Maybe your friends are just not very open minded? Or have different taste in films? I know countless amounts of Americans who squeal over Totoro and any of the other Ghibli movies like they're the greatest things ever created. And several females who love Amelie (who probably initially got invested in the film by its Parisian setting). A Separation is a mature drama film and I don't know why you listed it with the romcoms and thrillers, but you haven't given us its counter comparison. So how many of these friends have seen and enjoyed other drama films such as The Descendents, Ordinary People, or Pursuit of Happyness? Probably none right?
The thing is, some people simply lack the artistic intellect to appreciate movies or literature in general. And some people were just never given exposure to different culture so they find it difficult to relate with characters in foreign movies. These people aren't concentrated in the land of Americca, they're scattered across the globe. I'll bet you there are many people from France, Sweden, Japan, New Zealand, Argentina, and Chad who refuse to indulge in popular culture that is outside their own.
Lastly, Sunny is a chick flick. Unless your male friend is into movies geared toward the female population he probably won't like it... I showed this movie to 3 different guys (non-asian Americans and one non-asian Canadian). The 1st one is into Hollywood classics and blockbusters (Pulp Fiction, Godfather, The Dark Knight, Fight Club, Clockwork Orange, etc etc), the 2nd one strictly watches obscure, unknown movies, most of them being foreign, and the 3rd one (Canadian dude) doesn't watch a lot of movies unless it's personally recommended to him. My Korean dad also watched it about half way through... none of them liked it. They said it didn't interest them because it was too female oriented. While on the other hand, I haven't come across any female who didn't like this movie. My sisters, my mother, my aunts and their daughters, all loved it. I showed it to several American non-Korean females and they all loved it, even the ones who've never seen a foreign movie before.
So you see, people have different opinions and tastes. What's interesting to one person may not be interesting to the next. America is a very diverse country with people from all kinds of cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds. To paint them all under a single picture depicting ignorance is very narrow minded itself.
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