For Seoul’s poor, class strife in ‘Parasite’ is daily reality
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
It also depicted young people who, despite their poverty, had enough access to schooling that they could serve as English tutors to the wealthy (yes, I'm aware that SK's education system has other issues related to it being a pressure cooker).
I'm sure that neither of those systems are perfect, but they do underpin the importance of universal healthcare and high quality education.
How does that fit into universal health care?
You can debate the morality of such a discussion, or how the private medicine industry is allowed to charge these prices, but the effect is that some cancer treatments are only available through private insurance or personal wealth, even in Scandinavian countries where we are know for our equal access healthcare.
More like two weeks, and with a lot of painful side effects.
It's really sad and seems almost exploitative. They often get ripped off by private clinics in their home countries as well.
At some point we need to say these people aren't in a fit state of mind to make these financial decisions. (Who would be? When the life of their own child seems to be at stake?)
It's such a sad situation.
Of course, affordability is not a guarantee for all treatments, regardless of which healthcare system you agree with. It seems this is the problem for the Kim family. Even in a universal healthcare system, things like chemotherapy and cancer surgery might still cost too much for people who earn below living-wage.
The problem with charging poor people for healthcare is that they get sicker and sicker and then need emergency care, and that's more expensive than giving them free healthcare in the beginning.
It's unethical and classist to pick-and-choose who gets life-saving cancer treatment based on their income. Doctors with integrity would be abhorred at being presented with such a decision because it goes against the fundamental values of their profession.
Since we're talking ethics, do you also think universal healthcare should be provided by wealthy nations to all the world? Otherwise we are just picking and choosing based on where someone happens to be born, aren't we?
At the core of it what you're basically arguing is that nations are unethical because what citizenship someone holds influences things like their access to health care, and the solution to that would probably look a lot like the EU but completely borderless world-wide (with no immigrations or customs departments?)
I think you know how people would react to that. It's a pointless 'gotcha' question
As for national borders being unethical by nature, if that logically follows then why not?
I certainly don't consider ethics a source of "gotcha" questions, but of real conundrums.
As regards providing free healthcare to anyone regardless of country, that seems next to impossible without providing the infrastructure necessary within the country they live, which would indeed be very difficult to work out. It seems like a good goal to work towards - everyone regardless of nation having access to reasonable quality healthcare.
Not really. A huge amount of charity money supposedly going to the poor in other countries is actually used to bribe officials in those countries to allow the aid to be delivered. Any attempt to give healthcare to people in those countries would also be seen as foreign interference, and suffer the same problems.
Others are indeed effective - hormone blockers for certain reproductive system cancers, specific treatments for leukemia, surgeries where applicable and screening, toxic chemotherapy for cancers where it is effective or after surgery.
Advanced biologicals are often expensive because they can be and are not very effective there. But there are some that are effective for autoimmune problems, those are problematic for our general healthcare in Poland with long conservative treatments with side effects while you're waiting to be qualified.
"Free Universal Healthcare" on the other hand focuses on delivering all healthcare at no cost for all common illnesses. To be clear, South Korea has Universal Healthcare and Bernie Sanders is proposing Free Universal Healthcare. But even Sanders' program would not guarantee that prescription drugs are free, they'll still be at maximum $200 per year per perscription. So, while I agree with you that it's "unethical and classist" to pick and choose who gets to live based on whether or not they can afford it, Universal Healthcare is not an end-all to this and is just part of the whole solution.
Also, to stay on topic, South Korea has the most consistently highest rated access to healthcare, but the issues presented in the movie Parasite still ring true for many Koreans.
And no, the US does not have it. You can be denied insurance and you won't be able to see most doctors because of it. Some ERs won't even treat you without insurance, especially if it's an expensive procedure.
I think we have a word for that: affordable health care. Universal Healthcare necessarily covers affordability:
"""Universal health care is a system that provides quality medical services to all citizens. The federal government offers it to everyone regardless of their ability to pay. """ -- From https://www.thebalance.com/universal-health-care-4156211
Because even if costs are "affordable" over all, it doesn't guarantee that everyone, including the Kim family in 'Parasite' would be able to afford more expensive treatments without selling their home for 30k.
http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2010/01/healthcare-system-in-...
Some may consider the fact that Korean national health insurance only covers around 55 percent of the total healthcare cost to be problematic. This may be true if one takes the idea of guaranteed socialized medicine seriously. But for fiscal conservatives with some measure of compassion for the plight of the uninsured, this could be an attractive balance. While corruption is definitely still a problem with Korean government, the NHIC is surprisingly efficient and well-run. It does a great job squeezing out maximum value out of the tax it receives.
My mother got full cancer treatment for free*, but the wards were always full, and she stayed at home so someone from out of town could have a place to stay. The hospitals didn't have the right to force patients to go home though; they just asked nicely if they wouldn't mind staying elsewhere.
Single-payer, universal healthcare should also include (all but cosmetic and elective procedures):
- prescriptions
- mental care including therapy, psychiatry, rehab and commitment
- dental care
- vision care and prescription glasses
- hearing aids (avg cost is $3000 USD)
- mobility and safety aids for disabled and elderly
- gym memberships for people below a certain income level
- smoking, drinking and substance abuse intervention, counseling and cessation assistance (medications, tools, relocation assistance)
- weight-loss for obesity/significantly overweight with effective, tailored, holistic approaches
why? this is a luxury. You don't need a gym membership - just jog around, it's free. Tax dollars are meant to pay for things that can't be free or have a free substitution.
it is not the tax payer's responsibility to provide a proper strength training program for those who cannot afford it themselves. It is the tax payer's social responsibility to provide a service when said service is important (like healthcare) but is difficult for the poor to fund themselves.
Exercising is important, but it's free to do, so should not require a tax burden to provide anything of this nature for the poor. Health care cannot be free (nobody works for free). Therefore, it's important for the tax payer to fund it.
If you’re not interested in earning money, then there are quite a few firms that are, so if you release the schematics and details of the hearing aid, surely they will run with it.
My understanding is that cancer drugs are considered to be experimental, so there's no "latest and greatest" with any guarantee.
Also, US doctors usually prefer to not get cancer treatment when interviewed, since they know "how the sausage is made."
I would like to ask for a source please. Maybe they don't want cancer treatment in very special circumstances (e.g. cancer with extreme low survival rates, new experimental drug with very painful side effects), but in general and for most cancers? That sounds rather outlandish.
The difference is that on the US vast swathes don't have basic healthcare, which can often reduce the rate of complexities that require extreme treatment measures, like treating cancers early before they advance to a terminal state.
The very poor in the US only get Medicaid (rarely Medicare, which requires paying into Social Security long enough).
Medicaid:
- It doesn't pay doctors, specialists and dentists enough, so they often treat patients poorly (spend less time, not thorough enough, don't order necessary tests).
- Medication is all paid-for with no co-pays (out-of-pocket expenses), but at a limited number of pharmacy brands and limited selection of medications (formulary).
- Emergency and necessary hospital care is completely paid-for.
- There is a limited selection of doctors and dentists available to choose from. Most, not all, are reviewed very poorly.
- Only one dentist cleaning visit a year is allowed even if the person needs it more frequently because they produce plaque faster.
- There are very few specialists who are assigned by the doctor, often with very, very long waiting lists. Furthermore, some specialties do away with waiting lists and make people call on a certain time at a certain day like animals for very few appointments. They make it a game to play with people's lives and waste their time.
- The choices of insurers who actually provide the Medicaid insurance is usually 1, 2 or maybe 3 in certain counties.
-----
Medicare (similar to typical US convoluted, private insurance):
- Has several confusing options, lots of rules and fine-print.
- Medication isn't covered, it needs Part D insurance or ExtraHelp.
- Hospital insurance requires enough taxes paid or paid Part A private insurance.
- Medical insurance requires enough taxes paid or paid Part B private insurance.
- Medigap private insurance can be needed to pay co-pays, deductibles, coinsurance but it doesn't cover long-term care (no LTC = $$$$), vision/eyeglasses, dental, hearing aids, or private-duty nursing.
----
It's possible to have both Medicare and Medicaid, which means good insurance but with some out-of-pocket expenses.
Maybe Medicare improved without costs, for all, would be far, far better than people dying from cancer having to go to bankruptcy court rather than finish their bucket list?
In Poland they are. With fixed monthly fee proportional to your income, 9%.
7.5% of it you can directly deduct from your income tax. So it's effectively 1.25% of your income.
The only additional money is for drugs (prescription ones too), but if the drug is expensive and you have a prescription you pay vastly reduced price, 50%, 30%, fixed low price, or free.
Of course there are wait times and you don't get top of the line materials so middle class people prefer to do dental and vision privately. No insurance needed there. You just pay 30$ to have your tooth fixed or 50$ for eye exam and new glasses if you pick cheap frames.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2c/Fo...
https://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/7/11/saupload_t...
They did this by opening up and adopting a more modern market oriented approach, mixed with limited state run organizations.
They had some rational social programs in place where externalities in the market weren't being appropriately accounted for, or where market forces were simply immoral (high costs for sick people). But notably didn't over commit to some intense socialist movements like a lot South American countries - who went well beyond public health insurance buying into the Bolivar nonsense - countries in the early/mid 2000s who are only now recovering from yrs of "post-capitalist" experiments which only resulted in mass needless poverty for their citizens in countries which should have been the wealthiest in the region. With people lining up for food rations like its the 1930s Russia and having severely reduced variety of products to select from:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolivarianism
https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Economy_of_Venezuela [note they were having food shortages and starvation before the oil crisis, the entire system was always unsustainable mirage stirred up with anti-western conspiracy theories of non-existent direct intervention].
The most famous moment on the Ruskies abandoning communism in the late 1980s was that Russians leader visiting an American grocery store and seeing the massive options available, at good prices, to regular middle class citizens. Also note the first thing Venezuela did was claim "access to food was a right" and nationalized a bunch of food industries, quickly resulting in mass starvation and shortages within a few short years.
It would streamline the whole system to just admit Medicare for all is the solution and pushing burderns placed on employers, or worse deterring entrepreneurship by making it super expensive for self-employed people to turn into net job creators - there's tons of pro-market benefits to a state run public insurance policy - especially when the alternative is the current pseudo-private mess they currently have.
Having public health insurance, with some occasional private options, like what we have in Canada is far far more limited than some of the socialist experiments the Bolivars promoted and destroyed multiple countries around them, including Ecuador. So even calling it socialist is probably doing it a disservice. It is state-capitalism, where the state part is the exception to the rule.
Nor did Canada adopt the more heavy-handed approach of the NIH in the UK which nationalized hospitals and a bunch of other pieces of the puzzle which were running perfectly fine independently.
The simplest solutions that are properly tied into incentives is always what works best here.
Even today there are plenty of arguments where the US system is essentially already borerline "socialist" healthcare system but with far fewer of the benefits of either markets or altruistic public run insurance. So 'staying the course' doesn't sound like much of a solution either, besides letting political friends in medicare fleece the government through cronyism.
It won't stop because with the constant local, congressional, and executive meddling to create these "pseudo-markets" which provide few benefits of actual competitive markets nor the central negotiation power of a centralized public insurance program.
And I say that as someone who in most other cases I would learn fiscally conservative.
We have free and universal health care, free schools, and free universities. There are many things to improve, but it is there for the rush and poor alike. Some schools and pregnant mothers receive rations, and there is always some sort of social benefits in place.
Sure, the poverty exists, but one of the reasons why it is still working is because majority of the population does not live in urban areas. There is a trend of good schools, hospitals, and government offices being located to the capital, where land prices skyrocketed and poor neighborhoods exist. But I think our governments strategy in spreading the resources throughout the island is a great one.
Countries like South Korea, India, Japan, Phillipines, and China has a relatively higher amount of homeless or near-homeless population because of the high urbanization. They systematically bring the costs high for everyone.
6 of the top 10 Forbes list in Korea are self-made; the other 4 inherited their wealth. In contrast, 10 out of top 10 are self-made in the US. There are better metrics to compare social mobility (this one was convenient!), but scanning down the Korea list, it's clear the tech boom provided opportunities for entrepreneurs to build wealth in Korea, but most of the wealth is still held by descendants of the big conglomerates (Samsung, LG, Hyundai, Lotte, etc.).
While Parasite is hit in the US, the perspective that it's impossible for basement dwellers to make it to nice mansions may be true in Korea, but it doesn't seem to be the case in the US.
[1] https://www.forbes.com/korea-billionaires/list/#tab:overall
[1] http://www3.weforum.org/docs/Global_Social_Mobility_Report.p...
Many people who are "socially mobile" in a country with compressed income ranges, like Denmark, will be objectively worse off economically (PPP) than many people who are not "socially mobile" in a country with wide income ranges, like the US. Income distributions need to be similar for social mobility comparisons.
Most people readily prefer a "non-socially mobile" increase in income if it is greater in absolute PPP terms than smaller "socially mobile" income increases. In these comparison cases, which are not uncommon, there is literally no benefit to being "socially mobile" in a country with compressed income ranges.
Zuck went to a private school.
Not really basement dwellers...
Bill Gates had rich parents
Lot's of people have rich parents (think, for example about the members of the House of Saud). How many of those raise to Bill Gates' level of excellence? He co-wrote a paper [1] as an undergraduate in a top mathematics journal. The algorithm he co-authored remained the best algorithm for its domain for 30 years.
As I used to notice this reaction in myself, and I've been trying to avoid it, I find it interesting to reflect on psychological/social function of the "but he had rich parents" reaction that successful children of the well-off get. HNs guidelines ask us "[p]lease don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work", and I wonder if this also applies to Gates.
I'm in awe of Gates' many achievements.
[1] W. H. Gates, C. H. Papadimitriou, Bounds for sorting by prefix reversal. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0012365X79...
degree of privilege doesn't diminish
So yes, he's not entirely self made. Not even close.
Those seem to be outliers: "Of the over 60 percent [of the Forbes 400] remaining, all grew up in substantial privilege." https://inequality.org/research/selfmade-myth-hallucinating-...
If you just look at the Top 20% you can see how people drop into and out of it over generations.
So, garbage man to millionaire, is pretty rare if your grand father was a garbage man from Korea in the 70s your life now is probably comparable to most people from the US.
In practice, it's almost impossible to really climb in society and unfortunately this situation is describing more and more the US as well...
Sure, if you cherrypick an arbitrary cutoff. But expand it to 15, then only 10 out of 15 are self-made using your definition.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Americans_by_net_worth
> the perspective that it's impossible for basement dwellers to make it to nice mansions may be true in Korea, but it doesn't seem to be the case in the US.
None of the top 10 american billionaires came from the basement. They all came from wealthy or upper middle class families with professional parents.
> it's impossible for basement dwellers to make it to nice mansions
Did we watch the same movie? The contrast between two families depicted on screen, their woth ethic and simple human morals is so stark that it seems even more right-wing than I am. I don't believe that there's a social justice to be achieved in society as a whole, but as you watch the movie (especially the later part), I can't imagine how could you possibly sympathize with the poor family.
- They got rid of their loyal, long-serving, housekeeper instead of caring that she's sick/supporting her through it.
- They "forced" their helpers to show up on Sunday.
- When the driver (the poor dad) was reluctant to run around as a Native American, the rich dad showed anger and said "You're getting paid extra for this!".
On the topic of work ethic, I didn't really see the rich dad or the mom working hard, the mom doesn't even work! Just like many of us in this forum, the dad probably got lucky to end up in a high-paying position, luck doesn't mean work ethic!
You're probably a believer in the meritocracy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTDGdKaMDhQ , and watched the movie with a little confirmation bias.
From their point of view, she hid her very contagious and dangerous sickness from them and knowingly endangered them and their children with tuberculosis just to keep her job. What kind of loyalty is that?
> They "forced" their helpers to show up on Sunday.
I watched the movie in September, so I must admit, I don't remember that part really well, but then you're quote the phrase...
> "You're getting paid extra for this!".
...which means, they're paid overtime - so, while outright forcing someone to come out on a weekend is a bad thing to do, it's not even unpaid overtime (which is so common, unfortunately). And it's certainly not even in the same league as literal murder.
> On the topic of work ethic, I didn't really see the rich dad ... working hard
I think it's obvious he's not in the position where he has to work hard - it's working smart that counts.
> the mom doesn't even work!
That's dad's decision - he earned his money, and he decided (for better or for worse) that he wants to provide for his wife. Many (me included) would not take this decision even if we had the resources, but everyone has the freedom to do whatever with the money they earned.
> Just like many of us in this forum, the dad probably got lucky to end up in a high-paying position, luck doesn't mean work ethic!
I can't judge you personally, but I've seen many other talented software engineers and other tech workers come to the same conclusions after they've been in the bubble too long. They got accustomed to level of intelligence and abstract thinking of their social group and naturally assume that all the other people are basically the same. I don't think that they realize what the "outer world" and people who inhabit it are really like. (I grew up pretty poor in not a particuarly elite neighbourhood of Moscow during a decade-long economic and system crysis, and my opinion of the "proletariat" is based on a very intimate first-hand experience).
> You're probably a believer in the meritocracy
No, not quite - I'm not a believer in any kind of system or a systematic truth about this, not the meritoracy, nor the opposite.
Both French Revolution and Russian one involved quite a lot of sides that fought among themselves and quite a lot of uneducated mobs attacking this or that place - these lost quickly. And yes, they are led by people in position to be leaders with education that gives them advantage. That does not mean the bottom is passive.
Also, counting only successful attempts is probably not good enough. The slaves were running away and were resentful of inequality. What they did not had was the remote option to engage in politics - but they did engaged in it a lot when the opportunity arose. The subsequent suppression of black voting and politics did not happened because they were engaged or passive - it was because they were active.
If this were true neither the Russian nor the French Revolution would have been a “success”. Both were won by committed minorities in the capital city and they were even less popular outside it.
A small organized minority of people willing to use violence to achieve their goals who are good at it can overcome weak opposition from a much larger number. The Bolsheviks killed the Mensheviks in Russia and all non-Socialist opposition thereafter. They would never, ever have won an election. Outside Paris the Revolution was not popular, thus the need to conquer the Vendée.
The bottom is not passive. It just doesn’t matter because it doesn’t have any power. If it did it wouldn’t be bottom.
Russian civil war involved 5 armies. It involved mobs attacking local leaders who fled - they were not necessary related to eventual winners.
French revolution was massively complex event too. Probably even more complex then Russian one.
And in each of these events there were more then one side commuting violence - and there were many people having or voicing opinions about what should happen. That they lost does not mean they don't exist.
That the French and Russian revolutions were complex doesn’t mean that the competitors for political power were ever in any way representative of the population. They weren’t. They were members of the elite or had been educated to a level that they aspired to that.
They weren’t on the bottom. The people on the bottom do not successfully engage in politics except as the tools of the current elite or of a counter-elite that aims to take over from the current elite.
And regardless of these, average Russians had own gripes and opinions on what is fair and what they want. The periodic explosions of violence, the demonstrations and very real possibility of massacre (and refusal to perform it) and revolutionary attempts all played role in eventual loss of controll of the country, but more importantly do not show average Russian as never complaining opinionless person.
But also, popular sentiment did played massive role in French revolution, the way it started and evolved. You can't write if off from history.
Regardless of who wins power in the end, it is just not true that lower class people don't have opinions and complains. You choosing to ignore them is your choice.
Just like popular sentiment in Syria played massive role in the way war started and evolved - despite endgame being eventually won by Russian support. You can't write those people's actions out of history.
Yes, there is a lot of local action, lots of mobs and mobs going after whatever.
But the political outcome is often not determined by those action.
I would however ague that those who can get the mob to act for them can get an advantage. Controlling the population and the mob matters quite a bit, just not as much as people who love the glorified revolution from the bottom like to think.
The former is about low chance of massive success and low likelyhood of gaining chance. The latter is attempting to frame everyone who complains about inequality as unauthentic and attempt to pretend that lower class people don't complain.
Although them voting in a billionaire kinda defies logic, but hey, there's only two parties, plus Trump! :)
For 500+ years before Japan occupied Korean peninsula in 1910, Korea had a strict social class system. Class inequality was very firmly in place. But most accepted it as a natural order, as any society with kings in ruling.
All those social classes were broken down with the Japanese colonialism and the Korean War. Especially the Korean War. The Korean war basically wiped out overnight a large chunk of the landed rich. The society was turned upside down. It was a true leveling of the playing field. I'd say from end of the Korean War (or maybe even starting in 1910), those who rose above others in wealth largely did so on their own. The old money/wealth lost wealth and had none for the children to inherit.
Obviously some cheated (or hacked their way in techie term) to get above. Others worked honestly and did well on test and in job to get above.
So there's less decades/centuries old wealthy class passing down their wealth to their kids.
Getting major urban schools is much harder as a rural kid with a 4.0 GPA than a kid from nearby with the same GPA and parents who attended and donated to the school a few times.
I think Americans are more pissed off because there's been more to make people aware of the long term and growing unfairness.
Its more of who you know than what you know unfortunately.
South Korea itself was a dictatorship until the late 1980s and received preferential treatment in trade talks in the cold war era with Western economies due to their unique role as a buffer against Communist expansion.
This level of privileged access would not be available to less strategically important countries in a 'free market'. Plus SK already provides a level of socialist services that a failed state like North Korea can only dream of.
The US and many other countries also need to address inequality seriously too, if not for moral reasons then for selfish, long-term GDP and consumer purchasing power reasons.
If all four of them worked 40hrs/wk doing a minimum wage job ($7/hr in S.Korea), it puts them around $59k/yr, which is above the median household income.
I am not sure what the actual job situation in S. Korea is. Perhaps someone that lives there can enlighten us.
The daughter is constantly depicted at someone who is exceptionally talented, although has no paper credentials for the job she does. The family makes multiple comments about good she is at things and how she belongs in the wealthy lifestyle. When everyone is wading through the sewage water (motif for poverty) she sits sort of dry on the toilet just barely above the others (incredible scene imo). She does an excellent job. I think it’s to make a point about the lack of meritocracy even within class or something.
One thing Americans might fall into thinking is that they poor family in the movie is similar to welfare queens in US. Afaik, there isn't enough support for one to live as a welfare queen in S. Korea.
Another different factor is Jeonse. In S. Korean real estate rental market, monthly rent is rare. Most are rented out as Jeonse. With Jeonse, instead of paying monthly rent, a renter will make a lump-sum deposit on a rental space, at anywhere from 50% to 80% of the market value.
This allow a poor family to have relatively secure housing (although it would be undesirable) while having no money for other essentials.
I'm not sure how it affects the poorest families, I imagine that you can stay in a decrepit "villa" on jeonse alone for many years. More often than not, real-estate loses value and it might not be in the landlord's interest to kick you out.
But in recent years there are definitely a lot of lower-income families that bought property and got out of jeonse, since it makes no sense anymore.
I believe that this situations could get better if HR companies weren't thriving everywhere just cutting down any opportunities for the people with stupid assessments, even universities graduates, and letting the experienced and trained personnel that belong to a business make their calls, but this depends on the business willingness.
If a family of four tried to live in Santa Monica on $59k -- they would only have $39k after taxes. You can't rent even a single shitty room for less than $1k per month. That leaves them $500 a month per person. Health care would take at least $58 (the fine if you don't have health care). That leaves you $440 ($14.50 a day) for everything else. It wouldn't be Parasite bad. But it would be awful.
If you just moved to Compton or San Bernardino, it would be fine.
I've been watching K-cinema on/off for a few years, old boy really f'd me up even though I thought I got used things like Bijita Q type J-films. But, if you're looking for what that would look like via a Korean-Californian perspective watch Ms. Purple:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsYh3MAE0b4
It makes the plight of the Korean immigrant, and ultimate success in LA, all the more poignant. I was a SoCal kid during the LA riots when K-town was burned to the ground and many were left destitute and went bankrupt, now K-town is most of DTLA and has expanded into a lot of Orange County displacing a lot of the Japanese and even some of the mainly Chinese influences.
So at that point, maybe its 2 parents and 2 single adults so you cannot combine their income for tax purposes. Maybe each makes $15k which is a very low amount for paying any taxes.
[0] https://www.indiewire.com/2020/02/parasite-south-korea-impro...
This is not surprising, because people in poverty need to be opportunistic to survive. Cutthroat behavior in poverty is not an example of bad moral character, it's a valid strategy to make it day to day. Being generous is something one has to be able to afford.
This is one of the perversions of poverty and our culture that make the movie so great. it showcases how poverty itself forces people to engage in behaviour that makes others look down on them as undeserving, rather than painting an idealized image of the poor.
It's quite hilarious how much Protestant folk morality was on display in response to the movie in particular among American audiences.
Off course, poverty is hard and their moral actions should be seen along with their circumstances. But that way, you can find every evil doer to have some reasons for what they do. The family had become 3 jobs by the time they trigger the allergies, showing a complete lack of empathy on their part.
I can tell that Dick Cheney is a shitty person, even though he donated more money than I'll make in several lifetimes to charity. Likewise, I can tell that the Kim family had poor moral character, even though they were in poverty.
> it showcases how poverty itself forces people to engage in behaviour that makes others look down on them as undeserving
I'm sure that's true to some extent in real life, but I don't see how that is portrayed in the movie. The Kim family isn't "forced" to cheat except in the beginning when they had nothing.
Equally funny as the "Protestant folk morality" is the belief that poor people 100% a product of their environment.
Likewise, when the main family meets the hidden family - are they generous? They have much from fleecing the rich family, and the hidden family has, and asks, for very little. Nope, the main family is cruel to the hidden family and by rejecting them they initiate the final conflict.
Other poor people aren't as mean. The original staff at the house are diligent workers. The original driver offers to go above and beyond to drive the sister home. The hidden family are dedicated servants. The first tutor tries to help his friend.
The original housekeeper is literally lying to her employers, keeping her husband in their house in a secret compartment, where he steals food at night and terrifies their children? And as soon as this material security collapses, they become just as cutthroat as the other family.
The case of the original driver is ambiguous. At least to me, it was implied that the daughter concocted the scheme because she felt the driver was trying to find out where she lived because he was attracted to her. Most women I know wouldn’t allow a random guy to drive them directly to their house and especially if he had insisted on it after they asked to be dropped off somewhere else. This doesn’t justify pinning the fake “crime” on him, but to me, that was the subtext.
The family friend/original tutor is not desperately poor like the family. In the beginning of the film, he offers the friend the position because he’s going overseas and states his intention to marry into the wealthy family, both of which would’ve been impossible were he not well-off himself.
The mother doesn’t “have a lot” when she’s cruel to the dog, she’s feasting on some fleeting spoils. But the whole point of the film is that morality follows material stability, not the other way around.
I would say the moral arc of the hidden family is a rejection of the "morality follows wealth" idea. When they are in debt and danger their solution is to hide and work hard. The wife sacrifices a lot to keep her husband fed and they seem to love each other. What they're doing isn't perfect, but seems like one of their best options. The hidden family only becomes violent after they are held captive and the wife is killed and the husband nearly killed.
I'm not sure how poor the original tutor is. I don't think that's clear at all. He wants to marry rich daughter, but that doesn't mean he's rich. The main son wants to marry rich daughter too.
The he mother does have a lot when she's cruel to the dog. She has more food than she can eat and won't spare it. When she and her family have fully infiltrated the rich household, they don't help the hidden husband.
I don't think the film is the good poor versus the evil poor. I think the film is something like a rich person's horror story - the poor hold you in contempt, they're lying to you, they're parasitic off of you, and they're a danger to you and your children. Even worse, they're in your home!
Your interpretation of the film seems explicitly rejected be the film itself as I explained above.
What exposes your biases is that you reduce her to the superficial appearance that she puts on for the rich in order to survive. This is not only viewing her through the perspective of the wealthy in the film, but counter to what the movie itself tells you she is forced to do and become, outside this limited perspective. It’s embracing an ignorance of the entirety of her characterization that the film intentionally elaborates.
And this is what Bong Joo Ho himself said about his movie:
“I tried to express a sentiment specific to Korean culture, [but] all the responses from different audiences were pretty much the same. Essentially, we all live in the same country, called Capitalism.”
The film is a depiction of life under Capitalism and all the related tensions, violence, and inequality that comes along with it. At a certain point, refusing to acknowledge this is just being willfully obtuse.
I think your attempt to perceive and expose my biases is unsound. I called her a diligent servant because she is, and to contrast her with the poor family. The diligent servant works hard, does her job, and earns even the extra she takes for her husband. The poor family don't really know how to do their jobs, consider the father's inattention while driving or the daughter's made up therapy, and they perform their jobs haphazardly.
The diligent servant is doing what she's doing because otherwise loan sharks will kill her husband. The poor family is doing what they're doing to make more money. The point is that the original housekeeper is behaving morally and picking the best of bad options. The poor family is behaving immorally by lying, getting people fired, poisoning the housekeeper, and stealing. Both are poor and only the main family is immoral, which again rebuts your interpretation.
As an empirical matter this isn’t true. If it was civilization would be impossible. Most people are decent human beings working hard to get by. If poverty forced the poor into ruthless competition India or China would have higher rates of violent crime than the US, not lower.
On the one hand, it's easy to dismiss them all as evil people, but on the other hand, people must be pretty desperate to live like that and do things like that. Extreme economic inequality puts a lot of strain on social relationships.
The rich people were never mean or overbearing to less well off people and treated their workers well. The workers were very loyal to them until the family lied and cheated their way into their jobs.
I enjoyed the movie but if the point was to show economic inequality I feel he missed the mark.
Are they more intelligent? Surely not, since they were duped by the other family. Do they really care about other people and what's going on in their surroundings? Not really, they never bothered to figure out any of it, they are blissfully unaware of the of the less fortunate, untouched by the reality around them until it affects them directly. They don't care who serves them. Are they more virtuous? Not exactly, look at how they behave on the party when the girl gets stabbed. The dad takes his boy who fainted and tries to pick up the car keys, all the while pinching his nose in disgust of the 'poor people smell'. Does he help any of the wounded people? What are their actions?
> The rich people were never mean or overbearing to less well off people and treated their workers well.
How about the part when they act like they own them? One example is dad having to wear a costume for the boy because the boss is paying overtime for his non-working day. The driver dad is not exactly in a position to refuse or he could ruin his position (we saw how easy it is to get replaced), so he has to put up with it, humiliate himself and play the clown. The rich dad doesn't see how this is a problem, money should buy everything after all.
The movie is an allegory and it requires a deeper look and a bit of thinking. Contrast and compare this movie to 'Us', you will find similarities in how it deals with social class.
You got it both right and wrong. In "Parasite", the family did indeed have talents, and they were often morally wrong: for most of the movie, they're bad-guys. But the movie is successful for the questions it raises:
- why should the poor always be "good" and yet if the rich are just a little bit good, they are considered saints.
- why assume that talent has anything to do with it. The poor family seemed smarter than the rich family. But how much of success is really based on "talent" rather than knowing the right people at the right time?
The movie was good because it didn't really take sides on these issues, while throwing the question directly at your face. The very fact that you're asking the question means the effect was successful.
He could be more intelligent and productive than the poor family. Just because some people deceive you (in your off time) doesn't mean they're smarter than you in any general sense.
They do care who serves them; that's why they fire their driver for his perceived infractions, and housekeeper for her illness. They're looking out for the safety of their family.
You compare their behavior at the party. The rich guy held his nose. The poor guy stabbed someone to death. You complain about him not helping the wounded people - well who wounded them in the first place?
The poor dad isn't forced to play a clown any more than the rich dad; they're inhabiting equal roles in the playacting. Nobody's humiliated or owned; the dad is quite apologetic about the whole thing.
If I remember correctly, the ending scenes shows the son dreaming that he would study and work hard so he can finally afford the house and free his father. Do you think this is a realistic goal. How many years would it take him to buy such a mansion?
If you're looking for answers, this movie won't answer them. However, if you're asking the questions than the movie already did it's work.
There's a scene where the Dad wonders if the old driver they slandered out of a job had found a new one and the daughter responds by telling him to focus on them.
I am personally not quick to say I wouldn't do what they did when my whole family is starving.
The Park family was so nice, always honest and considerate of other people! I didn't get the sense they represented the upper class, because frankly, where was the psychopathic ruthlessness of bankers and CEOs?
It makes it harder to argue this represents class struggle when the Park family is so modest, and shows that we can all unite together in peace without brutal day-to-day competition.
(I ask because in my language and culture it sounds a bit childish, and because I've also seen stories recounted in the present tense)
WTF, HackerNews? All this pretentious pontificating about the deeper meaning of a dark comedy (which could be set in ANY culture or locale with very few changes...) Whats next? A thread about the subtleties of Korean culture revealed in Gangham Style?
Read a book.
The article is a straightforward piece on living situations in Seoul. Maybe next time give it a read before commenting.
In any case, please DO continue ending your comments with those authoritative one-liners. (Such an enigma!)
Ha. Touché.
http://sensesofcinema.com/2017/cteq/raising-arizona/ and https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/09/30... discuss this well. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5325/studamerhumor.3.1.0001?... looks to be interesting, but is paywalled. Either way, Raising Arizona seems to me to be some great cultural commentary.
> A thread about the subtleties of Korean culture revealed in Gangham Style? Read a book.
That too sounds like an interesting idea: https://www.amazon.com/Theological-Reflections-Gangnam-Style...