When the exception to the rule proves the rule: Parasite’s paradoxical Academy Awards best picture win and American Cultural Insularity in the Center (ACIC)

Abstract

This paper argues that rather than proving that foreign-language films have somehow finally “arrived” in the United States that an historic win by the South Korean film Parasite in the best picture category at the 92nd Academy Awards proves precisely the opposite: The general rule vis-à-vis non-English-language films in the U.S. is that they continue to languish, and continue to be marginalized, just as they have for the better part of the past 100 years. I use Parasite's historic, exception-to-the-rule win of best picture to illustrate the validity and utility of a larger theory called American Cultural Insularity in the Center (ACIC). According to ACIC, compared to most people in most other countries, large numbers of Americans tend to consume much more of their own cultural media products and much fewer cultural media products produced in other countries than people in other countries typically do.