Xenophobia for us; another Thursday for Trump

India will be hosting US President Donald Trump soon, and what makes a Trump visit more exciting than a blunt display of xenophobia! Which for Trump, is just another Thursday.

Now, Trump has an issue with many things most people don’t, but the latest to come in his range of fire is the South Korean film ‘Parasite’. The crime was that it won the Best Picture Oscar.

“How bad were the Academy Awards this year, did you see? ‘And the winner is... a movie from South Korea,’ he said, poorly imitating an announcer.

The Trump administration is a firm exponent of macho-nationalism, which means that you put your country above all else, even when that’s not fair. Reminds you of someone else?

He also said, “What the hell was that all about? We’ve got enough problems with South Korea with trade, on top of it they give them the best movie of the year?”

It’s one thing to put ‘America First’ as an economic and diplomatic policy, but it’s a completely different thing to want the entertainment industry as an organ of government, something no

President before Trump has been jingoistic enough to say.

Trump even had some advice to the Academy on how to select the Best Picture.

“I’m looking for, like, let’s get ‘Gone with the Wind’ — can we get, like, ‘Gone with the Wind’ back, please? ‘Sunset Boulevard’! So many great movies,” he said.

What do these films have in common? They were made over 70 years ago, which was an era when most times when you saw a non-white person on a screen in the US, it was a white person wearing blackface. GWTW, in fact, has been criticised for racist stereotyping.

If Trump had to choose a film from the nominated films, he would probably have chosen ‘Ford vs Ferrari’, which casts only white people and climaxes when a filthy-rich capitalist gets his dream fulfilled.

The best response to Trump was from Neon, which distributed ‘Parasite’ across the US with subtitles. It tweeted about Trump, “Understandable, he can’t read.”
Well done, you have won the Internet.