The ‘Minari’ Golden Globes controversy isn’t all about Hollywood

So when the Golden Globes airs Sunday, this American film, written and directed by an American man about a family’s struggle on their American farm, will compete in a surprising category: the best film in a foreign language.

‘It feels personal … It feels like’ where are you from? “Question Asian Americans always get,” says Nancy Wang Yuen, a sociologist and author of “Reel Inequality: Hollywood Actors and Racism.” “The assumption is that if you have an Asian face, you shouldn’t come from here.”

‘Minari’ is an American story in more ways than one

Lee Isaac Chung, Colorado-born writer and director of “Minari,” says he based many of the details in the script on his own experiences growing up as a child of Korean immigrants on a farm in Arkansas.

Writer-director Lee Isaac Chung (right) with actors Steven Yeun (left) and Will Patton (center) on the set of "Under threat."

The film gets its title from the Korean name for a resilient herb. But there’s no question that the film’s vibrant, richly textured scenes tell a decidedly American story – from pastoral Ozark landscapes to rural church pews to the home of the Yi family.

“Minari” won first prizes at Sundance last year. It also gets rave reviews from people whose communities it describes – both immigrants and non-immigrants. An Arkansas Times journalist recently called it “the most authentic coming-of-age story I’ve seen on screen about our part of the world.”
Chung says he credits Pulitzer-winning novelist Willa Cather – who chronicled life in the American plains more than a century ago – for inspiring him to tell it.

About her books “O Pioneers!” and “My Antonia,” Cather once said that she had written stories inspired by her own upbringing after years of imitation of cosmopolitan New York authors.

“She wrote that her work took off when she stopped admiring and began to remember,” Chung told CNN. “And that’s what made me finally sit down and just jot down my memories. And that became the core of a movie.”

Why the movie’s Golden Globe nomination hit a nerve

The memories Chung weaves together in ‘Minari’ are something many Americans who grew up in immigrant families can relate to: the joy of a visiting family member bringing herbs from home, the struggles of several generations to connect, the pent-up emotions of parents risk everything to support their families, the faces of children trying to fit in.

Grandson David (Alan S. Kim) and grandmother Soonja (Yuh-Jung Youn) have a troubled relationship "Under threat."

It feels memorable to Yuen.

“Many of us are seeing our stories on screen for the first time,” she says.

So when news first broke that the rules of the Golden Globes would force “Minari” to compete in the “best foreign language film” category, it stuck.

Actor Daniel Dae Kim and other Asian celebrities quickly took to social media to share their dismay. Kim described it as “the movie equivalent of being told to go back to your country when that country is actually America”.

For some, it was déjà vu over the previous year, when Lulu Wang’s 2019 film “The Farewell” was banned from the best comedy race of the awards ceremony because much of the film was in Mandarin Chinese.

“It’s great that these films are being made, but it’s terrible that they are classified in the foreign language categories,” says Yuen. “We shouldn’t be punished for telling different American stories that haven’t been told before.”

And it’s especially troubling, Yuen says, at a time when Asian Americans are increasingly facing verbal and physical assaults.
Calling ‘Minari’ a foreign film doesn’t help with the kind of general anti-Asian sentiment, the perennial stereotypical foreigner that Asian Americans face, not only in an abstractly representational way, but also in a lived experience. attacked by our government and individuals. “

What the rules of prices say

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s rules for the Golden Globes state that only films with 50% or more of their dialogues in English are eligible to enter the best film categories of the awards.
Other prices use different criteria. For example, the Oscars allow films in any language to compete for the best picture. And last year, “Parasite”, a Korean film set in Seoul, became the first non-English film to win the award.

The rules of the Golden Globes are not new. But some argue that it is a long time ago for the association to re-evaluate the criteria it uses for its prestigious awards.

FYI, English is not the official language of the United States
Charlene Jimenez, director of entertainment partnerships and advocacy for the nonprofit Define American, described this year’s Golden Globes nominations as part of a “pattern of erasure,” when she recently called for a revision of the language requirement.

“Today more than 350 languages ​​are spoken in American homes. What does ‘foreign’ language mean?” Jimenez told CNN. “It’s a really important time for us as an American society to explore our own prejudices about movies like this, about stories like this, about immigrant stories – what does and doesn’t resonate as ‘American’ to people.”

The United States has no official language. And more than 20% of the U.S. population ages 5 and older speak a language other than English at home, according to census data.
If the rules of the Golden Globes don’t change with time, there could be consequences beyond the big screen, said William Yu, a screenwriter and activist who has been a vocal critic of Hollywood money laundering.

“It has shifting implications in the industry for who is recognized and who is not,” he says. “It could have too much of an impact on their career trajectory.”

And important stories cannot be recognized – and unseen.

“The HFPA probably erased a good portion of the immigrant stories that will come from communities that are marginalized. As these communities mature and want to tell their own stories, it won’t always be in English,” he says. “And to hear that if your film is not 50% in English, to be considered for the best picture, then you will never be enough – there is a certain kind of implied inferiority when you qualify for the best film in a foreign language, but not the best film. “

The director was concerned that he would have to make ‘Minari’ in English

For his part, the writer and director of “Minari” says he does not feel that competing in the foreign language film category dishonors the film or his work. But Chung says he understands the frustrations that many have expressed.

“I feel really torn about everything that has happened. It’s just the rules they have in that category,” he says. “These conversations are good … We’re starting to see that being American is being someone in this country – the picture of that is more complex than we often think. And I feel like movies should reflect that. Rules and institutions should reflect that. And it is good that we can have this conversation. ”

Steven Yeun plays family patriarch Jacob Yi "Under threat." Allen S. Kim plays his son, David.

However, when Chung thinks about language and his film, something else comes to mind.

“My grandmother, if she was alive, she would be very proud,” he says, “that I persisted and did a movie in Korean and made no compromises and then started using that foreign language, English.”

Long before this controversy started to brew, Chung knew he needed to find money to make “Minari” – and he was concerned.

He wanted to tell the story in Korean. But he feared it would be difficult to sell – not to the public, who he knew would get in touch with a good story when they saw one – but to potential lenders.

So he also wrote a version of the script with more English in it, just in case.

Fortunately, says Chung, producer Christina Oh, who is also a Korean American, supported his vision.

“She was very adamant from the start that we should do this in Korean, as we grew up … She said as a producer she was going to defend that cause and fight.”

That meant Chung could show the world a story that reflects how so many American families live.

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