Racial discrimination controversy spread in the movie’Buttercup’… Pulitzer Prize writer also shoots

‘Burning”Okja’ starring actor Stephen Yeon, a Korean-American family film’Minari’ directed by a Korean-American director. He was invited to the gala presentation section at the Busan International Film Festival held in October. [사진 부산국제영화제]

”Minari” is a movie about immigrants who speak Korean. However,’Minari’ cannot be called a’foreign movie’.’ This is the title of a column written by Vietnamese-American and Pulitzer Prize winner Viet Thain Nguyen on the 24th (local time) to the Washington Post. Nguyen said, “The director of’Minari’, Lee Isaac Jung (Korean name: Isak Jeong) is an American, cast an American actor, and was made in the United States,” said Nguyen. He pointed out that the question was raised strongly.

On the 23rd (local time), the fact that the film’Minari’, which was written and directed by Korean-American director Jung based on the autobiographical family immigration history, was classified as a foreign language film nomination at the next year’s Golden Globe Awards, which is called the Academy Preliminary Exhibition, became controversial. Sea. The Hollywood Foreign Journalists Association (HFPA), which organizes the awards ceremony, defines films in foreign languages ​​if more than 50% of conversations are not English. ‘Minari’, a Korean-speaking family in a rural Arkansas village in the 1980s, is an American film produced by Hollywood star Brad Pitt’s film company Plan B and co-produced by Stephen Yeon, a Korean-American. I had no choice but to submit for the Foreign Language Film Awards.

Nguyen said that his parents who immigrated to the United States in 1975 speak Vietnamese at home, and all of their friends are Vietnamese, but they know enough English to buy a house and pay taxes in the United States and consider themselves Americans. He also asked, “After 45 years, English is still not perfect, but are these foreigners?” “The claim that language is the criterion for’foreign’ may be true for whites in the United States, but Asians seem to be perceived as foreigners regardless of the use of English.” There are times when it gets hooked up with,” he pointed out the problem of skin color.
The Nguyen column’s repercussions about the standard that it judged as American continued to the British media. The Guardian dealt with this column as an article on the 26th, paying particular attention to racial issues. This is a comparison of Nguyen’s’Buttercup’ with his assumptions about Stephen Spielberg, the Jewish master who has been the most’American film director’.

Nguyen said, “If Director Steven Spielberg made a film about the experience of a Jewish immigrant with mostly Yiddish (Jewish in Europe) ambassadors, he could have convinced HFPA that this film was about the United States, and that’s right.” “The only difference from’Buttercup’ is that Spielberg is of course an American, and director Jung is a young filmmaker with a background of Asian Americans who have always been treated as foreigners in the United States.” In addition, the movie’Call Me by Your Name’, a movie about an Italian-speaking American family, and’Basterz: The Wild Guys’ starring Brad Pitt, who speaks mostly German and French, were nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Picture. How the hell should I look at this?” he lamented.

The film’The Fairwell’ directed by Lulu Wang, where Asian actor Aquapina won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress earlier this year. [AP=연합뉴스]

Last year, the film’Fairwell’, a film about the story of a Chinese immigrant family by Chinese-American director Lulu Wang, was nominated for the Foreign Language Film Awards. The leading actor Akwupina won the Best Actress Award, but the Foreign Language Film Awards went to Bong Joon-ho’s’Parasite’. Director Bong’s’Parasite’, who said in his awards speech at the time, “Break through the barriers of 1-inch subtitles,” rewrote the history of the Academy by winning 4 crowns, including the First Non-English Film Award and Screenplay Award, at the Academy Awards without language regulations. . This is the reason why the Golden Globe’s’Buttercup’ situation is even more anachronistic.

Local media such as Hollywood Reporter, Vulture, and Deadline also released critical reports. Variety pointed out Golden Globe’s rubber band rules, saying, “The films’Babel’ and’Basters: The Wild Guys’ competed for work even though the proportion of English is low, and’Babel’ even won the 2006 Best Awards.” American pop culture media Paste reporter Jacob Aller pointed out that the Golden Globe rule is’racism’.

Director Jeong Isaac and cast members of’Minari’, who won the Jury Award and the Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival in January this year, are taking a commemorative photo at Park City, Utah, where the film festival was held. [사진 엔터테인먼트위클리]

In this column, Nguyen said in this column that the films’Parasite’ and BTS and Black Pink are the essence of Korea’s decades-long efforts to develop an internationally competitive entertainment industry, and the success of’Parasite’ separates non-English films from the mainstream. It was also analyzed that it suggested that the desire of the American media and entertainment industry should be abandoned.

‘Minari’, which also featured many Korean actors such as Ye-ri Han and Ye-ri Yoon, won the Best Jury Award at the Sundance Film Festival in February and the Audience Award in the U.S. Film Division, and won the Florida Critics Association Screenplay Award and the Denver International Film Festival Best Actor Award (Steven Yeon). It has been well received. In particular, Yoon Yeo-jeong received one of the Boston Critics Association and Sunset Film Circle Awards for Best Supporting Actress. In Korea, it was screened at the 25th Busan International Film Festival in October and is scheduled to be released in the first half of next year. The Golden Globe Awards Ceremony will be held on February 28th next year.

Reporter Na Won-jeong [email protected]