I noticed that in America, we seem to not do national releases of very many foreign movies from overseas in theaters. When was the last time we had a foreign movie that spoke entirely in a foreign language? Hidden Dragon, Crouching Tiger? That other movie with a dude on a boat with a tiger? Talking about the last 20-30 years up until streaming services.
I think the American entertainment industry is trying to keep americans isolated. So they can't see movies from other countries where they can compare it to American made movies. So we can't see how bad american made movies are. To keep us from seeing other cultures and to see their perspective.. to see that they don't use ugly goblinas or trannies or POC. If you watch a chinese, korean or japanese movie.. most of the cast are handsome or pretty/cute and are like 99.9% asian lol. Maybe our country will be less woke when we actually see what other cultures around the world is doing.
Even with streaming services (which i dont use since they are all woke as hell), last big name was Squid Games? After that not much foreign things that took off. Maybe that Shogun show, but its niche.
I also notice.. movies aren't butchered as badly with translations and localization when compared to video games. But that is for a different day hehe.
Parasite won Best Picture Oscar on the 9th of February in 2020 and pulled in over $50 million in the US alone and $260 million worldwide on a $12 million budget.
The film was entirely subtitled for non-Korean speakers and was the first non-English language film to ever win Best Picture in the Academy's history.
It might not have done Marvel or Avatar money but people out there, like me, found it easily enough and watched it in theatres.
If more people went to theatres to see it the free market means that more places would show it.
Hollywood if full of agendas but I don't think the foreign market is something they worry about because people would rather see a rom-com or pew-pew at the cinema and films like this just don't have the appeal to the masses.
Interesting film too, lots of nods to the class system and poverty while still being a comedy.
What you're seeing IS actually the problem and leads to the skewed results that alucard noticed. Make no mistake, "the free market" has very little to do with what movie wins the Academy Awards in any year, whether it's Parasite or anything else. Movies can and should appeal to their home audience. Hollywood and it's movie system is for Hollywood alone. (not even America reallly...) But what they pretend to do is be the definitive say in The Arts, and they pick and choose foreign hits or the latest immigrant star from Africa to highlight. It allows them to virtue signal while remaining the gatekeepers of culture. It's a release valve of perverse incentives that actually plasters over the free market and lets participants feel like they've gotten a satisfying taste of worldwide culture through the small sampling of approved curated products that managed to make it big in America.
If not for the incestuous Hollywood network stretching its tentacles over the entire globe and deciding what values to promote, we might actually have a global free market of cinema and random foreign films in Podunk USA, beyond arthouse anime.
You make a good argument that Hollywood looks after its own and is quite parochial about what flavour of diversity it wishes to highlight on any particular year.
I suppose the next step into looking into this 'Art' is how it is altered to suit markets such as the Middle East or China rather than retain its original form regardless.
If, for example, in the recent Star Wars trilogy the character of Finn was minimised in Chinese advertising then how artistic is it to have him more central in Western advertising and if the women kissing in the background after a big battle was removed from the Middle East versions then why does the West have to see something which might not gel with their religious outlooks?
I certainly don't have the answers but it does drive home that art/product question and how those producing it are colonialist in the areas where they wish to spread particular messages but restrict others. Does Hollywood consider itself too grand to force the concept of homosexuality into areas where that can have someone killed but belittle heterosexuals for not watching it in areas where they won't be killed?
I said Hollywood was parochial earlier because culture, and its advancement across the world, is a form of church (With all the trimmings of illicit sexual behaviours, drugs and rock'n'roll).