A so-so defence of movie reaction videos

Yes, I am aware of the criticisms against reaction channels on Youtube. I cannot blame people for thinking it is a very low-effort and easy-money content.

But, recently, I find myself allured by some of them, particularly ones who “react” to feature films. It started with Bon Joon Ho’s Parasite. Then, it was Everything Everywhere All At Once. Then, other films – ones I have watched myself – followed.

The purpose of arts is to inspire us. The purpose of entertainment is to… well… entertain us. Being thought-provoking is just a bonus, albeit a very nice one. In the end, arts and entertainment are meant to make us feel things, to make us feel like human beings.

And I just love seeing those reactors… being humans.

I love seeing them laughing out loud at Kung Fu Hustle. I love seeing them being unnerved and horrified by Parasite, Hereditary and Psycho. I love seeing them becoming teary-eyed because of Good Will Hunting and any of Pixar’s films. And I definitely love how Everything Everywhere All At Once can give them disgust, confusion, hilarity and sentimentality, sometimes more than one of them at the same time. Seeing their genuine reactions is a delight.

I have no problem about Youtubers embracing exaggerated personas; my Millennial self can find (some of) them entertaining. But, admittedly, they embrace their personas so often, their authentic self expressions feel like rare, special moments. They feel like an oasis in the desert.

And those movie reactors – at least, the ones I watch – never embrace any personas; I am certain because I am not one of those morons who cannot differentiate what is cartoonish and what isn’t, like how they thought Filthy Frank was a real person. Not to mention, some of those reactors are reserved people whose eyes betray their monotonous speaking tones.

Admittedly, I do still have issues with those reaction youtubers.

I wish they cut the parts where they don’t show any reactions at all and I wish they have higher appreciations of cinema; I love James vs Cinema because not only he is a filmmaker, which means he has more cinematic knowledge than the average person, he also dares to choose arthouse fares like Ingmar Bergman’s Persona and Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker, resulting in more substantial reaction content.

But, despite the shortcomings, I still love watching them.

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Two films about trauma (and how the theme heightens my appreciation of them)

Those films are The Babadook and Good Will Hunting.

I already liked them at the first watch. I liked the former for its slow-burn and jumpscare-free horror. I liked the latter for its heart-warming drama. But, I didn’t find them special and I certainly thought the latter was way too overrated.

Recently, I tried rewatching them and I realised I missed something. Both films are about trauma.

Well, technically, The Babadook is still about grief. But. the film also focuses its long-term psychological effects and yes, grief can be traumatising. In the case of Amelia Vanek, the mother in the film, it is doubly traumatic because her husband died in a car accident while driving her to the hospital to give birth.

Good Will Hunting is about how trauma affects the titular character’s personal growth and his relationship with the other characters. His genius brain is just a mere detail to make him more captivating for the audience. If he doesn’t have it, I guarantee the story would not feel much different emotionally.

Now, how does the trauma theme improve my appreciation of the films? Well, it makes me understand the characters on a deeper level.

In The Babadook, while I already recognised her grief, I genuinely thought the film was about her daily stress of being a working single mother. But, it doesn’t explain why she seems distressed all the time – as if the stress is “permanent” – and it certainly doesn’t explain her emotional instability.

Trauma can also explain the behaviours of Samuel, the son. I don’t know if he inherits his mom’s trauma or not (as it can be hereditary). But, it is very possible he can sense something is wrong with her; he can sense there is something sinister brewing inside his mom and she can snap at any time. He is not being annoying, he is being reasonably fearful.

It also explains why the monster still lives in the end. From what I understand, trauma – the more severe one, at least – is not something you can get rid of; it is something you can only put a leash on. You cannot kill the Babadook. But, you can tame it.

And that segues to Good Will Hunting, specifically the therapist character, Sean Maguire. We don’t seem to realise that, like Will, he also suffers from trauma.

Will insulted his wife, which was enough to provoke Sean to throttle and threaten to kill him… and that happened on their very first session, by the way; anger issue is one of the most common symptoms of trauma. Sean was also abused by his father and he is a Vietnam war veteran who saw his best friend dying in front of him.

We can make an intriguing comparison between the two characters. On one hand, they are very similar to each other; not only they are “Southies” AKA from South Boston, they also have traumatic life experiences, which include being abused by their so-called parental figures.

But, at the same time, they are also different from each other. Will – to put it simply – is a mess of a person; he is aimless, he cannot be emotionally vulnerable in front of his lover and he has constant problems with the law. Meanwhile, Sean has sorted his life together; he works as a therapist and a community college professor and, most importantly, he romantically pursued a woman and married her for eighteen years until her death.

Of course, unlike Sean, Will was also an orphan, which means he had less opportunities and – without any intention to minimise Sean’s suffering – was also in a far more vulnerable state; self-improvement is admittedly harder to obtain for him.

But, at the same time, Sean’s life story feels hopeful. It shows we can overcome our pain and not letting it holding us down. We can prevail against the storm.

I still don’t think both films are among the best in the history. But, my acknowledgement of the underlying theme puts light on new perspectives. The films are much deeper than I realised.

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Oppenheimer: not warmongering, but still feckless

I am not going to debate the veracity of the accounts. Therefore, I am going to treat the story and its characters as entirely fictional.

No, this film does not glorify wars. The titular character is frequently shown feeling guilty about his contributions to weapons of mass destruction. While he is not necessarily depicted as a hero (he can be a dick to everyone around him), he is depicted as a deeply flawed man with conscience.

In fact, instead of depicting Harry S. Truman – who coldly dismissed Oppenheimer’s concern about war victims – as a heroic figure, the film depicts as a callous monster who thinks having conscience makes you whiny.

But, at the same time, the film is also too cowardly with its anti-war sentiment.

While it does acknowledge the sufferings of the ordinary Hiroshima and Nagasaki citizens, it refuses to visualise them. It refuses to show the survivors’ injuries in graphic visual details; the bodily horror is only meagerly described in a handful of dialogues.

If the film genuinely believes nuking civilians is immoral, having a character with constant moral musing is not enough; it needs to show why doing so is bad.

The depiction’s absence makes me difficult to take the conscientious dialogues seriously; for me, they end up sounding like moralistic rants of an attention-seeking virtue signaler who cannot stand their ground.

The reactions to the film are “interesting”. On one hand, people hate the film because they see it as pro-war. On the other, people love the film because they see it as pro-war. Both camps love and hate the film for the same reason.

And it is also obvious both are delusional; they see and hear what they want to see and hear. They think a film espouses a certain belief when it clearly espouses the exact opposite. But, I do wonder: what if the bodily horror is visually depicted?

I am certain the message would be even more unmistakable and people would have a harder time distorting it to further their agendas.

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No, ‘Everything Everywhere All At Once’ is not “too woke”

In a previous blogpost, I expressed my frustration regarding people who cannot comprehend the film’s plot line; considering the rising conflict, climax and resolution are clear-cut, there is no excuse to not understand it. While you may not be a fan, I am certain you still have a brain.

I thought that was the most frustrating “criticism” against the film. I was wrong.

I just found out some people find the film too woke. Why? Because many of the characters, especially the main ones, are Asian-Americans and two of them are queer.

That is it. Not because the film is politically brazen, but simply because it features minorities as characters.

From what I observe, such people can be divided into three groups: bigots, self-hating people and edgelords. While they have different motivations, they are all hypocritical.

They love accusing the so-called “postmodern liberal communists” of obsession with identity politics. And yet, their mouths start frothing when the media acknowledge minorities’ existence.

Let me summarise the film: it tells the story of a woman who unwillingly gets involved in an adventure that traverses parallel universes; her fight against a multiverse-destroying entity perfectly echoes her struggles running her small business, dealing with tax audit and maintaining relations with her husband, daughter and father.

While the film does have Asian-American and Queer identities as themes, they are not the only ones. It also deals with mental health, generational trauma and the philosophical meanings of existence.

The film has quite a handful of subject matters, the Asian and Queer themes are almost mere details; regardless of the characters’ identities, the story would still be thematically compelling. The film’s personality is neither Asian nor Queer.

And yet, those people act like Asianness and Queerness are the only things the film has to offer.

Every time they see non-stereotypical and mundane depictions of minorities in the media, their knee-jerk is to scream, “Forced Diversity!”. For them, this is nothing but affirmative actions.

Because they are too busy whimpering about the representations, they end up disregarding the stories in their entireties… and that’s definitely the case here as well.

If that’s not obsession with identity politics, I don’t know what that is.

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MCU films kill movie stars…. and how is that supposed to be bad?

Seriously, how?

When I was a much more unsophisticated film consumer, I watched films because of their premises, they were adaptations of certain source materials and they were sequels of films that I liked. I was not star struck by the actors.

As a teen, I started taking more heed of of my sexual attractions and I did find some actors more attractive than the others. But, I still didn’t watch films because of the actors. Still wasn’t star struck by them.

When I was around 19, I started exploring cinema beyond the mainstream Hollywood. Apart from the aforementioned ones, I also added a new reason for me to watch a film: the director. Nowadays, I already have three personal favourites.

And this was when I started to bewildered by the concept of a “movie star”.

You are watching a film and yet, instead of focusing on the story and maybe on how its execution, you choose to focus on your favourite actors, even though they are supposed to be the characters they are depicting instead of being themselves; that’s literally what actors are hired for.

Yes, I do know some actors perform better than the others; I have certainly caught myself fawning over their sublime performances. But, it still does not make me star struck for multiple reasons.

Good acting skills aren’t unique to specific actors, the most acclaimed actors don’t always give their best performances and, most importantly, the most popular actors aren’t always the best performers.

It should also be noted that some actors are famous for portraying characters with similar traits, over and over and over again.

I don’t think this is necessarily bad. If they are actors who always perform characters specifically made for them and cannot be performed by anyone else, then I can see why people watch films just for them. I am thinking of the likes of Rowan Atkinson, Jackie Chan and Charlie Chaplin, whom we never expect to have a wide acting range (even though they may have it).

But, most actors aren’t like that. We expect most of them to have an actually wide range instead of simply performing their public personas.

Okay, if you love them solely for their public personas, then why bother watching their films? I mean, you can simply tune in to any of their media appearances, including their interviews and any shows they guest star in.

Heck, we are in 2023. I am certain some of your favourite movie stars have become Youtubers as well. You can definitely watch their videos.

My point is people love to bash MCU for supposedly showcasing filmmaking at its shallowest… and yet, they often have nothing but the shallowest arguments.

First, Martin Scorcese – supposedly one of the most acclaimed directors of all time – argued MCU films are not cinema; he made his own definition of the word “cinema” and act like it is the most objective one. Basically, if I didn’t know who uttered the words, I would assume they were uttered by a snot-nosed and self-righteous teenager.

Then, we also have Quentin Tarantino – another supposedly acclaimed director – who thinks MCU films are bad because they kill the movie stars.

I mean, there are lots to criticise about MCU films. The extreme commercialisation, the lack of risk-taking and the excessive amount of jokes. But, he criticises them because they kill celebrity worship, something that actually deserves to be killed off?

He is a fucking film director. He should be focused on the stories and how they are executed. But, for some reasons, he thinks upholding celebrity worship – something of no value – is just as important. Are you fucking kidding me?

I don’t know if they are desperate with their criticisms or they genuinely believe they are onto something.

But, one thing is certain: their simps will take their words like the gospel, regardless of the profundity or lack thereof. Because status trumps everything.

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Oh, and there are times when I actually watch films solely for their actors.

Those films are called porn.

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‘Everything Everywhere All At Once’ isn’t that confusing

*spoiler alert*

I admit it is far from the most escapist film ever.

It is a comedic, psychological, absurdist, action-packed sci-fi film. Its story starts as one before splitting into two main branches that symbolically paralleling each other. It depicts existentialism, nihilism, generational gaps and identity crisis of children with foreign-born parents.

It is an undoubtedly highly-thematic, idiosyncratic and cerebral film that cannot put into any boxes. It is definitely not for everyone. In fact, I am surprised by its box office success.

But, is it really hard to follow?

In the beginning, we see our main protagonist Evelyn Wang struggling not only with the IRS’s audit of her laundromat business, but also with her strained relationships with her (supposedly) meek and naive husband, demanding father and queer daughter who seems detached from her ancestral heritage. The story starts branching out when someone from a parallel universe approaches her.

The film mainly focuses on two branches. One is a continuation of her earthly struggles story. The other one is about her fight against a powerful being – a parallel universe version of her daughter – who wants to destroy the multiverse, with the help of her husband’s parallel universe version.

There are lots to take in and I have barely scratched the surface by not detailing the minor but still consequential stories and discussing the film’s loaded themes. But, the plot is still clearly laid out for us.

In both main stories, you can easily determine the introduction, rise, climax, fall and resolution. Even though the parallel universes overlap with each other, we still can tell which is which. They are linearly and unambiguously depicted.

I have watched arthouse films where the lines between the past and present and between the physical and metaphysical worlds are blurred. I have watched arthouse films where the stories are partially or entirely conveyed through unexplained and seemingly-random imagery.

I have watched Shane Carruth’s Primer (hard to enjoy his works after knowing what he did), a time travel film where the characters speak with lots of technical jargons and create paradoxes so complex, you can’t discern the different timelines from each other.

There are many films with plots open to interpretations, where you are required to figure everything out yourself. But, Everything Everywhere All At Once is not one of them. If you simply pay attention, you would know what is going on.

Unfortunately, I have encountered something like this before.

I have heard people complaining how the 2009 Sherlock Holmes film has a very complex mystery, even though it is overwhelmed by the many action scenes and the explanations barely use any jargons.

While watching La La Land in the theatre with me, my sister overheard another filmgoer’s confusion about what those fantasy sequences are supposed to be, even though it is blatantly obvious they depict the characters’ fantasies.

Some Harry Potter fans complain the film adaptation of Half-Blood Prince is boring and has nothing going on, even though it clearly has things going on… in the forms of calm-paced and dialogue-driven scenes.

Basically, some people are unable to understand a story if it requires slightly more efforts and isn’t 99.9% escapist.

I don’t know if they are that stupid or just lazy. I hope it is the latter. I already have many reasons to be cynical.

The last thing I need is to have another one.

Oh, and one more thing:

If you watched the trailer and/or saw the weird poster that I use for this blogpost prior watching the film, why did you expect it to be “normal”?

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Revisiting Life of Pi (the movie) after ten years

No, I haven’t read the book.

When I first watched it, I was immediately awed by the experience. Initially, I found that baffling.

Yes, I do love ethereal visual aesthetics and stories with magical and spiritual themes. But, I have also watched other similar films. None of them – not even the works of Andrei Tarkovsky, one of my favourite directors – have spiritually galvanised me like Life of Pi has.

Seriously, I spent months arguing with my online friends and reading online essays about the film. I tried to decipher the magical happenings by relating them to Pi’s religiously syncretic spirituality and his relationship with his rationalist father. Inevitably, I ended up in self-contemplation about my own life.

From all things in life, I get much of my spiritual awakening from a Hollywood film. Why the hell is that?

First thing first, I have the MBTI AKA Myer-Briggs Type Indicator hypothesis.

Around the time of the film’s release, I was extremely obsessed with the personality type classification due to my early stage of “self-searching”. I identified as an INFJ (Google it yourself) and the film’s titular character was identified by many as one as well. I might be subconsciously influenced by the words of strangers.

But, this hypothesis falls apart quickly as I still love the film even after I become disillusioned with MBTI (it is basically horoscope with psychology veneer). Besides, there were also many other fictional characters and real-life public figures perceived as INFJs, none of which I could relate to (one of them was Hitler, for god’s sake).

Maybe it is indeed the films’ depiction of spirituality. After I dissected it again for the first time in almost ten years, the film does feel different from the others.

While “raw” is not how I describe it, the depiction is certainly not understated. Pi is not just a person who identifies with three different religions, he is also one who endlessly explores spirituality; his metaphysical journey is always at the frontline of his life story.

But, it does not feel like the film imposes his worldview upon us. Instead of keeping us as emotionally-detached spectators, it wants us to empathise with his experiences. It also refrains from utilising any explicitly philosophical dialogues; they can get too technical, overt and sanctimonious.

Unusual for a story with a religious main protagonist, it also wants us to be considerate of the opposing worldview. Now, my experiences with some self-proclaimed rationalists tells me they can be as insufferable as religious zealots. But, Pi’s father, Santosh, is not one of those pseudo-intellectuals.

While he can comes across as cold-hearted*, he teaches Pi to not fall for blind faiths and to not let sentimentality controls his life. In fact, not only his son ends up as a spiritually and emotionally well-rounded individual, the latter skill helps him surviving the perils of getting lost at sea; in such situation, even vegetarians like him have to kill animals for food.

The open-minded contemplation of the other worldview also gives us a nuanced paradigm to interpret Pi’s story.

On one hand, we can take his fantastical story as his attempt to suppress his memory, which is horrific as it involves surviving as a castaway, witnessing murders, killing the murderer and cannibalising his rotting cadaver. The memory suppression is a natural response.

At the same time, the film is not robotic enough to dismiss the story’s possibility. Would I believe it if someone claimed to experience it? No, I wouldn’t. But, I also acknowledge that the world is a bizarre place.

I mean, just take a look at nature. Tectonic plates are basically giant chunks of land who always bump into each other. Many of those deep sea creatures look like aliens. The outer space has black holes. Every single living being on earth is each other’s very distant relative.

While the living island cannot scientifically exist, carnivorous plants do exist and the water surrounding the Italian island of Castello Aragonese has significant content of carbonic acid, which can be corrosive if nothing’s done about the climate change. Nature is one giant weirdo.

Scepticism is indeed a must. But, if nature – the tangible and measurable nature – is weird, we shouldn’t dismiss any human experiences simply because they sound weird.

Maybe this is why I was so obsessed with the film. It goes beyond simply depicting a character’s spiritual journey. It tries its best depicting one that is emotionally exhausting but ever-lastingly rewarding… and it wants us to have a taste of it.

And, as I was in the early stage of “self-searching”, I (probably) subconsciously craved something more nuanced than the glorified pigeonholes of MBTI.

Oh, and I have mixed feelings about the film’s multicultural nature.

On one hand, the film could have been more multilingual. As Pi is from Pondicherry, a Tamil-majority Indian union territory that is formerly a French colony, there could have been more Tamil and French dialogues. Instead, most of them are in English.

But, I also acknowledge the film does a relatively great job in depicting the universality of human experiences. From my eyes, while the titular character is inseparable from his cultural and religious identities, people from all over can easily feel for him in spite of the differences.

The film feels even more multicultural when you learn about Ang Lee, the director.

He is a US-based Taiwanese director. His first two feature films are about the lives of Chinese (mainland and Taiwanese) immigrants in the US, his third is about the clash between Chinese traditions and western-influenced modernity, his fourth is a Jane Austen novel adaptation and many of his subsequent films are set in America and feature American characters.

He is certainly a filmmaker who has experiences traversing cultural differences.

As flawed as the film’s multiculturalism can be, I don’t find it tokenist at all. It does help reminding me about the universality of human experiences.

I don’t see Pi as someone who belongs to the “others”. I see him as a fellow human being.

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*A bit of tangent about Pi’s father, Santosh.

He does come across as cold-hearted. But, I don’t believe he is. There are times when his emotions are glaring for everyone to see.

He looks genuinely sad when he announces the family’s migration to Canada, he tries to physically fight the French cook for disrespecting his vegetarian wife and insulting Indians like him as “curry eaters” and he – along with his family -looks red-faced afterwards.

Oh, and he names one of his sons – the titular character – Piscine Molitor. Why? Because his friend is a swimmer whose favourite swimming pool is at the Piscine Molitor Hotel in Paris. There is nothing rational about that.

He is just as interesting as his youngest son.

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The Orange Girl

I am talking not only about the Jostein Gaarder’s novel, but also about the film adaptation. After immersing myself in both, I realised something: I actually don’t care for Jan Olav’s love life.

For me, it is not about how ‘beautiful’ his romance with the orange girl was (it is less beautiful and more sickly sweet). It is about how his son Georg utilises the tale as a tool for contemplation.

Even though I have read only three of his novels, it is obvious that Jostein Gaarder’s specialty is philosophical fiction; the contemplativeness is expected. Therefore, it is not far-fetched to say romance is not the novel’s main focus. As much as some of you may dislike it, the mind of Georg the pretentious is the main focus.

While the pretentiousness can be off-putting, I actually think it is understandable. If you receive something similar to a sentimental letter from your long-deceased loved one, existential musing is inevitable. If you are a teenager, the musing would be inevitably unrefined.

Of course, it may seems I am excusing it, considering Gaarder’s other novels Sophie’s World and The Solitaire Mystery are not (as) pretentious; it shows he has the capability to write (relatively) well-rounded philosophical fictions.

But, here’s the thing: they have leverages.

Sophie’s World revolves around an interaction between a student and a teacher of philosophy; the presence of an authority figure may help the titular character to be more grounded. The Solitaire Mystery is not even explicitly philosophical; it prefers to express ideas through allegorical means.

The Orange Girl, on the other hand, is explicitly philosophical and none of the living adult characters serve as the main character’s “philosophical mentor”, leaving him “unsupervised” with his musings. So, not only the pretentiousness is hard to evade, it also makes perfect sense.

It is a reason why I can still re-read the book to this day despite everything.

Now about the film adaptation…

Just like many people, I am also disappointed when the adaptations of my favourite books liberally change the stories, especially when the changes do not improve them, if not worsen.

But, in this case, there are two changes which may seem trivial for some, but personally infuriating for me: the setting and Georg’s love interest.

Why does Georg have to go on a skiing trip? Why can’t he simply contemplate inside his bedroom?

Okay, this is not one of those ‘finding-yourself-while-travelling’ stories. The skiing trip only lasts for a few days and it ends before the climax.

But still, I despise the belief that you can only “find yourself” by leaving home. It ignores one crucial element of such experience: the genuine desire to learn. It does not matter if you have visited every country on earth; if you don’t have the desire, you would always be the same pathetic loser of a person.

And why the love interest? The point of the letter is to appreciate life as a whole! But, it seems the filmmakers believed otherwise. Maybe they idiotically mistook the novel as a romance one.

Either that or they thought protagonists must always had love interests.

In both changes, it is shallowness resulting in dumb changes.

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Moving Onward with Onward

*Spoiler alert for Onward……AND Finding Dory (Yes, really).*

Sadly, I am disappointed with it.

The premise itself is interesting: a teenager dealing with his own insecurity (I have a soft spot for such story) longing for a deceased loved one he has no memories of. It is obvious the problem lies on its execution.

It may has something to do with Manticore, a character that is crucial to the plot and yet treated as a comic relief. There is also something about the film that prevents me from emotionally immersing myself in it; I cannot blame its action-oriented and fast-paced narrative because many films, including other Pixar ones, can still be emotional despite being action-oriented and fast-paced. It feels like I am not given enough time to fully relate to the character.

The film is so forgettable, I forgot that I just watched a new Pixar film literally minutes after leaving the theatre.

But, Onward is still way better than Finding Dory.

As disappointed as it is, I have to commend Onward  for having a main character who actually moves onward with his life. Both Ian and Barley are excited to meet their temporarily-revived deceased father. But, amid the (self-inflicted) commotion during the climax, only one of them can meet him for a short while. Ian decided that Barley is more deserving of the one last meeting.

Why? Because, unlike Ian, Barley has actual memories of their father and Barley felt guilty for not giving a proper goodbye to when he was on his deathbed. Ian felt the experience would be more meaningful to his older brother.

Ian also realises his obsession about meeting their deceased father drove him into snubbing the wonderful time he has had with his brother. The list scratching scene near the climax is my favourite in the film.

Moving onward, indeed. The complete opposite of Finding fucking Dory.

If this story is simply about reliving her memories of her parents, then I would be just find. But, somehow, the story has to be about finding them alive! It would be better if they are dead!

Okay, I know I sound heartless. But, hear me out first (or read me out, I guess).

Obviously, there is nothing inherently wrong about wanting to find one’s parents. But, I hate how the film insists that Dory has to find them or else, the absence of family means she would never be emotionally fulfilled, forgetting that Marlin and Nemo are her fucking family; the film’s predecessor clearly shows how Marlin’s mere presence makes Dory feels at home!

Despite my disappointment, Onward‘s emotional maturity shows it is still a Pixar flick. Finding Dory feels more Disney-ish. Yes, I know Disney bought Pixar. But, you get the gist.

I actually don’t have a good reason to bring up Finding Dory. I just hate the film and I am using this opportunity to kick its groin.

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Parasite rightfully won

I have seen way too many people attributing Parasite’s victory at the Oscars to its popularity and it being a foreign-language film.

They are so smart, it hurts.

Not every award is like the Kids’ Choice Awards. Believe it or not, some awards like the Oscars are presided by a handful of (presumably snobby) juries who judge the nominees’ objective merit, NOT their popularity. One can argue the juries are misguided with their judgement and they have been criticised for it. But, it is very certain they don’t care about popularity.

And the data backs me up.

Avatar, one of the most highest-grossing (and one of the most overrated) films ever, was (idiotically) nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars… and yet, it was defeated by Hurt Locker, a film I would never heard of if it wasn’t for its victory. Don’t forget that Marvel Cinematic Universe, the highest-grossing film franchise of all time, have yet to won a single Oscar; they are more successful in awards that specialise in speculative fiction.

Oh, and don’t forget that film snobs looooove Parasite. On Youtube alone, you can find lots of them ravingly reviewing the film… and mind you, those people do not care much about popularity. They don’t have problems berating films they deem dreadful, no matter how popular they are! In fact, I feel alone because it is hard for me to find people who enjoy both Parasite and Marvel films like I do.

The thematic analyses are even more plentiful. Thanks to those Youtubers and their equally passionate audience, the surge of its cinematic exegeses feels never-ending, proving how Parasite is a dense and meticulously-crafted work.

Those who dismiss the legitimacy of its victory are either driven by xenophobia, anglo-centrism, neoliberalism or a combination of some or all of them. I am confident with my assertion because their dismissiveness contradicts the observable facts and I have seen many people hating on the film because it is non-American, non-anglophone and critical of capitalism.

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