Parasite (기생충): Impact on Asian American creators, memeability, Kpop, and more with Minji Chang - a podcast by Sean Niu

In Episode #25, we revisit Parasite: one of the most acclaimed Asian movies of recent history...and the movie that caused our last collective moment of joy in 2020. Minji Chang-- actor, producer, activist and a whole lot more joins to offer her valuable insight into the movie and the Asian American creative community. After sharing our initial reactions to rewatching the film post the ongoing disaster of 2020 (8:55), I pitch a new measure of movie success: the memability of its scenes. (20:22) Parasite certainly has many relatable scenes stemming from themes of class divide and the perils of capitalism that is relatable to everyone. Minji then helps us understand how Parasite has influenced the Asian American film community. (Hint: representation isn't enough if your script is crap) (27:00) before extending our comparison to other Korean cultural exports, like Kpop (BTS, PSY) and how we feel about the American reaction to those trends. (35:04) Later, I put on my economic historian hat and point out what Parasite has to say about neocolonial free market ideals exported from America (42:05) which leads to some mind blowing stories from Minji about how American ideas of beauty were incepted into Korea. Finally, we end the show by bringing back Unanswerable Questions like: 1) How much was Kevin's tutor salary? 2) Is Art Therapy a real thing? and 3) Did our parents really sacrifice for us... or for themselves?

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