Donald Trump has again stirred controversy and proved his ignorance by taking a jab at the Academy Awards 2020 for awarding this year’s Best Motion Picture honor to Parasite because it is a South Korean movie.
“The winner is a movie from South Korea, what the hell was that all about?” Trump asked. “We got enough problems with South Korea with trade, and on top of it, they give them the best movie of the year.”
Trump admitted that he hadn’t seen the movie Parasite. This clearly shows that the US president is not remotely concerned about the quality of the film than its origin. He is more interested in the politics of rather than just appreciating the art.
The US president is not happy about the fact that a film outside Hollywood and non-English gets the honor of best picture and best director. Perhaps the US president is not informed that in the past decade, directors from all over the world, other than the USA, had won the best director award.
Parasite made history as the first foreign-language film to win the best picture. Even the Japanese legendary director, Akira Kurosawa’s films, got nominated several times but didn’t get the Best Motion Picture award. The capitalist satire also won awards for best director, best original screenplay, and best international film.
Neon, distributer of Parasite in the US, responded to Trump’s dig on Twitter with a dig of its own: “Understandable, he can’t read.”
On the other hand, Curzon Parasite’s UK distributed also criticized Trump’s comment by saying, “The comments by the President of The United States of America on Parasite are a clear racist dog whistle and as such do not warrant being debated.”
Parasite, directed by Bong Joon-ho, is class satire tells the story of a destitute Kim family, who infiltrates the house of the super-rich Park family by taking on various jobs and scheming to elevate their living standard eventually. It is a dark comedy of class struggle depicted in a very humorous way.
Trump seemed more interested in old American films of the ’40s and ’50s. He mentioned films like Gone With The Wind and Sunset Boulevard and asked whether those films can be brought back again.
Not only Parasite but the US president also took a jibe at Brad Pitt, who won the Best Supporting Actor Male for his role in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon A Time In Hollywood. Brad Pitt used the stage to criticize the Republicans in the Senate for not allowing former White House national security adviser John Bolton to testify the impeachment trial against Trump.
About Brad Pitt, Trump opined that he was never a big fan of his and criticized his acceptance speech by calling him “little wise guy.”
