The Oscars & The American Dream
The language is different but the hope is the same
In between blazing idealism and unsettled disenchantment
My favorite part of the Oscars was Bong Joon Ho's intro when presenting Best Director. It's an onion of disorientation, just like his films. You first see his silhouette in a dark, empty theater in Seoul. Peel. He descends the stairs. Peel. Opens his mouth. Peel. And out flows his native Korean, sans English subtitles. It's the cue of a director who feels no need to bend to our expectations, leaving us at the mercy of our incomprehension until he draws us out of the dark.
Alas, the stage light emerges and the camera pans to Sharon Choi, his trusty translator and absolute icon. Bong's Korean message shape shifts into Choi's English, completing a fluid human to human dispatch, undampened by the flattening machine of closed captions for those who are able to hear.
More highlights:
Mikkel E. G. Nielson thanking the Danish government for their "bold" funding of the Danish film school
Jon Batiste's "I love you even if I don't know you"
In her Best Picture speech, Chloe Zhao referencing a line from a classic Chinese poem whose original wildness is invariably lost in the English translation
Questlove straight jammin
Youn Yuh Jung's' Best Supporting Actress aside, I'm not mad Minari didn't cinch wins. I thought it was a lovely movie—not in the pink daises sort of way, but in a devastatingly fraught and beautiful of LOVE sort of way. And it'll continue to sit in that space, no less worthy of praise and prize, but untethered to the yoke of the American dream that a win might've tightened in.
Minari features Korean-American immigrants in rural Arkansas during the 1980s, inspired by director Lee Isaac Chung's own story. For my generation—one below Chung’s—it reads more like a personal diary than a collective ambition.
For immigrant kids of the 90s and aughts, our glamorous fantasy had nothing to do with white picket fences. Why think so small, so staid, when your parents had begun casting a safety net of accumulated family wealth when there was none as yet, separate from a government or society that might still view you as alien, ever ready to keep you at the hold of subliminal discrimination or take a $900,000 visa fee to let you stay? For educated immigrant parents, the dream was putting everything on the line—of your STEM specialization, not agricultural aspirations—to equip your kids for consulting, the promised corporate land.
It makes sense. Glassdoor's national averages for entry level analysts and associate consultants range $70,730 to $75,348. So in college, I dutifully worked my way through recruiting info sessions, happy hours, and case prep books. It felt unnatural but who was I to prioritize my spiritual restlessness over filial sacrifice?
I didn’t get far. My first (and last) business case interview tasked me with helping a streaming service gain more subscribers. I'd practiced for it but still bludgeoned my way through—in retrospect, I proposed something like a crude content strategy with marginally related calculations. It clearly wasn't the right direction and my sympathetic interviewer went overtime with me to solve the quants. Apparently, Netflix needed a few more years to invest in international media and get Americans accustomed to reading (subtitles). Apparently, I wasn't wired the right way to actualize the dream that was supposedly in my DNA.
But I also couldn't just fuck the bread, the bread is over. For a nice kid from the nice Texas suburbs—barring inadequate education on authoritarian regimes and hushed family history—wasn't capitalism a force for good? Didn't it form the ground that raised me and the inheritance that awaited me? Being enterprising in business was the only starting point I knew for redeeming generational trauma. (i know, woof)
In that earnest hope, I tried a lot of things across a lot of industries. I navigated the dirty underbelly of an insomniac city, filled with people up early and up late to get the bread, never mind the acid reflux after realizing the bread is moldy. Throw in a coronavirus and it becomes deathly. (it must be clarified- we love new york!!!)
—
2020 proved that it doesn't matter which path you gamble on to achieve the dream. We're all relearning the parables of our ancient texts and proverbs of our ancestors buried in the motherland: money isn't fulfilling, our lives are not a mere summation of what we own, or who we "know," or the work we have to show, now get outside of your head and look around—it's your turn now, what are you putting on the line?
The tension still nags at me, the emotional plague endemic to young-ish white collars: the truth that I have no callouses from playing gigs, no sunburns from working outside, no constant fatigue from caring for kids, not even carpel tunnel syndrome from working remote! Where is the anguish over unjustly lost life, the righteous anger over cement rivers of blood and gun tainted hands? Where is the heart beneath?
—
The weird and wondrous path I'm on isn't the American dream, but neither is it a nightmare. It's just reality.
It's a reality that's warm and blessed, cold and thorny. Often mired in quotidian burden, not unfeeling to the disgusting and deplorable, just tired. Just fine with doing the good work without needing to share updates with the class of social media strangers.
It's a reality that keeps me waiting, seesawing in between blazing idealism and unsettled disenchantment, work and rest, fear and courage.
—
There was a Google commercial during the Oscars that featured an Asian family speaking to each other in sign language, supported by a live captioned video call. It made me wonder—would a new common language bridge the rifts? Would it help them see that our America is different from theirs, our dreams can still be latent realities, the language is different but the hope is the same? Would they see that I will spend the rest of my life denying myself to love them and honor the God whom I believe is just? (perhaps also equitably accumulating assets, but that comes second)
Our hearing's all intact, but why is it we still get irretrievably lost in translation?
—
We're out here, creating new language and a new country, new earth and new heavens. And even if we don't see the promised land, we'll die trying, because the hope is enough; it has to be.
—
Black lives matter. Yesterday, today, tomorrow.
I love you even if I don't know you,
Vicky
Subscribe now
If you resonate with what I’m trying to do and would like to partner with me in my creative output—consider subscribing at $5/month. You’ll receive more experimental updates that span intimate looks at my creative synthesizing process and spontaneous photo essays. As an independent writer, editor, and designer, it’s a much appreciated vote of affirmation and investment as I work to shape a good and just reality.
Quick BTS below—I noodled on a few new email banners last week. Will be rotating them through!
