Lord knows the country and continent could use some good, deflecting press right now. And a big fuck you to anyone who thought that a “gook movie” couldn’t possibly win in a stigmatic atmosphere like this. Or that the Academy was as short-sighted as believed–especially with that unbelievable article that came out from an anonymous Academy member stating, “I want an American director to win. The Oscars is an American thing.” Not any fuckin’ more. And, like the coronavirus, the seed sown by a change like this is only bound to spread at a rapid rate.
