Yellow Lives Matter

I recently saw a popular Christian apologist post the following image on Facebook. He's also been making posts sympathetic to if not in support of BLM.

Let's take a comparison:

Asian-Americans hear similar things. You're a banana or Twinkie. You're fresh off the boat. No but where are you really from? Well of course you're good at math and science. You all look the same. And so on.

Asian-Americans face systemic racism in college admissions. For example, see the Harvard law suit which may go all the way to the Supreme Court.

Yet, are Asian-Americans going around demanding the cancellation of every movie or series with yellow face racism? Supporting a Marxist-influenced organization like BLM? Justifying the destruction of property? Tearing down railroad tracks from the First Transcontinental Railroad because Chinese immigrants were literally treated like pack animals? Using Japanese internment camps like Manzanar as a modern rallying cry against the evil US government?

Should Asian-Americans be doing these things?

I think other racial/ethnic groups could say similar things too (e.g. Latinos, Indigenous Americans, Jews, underprivileged whites). Where's the massive public outrage and support for them? Why aren't CNN and MSNBC covering their plight as much as BLM?

Parasite review

(No significant spoilers except in the very last paragraph.)

The film Parasite won the Oscar for Best Picture. It was the first foreign film to have ever done so. It's a South Korean film.

The premise is a poor and unemployed family consisting of a father, a mother, a teenage son, and a teenage daughter end up conning and weaseling themselves into working for a rich family. The father serves as their limo driver, the mother as their house maid, the son as an English tutor for the rich family's daughter, and the daughter as the rich family's youngest son's art therapist. They forged documents to pretend like they have college degrees and work experiences they don't. The rest of the film unfolds from this setup.

I think one could evaluate the film on at least three different levels: a thriller with some dark comedic elements, a critique of "crazy rich" Asian culture, and social commentary (if not metaphor) about contemporary class warfare. Let's consider each of these.

Parasites

"Workers of the world, unite!"

Ironic to see Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels' The Communist Manifesto quoted by rich elitist celebrities who wouldn't be seated anywhere near the second-class bourgeoisie passengers let alone among the proletariats in steerage. No, they'd instead be in the stateroom enjoying the luxurious lifestyle of the 1%. And this is just the tip of the iceberg in the ridiculous progressive activism on display at the Oscars last night.

That said, it's interesting to see the Korean film Parasite receive four (of six) wins - Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best International Feature Film. The film's writer-director-producer Bong Joon-Ho won all of them. Furthermore it's the first foreign film to win Best Picture. And Parasite is the third film to concurrently win the Oscar for Best Picture and the Palme d'Or (Best Picture at the Cannes film festival). The other two were 1945's The Lost Weekend and 1955's Marty. All in all, quite an accomplishment for S. Korean cinema.

Prior to this, I think the best Asian cinema had done was nearly two decades ago when Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon won four (out of ten) Oscars (Best Foreign Film, Best Original Score, Best Art Direction, and Best Cinematography).

Today there are plenty of other critically acclaimed Asian movies and shows. Take for instance The Farewell as another recent critically acclaimed film. There are lauded tv sitcoms like Fresh Off the Boat and Kim's Convenience too. I'm sure we could multiply examples.

There are many reasons for the ascendancy of Asian cinema in recent years. However I just want to note it looks to me most the best aspects of Asian cinema have arisen in democratic Asian nations like Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and S. Korea. It's not often one sees (say) communist China produce high quality films. Especially before it embraced a capitalist market economy, albeit state-controlled. Probably Zhang Yimou is one of the few standouts in mainland Chinese film, but even his films have been censored by the Chinese government.

Yet we have moralizing Western elites lecturing average people about the horrors of Trump and conservatives, and the greatness of progressivism and socialism, while they're likewise benefiting from the fruits of a nation where film and the arts have the ground soil in which to flourish. In other words, the same moralizing celebrities wouldn't likely enjoy the life they currently enjoy if they had worked in show business in Cuba, N. Korea, or communist China. Who are the real "parasites" again?

Too bad these progressive Hollywood celebrities didn't take to heart Ricky Gervais' monologue at the Golden Globes last month:

So if you do win an award tonight, don't use it as a platform to make a political speech. You're in no position to lecture the public about anything. You know nothing about the real world. Most of you spent less time in school than Greta Thunberg. So if you win, come up, accept your little award, thank your agent, and your God, and [bugger] off, okay?

Update: I finally watched the movie Parasite. I review the film here.