America’s tweeter-in-chief has fired off once again, this time taking aim at the Oscar-winning, record breaking international film phenomenon that is Parasite. With the ‘Days Since Trump Bullshit’ counter still firmly at zero, it’s no wonder Parasite‘s win has riled Trump. After taking home four Oscars last week, it became the first film foreign-language film to win Best Picture in the Academy Awards’ 92 year history. At a rally yesterday Trump decried this decision as ‘bad’, angrily announcing “the winner is…a movie from South Korea!” He went on to question the legitimacy of the win: “what the hell was that all about?” before essentially admitting he “[doesn’t know]” if it was good, because, surprise surprise, he certainly hasn’t fucking seen it.
Bong Joon-ho’s dark comedy was undoubtedly the most deserving of its fellow Best Picture nominees, but for Trump and his supporters, an attack on Parasite is merely a proxy for attacking foreign interests. Its win represents a rebuttal to his white supremacist ‘Make America Great Again’ movement, running contrary to the world him and his supporters are invested in building, one in which deserving white narratives and lives always take primacy over undeserving, un-American people of colour.
The film represents so much of the antithesis of Trump’s America — an unmissable anti-capitalist message and a refusal to mollycoddle its audience. Most of all, its triumph as Best Picture in all its subtitled, undubbed glory, represents a refusal to treat and capitulate to white America as prime and default on the world stage. “Can we get Gone With the Wind back, please?” Trump cried at the audience of his rally. Fortunately, not even the best Russian government hackers can steal this one for Trump. Parasite‘s place in world history is secure.
We’re not usually here for a cynical corporate Twitter “clap-back”, but Neon — the U.S. distributor of the film — did, dare we say it, snap.