A Win for "Parasite"?

So It's finally happened. The Oscars has finally acknowledged the brilliance of foreign film and more specifically, the cinematic triumph that is Bong Joon-ho's, "Parasite". By awarding "Parasite" four Oscar awards including best director and best picture, the Oscars has begun to turn a page on the continuous snubs and prejudices it's famous for, or at least give off the appearance that the academy has learned it's lesson. However, while it's easy to get excited at the prospect of an academy that recognizes how film has changed and values its new players, it's hard to ignore the academy's history of cheap placation and how this ultimately distracts from the concepts being explored by these new, acknowledged artists of color.

"Parasite" has been described as a "pitch black modern fairy-tale" (Rotten Tomatoes) and some variation of a romp or a thriller by various critics which is basically an accurate description. I spent most of the movie yelling and screaming so yes, it's a lot of fun. However, the movie is also a bristling take-down of the rich and an apt description of the capitalist hellscape we all find ourselves in told from a uniquely Korean perspective. The desperation to crawl out of the shackles of poverty destroys an entire family, while the wealthy family in the movie are revealed to be vile idiots incapable of seeing the chaos around them. This is a direct reflection of how each and everyone of us (except for the rich) truly lives our lives, one accident or firing away from complete calamity, living as indentured servants to our jobs. This conversation is a necessary one to have but that would mean that the academy itself has to look at it's part in our money-worshiping system and I doubt any of them actually want that. Instead, they'll hand out awards because it would cause too much controversy not too and then pat themselves on the back, effectively burying the message.

"Parasite" isn't even the most recent movie to have its more radical tones buried under a tiny gold statue. Jordan Peele took home the best original screenplay Oscar in 2018 for "Get Out" and the film was lauded as a "horror masterpiece with racial undertones" instead of the grilling of racist white liberals and their faux ally-ship that it was. The Oscars knows it's has to award these movies to keep its relevance, but they've found a way to sanitize these works and all they had to do was award the movies and kill discourse about the message being why the movie would have been snubbed. In fact (and yes my conspiracy cap is on), you would even say it's in the best interest of the academy to squash radical discussions even if it means giving their awards to people they deep down don't want to.

While I love to see Directors, writers, and actors that would be typically overlooked rewarded, I worry that this truly means for radical messaging in cinema and if there is something more insidious going on behind the scenes.