Noah Smith, Columnist

'Parasite' Oscars Say a Lot About South Korea

The nation’s carefully planned economic rise has been matched by its cultural reach.

February 12, 2020 at 10:00 PM UTC

Noah Smith is a former Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He was an assistant professor of finance at Stony Brook University, and he blogs at Noahpinion.

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Photographer: ilgan Sports/Multibits Editorial/Getty Images

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On Sunday night, there was widespread rejoicing when the South Korean film “Parasite” received the Academy Award for best picture along with several other awards. Not only was this the first such win for a movie in a language other than English, but to many it represented a long-sought victory for Korean popular culture.

It’s not the first such victory. In the past decade, Korean music and TV shows have exploded in global popularity. The Korean band BTS is the first since the Beatles to release three Billboard No. 1 albums in a single year. Their U.S. concerts are wildly popular, and their fandom transcends both region and ethnicity. China is crazy for K-pop, too. And Korean drama programs, already hugely popular across East Asia, are making inroads around the world.