Recent celebrity praise for movies like Parasite (2019) have gotten us all thinking about how some people just don’t Get It. This was also relevant when white people flooded into theaters to watch Get Out (2017) and cheered for Chris. I think it’s time we call attention to privileged people: some stuff isn’t made for you, it’s about you.
As a white person, I walked into the theater to see Get Out (2017) knowing there would be a critique on whiteness and the way white people treat black Americans in the modern day. I knew this movie was about me, my culture, the people I am a part of. It seems that others don’t have that level of awareness, such as celebrities like Jeff Bezos saying Parasite (2019) was his favorite movie.
It’s kind of shocking and mind-boggling that there are people who almost refuse to call attention to their own privilege or even acknowledge the fact that they have privilege. Movies like Get Out (2017) and Parasite (2019) are critiques on specific aspects of society, whiteness and late-stage capitalism respectively, as well as the people who participate in those aspects. Those movies aren’t for the privileged, they’re about the privileged.
This isn’t to say that white people can’t enjoy Get Out (2017) or rich people can’t enjoy Parasite (2019), because they can. A lot of people within the privileged parties are able to connect to the issues at hand and often are affected as well – though on a much smaller and less harmful scale. This is a plea for privileged people to not only acknowledge their privilege, but to use that privilege when consuming media and to think critically about the content of the media.