‘Minari’s’ Golden Globes Foreign Film Classification Sparks Outcry Among Celebs
“The film equivalent of being told to go back to your country when that country is actually America,” tweeted Daniel Dae Kim.
Alan S. Kim and Steven Yeun in Minari. Photo: A24.
Celebrities are speaking out following the Hollywood Foreign Press Association announcement that Minari would be classified as a foreign language film for Golden Globes voters.
HFPA’s guidelines stipulate that at least 50 per cent of a film’s dialogue must be in English to compete in the Globes’ Best Picture categories and dubbed the Lee Isaac Chung film as featuring too much Korean dialogue to compete in Best Drama. (Lulu Wang’s The Farewell was similarly categorized as foreign last year by the HFPA).
However, as many have pointed out, including Shang-Chi star, Simu Liu, Minari was filmed and set in the United States, produced by an American production company and directed by an American filmmaker with an American actor, Steven Yeun, in the lead role. The story itself is about a Korean-American family that moves to a small farm in Arkansas in search of the American dream.
Just for the record, Minari is an American movie written and directed by an American filmmaker set in America with an American lead actor and produced by an American production company 👀 https://t.co/6fbI7ppBPB
— Simu Liu (@SimuLiu) December 23, 2020
“A sad and disappointing reminder that a movie about the American dream, set in America, starring an American, directed by an American, and produced by an American company, is somehow foreign,” tweeted Kim’s Convenience star, Andrew Phung.
A sad and disappointing reminder that a movie about the American dream, set in America, starring an American, directed by an American, and produced by an American company, is somehow foreign. #Minari https://t.co/u8VVfp0Sf4
— Andrew Phung (@andrewphung) December 23, 2020
“Little Fires Everywhere” author Celeste Ng remarked the idea that only films in English count as ‘American’ is complete bullshit,” while Wang chimed in the conversation, calling the HFPA to revise its eligibility rules.
“I have not seen a more American film than #Minari this year,” she tweeted. “It’s a story about an immigrant family, IN America, pursuing the American dream. We really need to change these antiquated rules that characterizes American as only English-speaking.”
And Daniel Dae Kim compared the HFPA’s classification to “being told to go back to your country when that country is actually America.”
Celebrities were also quick to point out the HFPA’s double standard when it comes to its classification, with Glee actor Harry Shum Jr. tweeting that Inglorious Bastards did not receive the same treatment, despite featuring German, French and Italian dialogue.
Checks “Inglorious Bastards” English to German, French & Italian ratio—-roughly 30:70 😐 #Minari is an American film. https://t.co/rO6bjpNHQO
— Harry Shum Jr (@HarryShumJr) December 23, 2020
See more reactions below:
You can be born here.
— William Yu 유규호 (@its_willyu) December 23, 2020
Set your movie here.
Cast actors from here.
Make your film here.
Be financed by companies from here.
But still, you are deemed “foreign.”
Do better, HFPA. https://t.co/Td7xapjVNp
#GoldenGlobes, stop automatically categorizing films depicting languages other than English “foreign language films”! I grew up in an immigrant household where I spoke more Mandarin than English and we are Americans! CA has the lowest rates of English use at home (56%)! https://t.co/rfIbTm1SYb
— Nancy Wang Yuen (@nancywyuen) December 23, 2020
#Minari is an American film about new Americans. Everyone in America except for indigenous people came from somewhere else by choice or force. The English language is not an indigenous language. Enough of this nonsense about Asian-Americans being permanently foreign. I’m done. https://t.co/GEuXGDx85I
— Min Jin Lee (@minjinlee11) December 23, 2020
1. The Golden Globes, on the whole, are a joke. 2. These rules are truly terrible. 3. Clearly, nobody foresaw a scenario in which an American movie about an American family, set in America, could be performed in anything other than English.
— Phil Yu (@angryasianman) December 23, 2020