PARASITE
My favorite Oscar moment, without a doubt, is the epic win that PARASITE (trailer here) took home in 2020. As a matter of fact, here is a screenshot of pics in my camera roll from when PARASITE won Best Picture. Yes…real tears of joy were shed. And yes, I know I was being extremely dramatic, but let me tell you why. As a born-and-raised Chinese woman learning her way through Hollywood, seeing huge Asian representation on the Oscar stage for the first time was overwhelming, especially since the film in question was in a “foreign language,” viewed with subtitles by most English speakers. I know real changes don’t happen overnight just because a film was awarded a prize, and we still have a long way to go as an industry—but PARASITE’s unexpected win at the Oscars not only proved that foreign films are no longer just for select groups of cinephiles, but also signaled that a film with a full Asian cast and in a foreign language can be appreciated for its brilliance on a large scale, and become a unifying blockbuster event despite the “one-inch barrier” that is subtitles. Anyway, PARASITE didn’t need an Oscar win to prove how iconic it is, but what a moment in history. To all of this, my immigrant self says YES.
—Mimi Li, Development Assistant
