Why Did Parasite Win A Golden Globe?

Hello everyone!  I hope your 2020 is going well.  Today, we’re going to discuss Parasite.  If you didn’t know, Parasite is a movie from South Korea that won a Golden Globe for best foreign film.  We’re going to discuss a few things about this movie. I want to tell you how I discovered this movie, why it won a Golden Globe, and the message the director Bong Joo Ho had for America.  Let’s get into it.

When The Wrong Spelling Goes Right

I should mention that I did not watch the Golden Globes.  I found out about Parasite’s win the following morning. Honestly, we found this movie by accident.  We were actually looking for Parasyte (like the anime), but found Parasite. We were about 10 minutes in before we realized that ths may not be what we’re looking for.  But the way this movie opens instantly drew us in, and we decided to stick it out and see where it goes. And let me tell ya folks….it went places that I never dreamed it would go.  The first happy accident of 2020 for me as a viewer left me thoroughly satisfied. 

Well Deserved

I used to like watching awards shows.  But, the older I get, the more I realize that I’m not the award show’s audience.  To me, the audience is actually Hollywood. It’s nothing but the industry paying homage to itself and the people they like.  They occasionally throw in a noteworthy winner to quell public outcries of favoritism and discrimination. But, for the most part, award shows are by Hollywood, for Hollywood.

With all that being said, Parasite deserved any and all accolades it receives.  It’s a gritty story of a family of con-artists trying to hustle their way to a better life by pulling the wool over the eyes of a wealthy, and naive, family.  My husband says it’s like the show Shameless, and he’s right.

The con-artist family is despicable to say the least.  The things they do to milk the family out of thier money is truly deplorable.  But, karma comes back to bite them in a very poetic way. What I really liked about the movie is that there are really no winners in the story.  Both families face major tragedies because of the actions of the con-artists. It’s not some boring “the nice family wins” type of thing. It’s realer than that.  Everyone paid the price for the family’s criminal behavior.

This is often how real life works when it comes to crime.  If someone is mugged, both the perpetrator and the victim feel the negative impact.  The victim is traumatized by the experience, while the pereptrator has to live in a state of constant paranoia, fearing arrest or reataliation.  Sure, they may have money, but they lose their freedom.  

Parasite pefectly illustrated the gap in class between the haves and the have-nots, and the consequences of both crime and gullibility.

The Bong Joon-Ho Dragging

So today (the Monday after the Golden Globes), I’m on Twitter and I see that Parasite won the Golden Globe for best foreign film.  I said to myself “good for them! That was a really good movie”. But what everyone was really talking about was the director’s acceptance speech.  Bong Joon-Ho absolutely got Americans together. He said, “Once you overcome the one-inch tall barrier of subtitles, you will be introduced to so many more amazing films”.  

Some of the best movies in the world are not in English.  I remember growing up loving the movie “Like Water for Chocolate”, a film set in Mexico.  Now, I write about anime, which is in Japanese. So many great works of art come from other countries, yet we ignore it because we’re too lazy or ignorant to read subtitles.  It’s a bit rediculous.

Do you want to know the kicker?  Lots of movies and characters popular in America are adaptations from other countries.  Do you remember the movie True Lies with Arnold Schwarzeneggar? Well, it’s based on a French comedy, along with The Birdcage.  And let’s not forget about The Grudge, which is based on a Japanese horror movie. It’s so funny how international ideas are only palletable to us when they are in English.   I encourage you to step out of your comfort zone, and try a foreign film beofre it’s “adapted” by Hollywood.

Wrapping It Up

Parasite is everything I look for in a good movie.  The story is compelling, the characters are dynamic, and the ending is memorable.  The film has a high rewatch value. The story isn’t lost in special effects, BS romantic entangelments, or other such nonsense.  It’s just a good movie…period. 

Well that’s it!  I will see you soon for Number 24!