When the exception to the rule proves the rule: Parasite’s paradoxical Academy Awards best picture win and American Cultural Insularity in the Center (ACIC)
Restricted accessResearch articleFirst published online April, 2025
When the exception to the rule proves the rule: Parasite’s paradoxical Academy Awards best picture win and American Cultural Insularity in the Center (ACIC)
This paper argues that rather than proving that foreign-language films have somehow finally “arrived” in the United States that a historic win by the South Korean film Parasite in the best picture category at the 92nd Academy Awards proves precisely the opposite: The general rule vis-à-vis non-English-language films in the U.S. is that they continue to languish, and continue to be marginalized, just as they have for the better part of the past 100 years. I use Parasite's historic, exception-to-the-rule win of best picture to illustrate the validity and utility of a larger theory called American Cultural Insularity in the Center (ACIC). According to ACIC, compared to most people in most other countries, large numbers of Americans tend to consume much more of their own cultural media products and much fewer cultural media products produced in other countries than people in other countries typically do.
AndersonC. S. (2014). Hally USA: America’s impact on the Korean Wave. In V. Marinescu (Ed.), The Global Impact of South Korean Popular Culture: Hallyu Unbound(1st ed., pp. 123–134). The Roman and Littlefield Publishing Group.
2.
ArdenerS. (2005). Ardener's “muted groups” The genesis of an idea and its praxis. Women and Language, 28(2), 50.
3.
BourdieuP. (2013). Distinction: A social critique of the judgement of taste. Routledge.
4.
ChalabyJ. (2006). American Cultural primacy in a new media order: A European perspective. International Communication Gazette, 68(1), 33–51.
5.
CheshireJ.MoserL. M. (1994). English As a cultural symbol: The case of advertisements in French-speaking Switzerland. Journal of Multilingual & Multicultural Development, 15(6), 451–469.
6.
ClevelandM.Rojas-MéndezJ. I.LarocheM.PapadopoulosN. (2016). Identity, culture, dispositions and behavior: A cross-national examination of globalization and culture change. Journal of Business Research, 69(3), 1090–1102.
7.
CoatesC.PeasleeR. (2005). Demystifying the ‘Indie': Transaction and Transnational Imagination in United States Cinema. Paper presented at Union for Democratic Communication Conference – Against the neoliberal tide: Media and democracy in the 21st century.
8.
CrystalD. (2001). The future of Englishes. In BurnsA.CoffinC. (Eds.), Analyzing English in a global context (pp. 53–64). Routledge.
9.
Demont-Heinrich, C. (2011). Cultural imperialism vs. globalization of culture: Riding the structure-agency dialectic in global communication and media studies. Sociology Compass, 5(8), pp. 666-678.
10.
Demont-Heinrich, C. (2019). 'New global music distribution system, same old linguistic hegemony? Analyzing English on Spotify' in O. Boyd-Barrett and Tanner Mirrlees (eds) Media Imperialism: Continuity and Change. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield
11.
Demont-Heinrich, C. (2022). Online video streaming and the insular American consumer: Are platforms such as Netflix broadening Americans’ foreign film and non-English language video horizons? International Communication Association Conference, Paris, May 2022.
12.
DonovanP. (2004). Researcher says Americans are “deluded” regarding what they know about the rest of the world. University of Buffalo News Center.
13.
DyresonM. (2005). Prologue: The paradoxes of American insularity, exceptionalism and imperialism. The International Journal of the History of Sport, 22(6), 938–945.
KatzE.LiebesT. (1987). Decoding Dallas: Notes from a cross-cultural study. In E. Katz & T. Liebes (Eds.) Television: The Critical View(4th ed., pp. 419–433). Cambridge: Polity Press.
21.
KimG. (2017). Korean Wave| between hybridity and hegemony in K-Pop’s global popularity: A case of “girls’ generation’s” American debut. International Journal of Communication, 11, 20.
22.
KirmseS. B. (2010). In the marketplace for styles and identities: Globalization and youth culture in southern Kyrgyzstan. Central Asian Survey, 29(4), 389–403.
23.
KuiselR. (2003). Debating americanization: The case of France. In BeckU.SznaiderN.WinterR. (Eds.), Global America? The cultural consequences of globalization (pp. 95–113). Liverpool University Press.
24.
MattelartA. (1979). Multinational corporations and the control of culture: The ideological apparatuses of imperialism (No. 26). Humanities Press.
McGroartyM. (2013). Multiple actors and arenas in evolving language policies. In M. McGroarty (Ed.),Language Policies in Education: Critical Issues, (2nd ed., pp. 36–58). Routledge.
27.
Mirón FloridoN. (2020). The Two-Way Cultural Street: The influence of US popular culture in the Korean Wave and Japanese anime and vice versa. https://addi.ehu.es/handle/10810/43448
28.
MirrleesT. (2013). Global entertainment media: Between cultural imperialism and cultural globalization. Routledge.
29.
MolenS. L. T. (2014). A cultural imperialistic homecoming: The Korean Wave reaches the United States. In The Korean wave (pp. 149–187). Palgrave Macmillan.
30.
Molina-GuzmánI. (2016). # OscarsSoWhite: How Stuart Hall explains why nothing changes in Hollywood and everything is changing. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 33(5), 438–454.
31.
PhillipsonR. (2008). Lingua franca or lingua frankensteinia? English in European integration and globalisation 1. World Englishes, 27(2), 250–267.
RazzanteR. J.OrbeM. P. (2018). Two sides of the same coin: Conceptualizing dominant group theory in the context of co-cultural theory. Communication Theory, 28(3), 354–375.
34.
RitzerG.StillmanT. (2003). Assessing McDonaldization, americanization and globalization. In BeckU.SznaiderN.WinterR. (Eds.), Global America? The cultural consequences of globalization (pp. 30–48). Liverpool University Press.
SchillerH. (2000). Living in the number one country: Reflections from a critic of American empire. Seven Stories Press.
37.
SegraveK. (2004). Foreign films in America: A history. McFarland.
38.
StraubhaarJ. D. (1991). Beyond media imperialism: Assymetrical interdependence and cultural proximity. Critical Studies in media Communication, 8(1), 39–59.
39.
StraubhaarJ. D. (2022). Class Divisions: How Netflix and other Ssources of U.S. TV and film grow in Latin America. Paper presented at International Communication Association Conference, Paris, May 2022.
40.
TananuraksakulJ. (2010). An exploration of English as the Medium and the message in the “Global Village": A case study. International Journal of Communication, 4, 914–931.
41.
ThussuD. (1998). Localising the global: Zee TV in India. In Electronic empires: Global media and local resistance (pp. 273–295). Arnold.
42.
ThussuD. (2006). Media on the move: Global flow and contra-flow. Routledge.
43.
TimbergS (2004). In an insular state of mind: Seen a foreign film or read a translated book lately? America seems to be closing its borders to international culture - and understanding. Los Angeles Times.
VerboordM.BrandelleroA. (2018). The globalization of popular music, 1960–2010: A multilevel analysis of music flows. Communication Research, 45(4), 603–627.
