It wasn’t even a month ago when I saw Bong Joon-ho’s coup de grace, Parasite. It was one of the best movies I’d seen in a long time, and I say that not just because I want to support films made in the Motherland, but because it was also just a good movie. The plot was fairly simply and linear, the acting was superb, and I’m no cinematography buff, but the visual storytelling was at times, breathtaking.
If white people weren’t so fucking white, then there’s an off-chance that Parasite should win the Oscar for Best Picture, but let’s be real here; it’ll probably go to Marriage Story or The Irishman, because they’re in English, and all of Hollywood is trying to get in bed with Netflix these days.
But speaking of white people, one of the more infuriating pieces of news I’ve heard lately was that the rights to an adaptation of Parasite were won by HBO.
And let’s be real here, the phrase “adaptation” is a gentler, whiter way of saying “replace all the gooks with American-speaking whiteys”
All I know is that I lost my shit when I read this article about Parasite already being prepared for adaptation. And knee-jerk reactions is probably about 75% of the shit I write about on my brog in the first place, but they’re usually coming from the most passionate, heart-felt emotions.
I like Adam McKay plenty too, The Big Short is probably one of my favorite movies of the past decade. But it turns my stomach knowing that when Parasite is adapted, Song Kang-Ho (the poor dad) will be replaced by Bryan Cranston, Choi Woo-shik (the poor son) will be replaced by the guy who played Peeta in The Hunger Games, Park So-dam (the poor daughter) will be replaced by like Cara Delevigne, the rich mom will be played by Sarah Paulson and the rich dad will be played by Benedict Cumberbatch. Park Seo-Joon’s cameo will be replaced by Chris Evans who can drive by and do the same thing.
The adaptation will undoubtedly take place in San Francisco, with the Cumberbatches living in one of the houses attached to the Tanner house from Full House, and the Cranstons obviously will be living at the bottom of the valley in contrast. Rich dad will naturally be working for some hotshot tech company.
In other words, the adaptation to Parasite will literally be a telling of the story where every single element of the entire film will be systematically replaced with a white American equivalent; for no other fucking reason than the fact that white people have zero creativity at all and need to usurp it from other countries, because they’ve sucked their own wells dry a thousand times over by now.
However, as incensed as I was to hear about the news of this adaptation, an acquaintance that does a lot of work in film did make a good point; regardless of the inevitable tragedy that Parasite is going to get adapted, this doesn’t happen without Bong Joon-ho’s consent. Plus, Bong is probably going to be making millions on the sale of the rights, plus he will likely have a degree of creative input to its production. In other words, he’ll be making more money to produce more work, which is ultimately the goal and among the higher compliments that filmmakers should want.
Regardless, it still pisses me off that this is even going to happen. The news of the sale of the rights pisses me off, and it’s going to piss me off all over again when I inevitably hear of news that HBO dropped a trailer for the eventual white-wash adaptation of Parasite. I will refuse to watch it, and grit my teeth and silently denounce anyone who dares praise the white version of it. I’ll hate it even more if and when the original is denied the Best Picture award, because the people voting on it will just be more white people prepared to circle jerk over a different film starring other white people.
