Bong Joon-ho is having one hell of a month. Not only did Parasite win Best Director, Best Original Screenplay and Best International Film, but it made history by becoming the first-ever foreign language movie to win Best Picture. That victory propelled it straight to the front lines of the culture wars, with the usual suspects immediately taking to social media to publish hot takes about why a non-English foreign pic shouldn’t win the top prize in an American film award show.
And now the big cheese himself has weighed in on the movie. At a campaign rally in Colorado, President Trump laid into Parasite and the Academy, saying he wished Hollywood would return to making “great movies” like Gone With the Wind:
“How bad were the Academy Awards this year. And the winner is… a movie from South Korea! What the hell was that all that about? We’ve got enough problems with South Korea, with trade. On top of that, they give them the best movie of the year. Was it good? I don’t know. Let’s get Gone With the Wind back, please? Sunset Boulevard. So many great movies.”
Now you might doubt that Trump would ever settle down to watch a three and a half hour historical drama from 1939. But, let’s be fair, he does have a history as a classic movie buff (check him out talking about his favorite film, Citizen Kane). In an interview with MovieLine, he described Gone With the Wind as having “stood the test of time. For me, it’s a love story combined with a time in our country’s history that was pivotal in our evolution.”
Honestly, if Trump watched Parasite, he might get something out of it. I mean, much of his platform is based around knocking snooty, rich elites who live in closed societies off their pedestals. But let’s face it, I think the Trump that might theoretically like Parasite is probably long gone at this point, replaced almost entirely by the Trump who gets his kicks from Jean Claude Van Damme’s Bloodsport (which, incidentally, is also a great movie).
In the meantime, Parasite‘s distributor Neon tweeted a response to Trump’s dismissal of the film: “Understandable. He can’t read“. Ouch.
