Maybe all these snowpiercer, squid games, parasite narratives are having an effect? Its like all these dystopic, zombie, monster, battle royale movies and shows are just expressing the never ending exploitaion and helplessness around people.
I'll name a few shows that come to mind (also recommend them):
Itaewon Class: About a young man fighting the CEO of a mega company after he ruined his life.
Vincenzo: An Italian mafia consigliere/lawyer finds himself fighting against a mega corporation who uses mafia like tactics.
Save Me: A girl who is trapped in a cult is saved by her former classmates. The cult is heavily involved with politicians and other powerful figures (including the police) who keep people who try to go against the cult in check.
The Uncanny Counter: A supernatural show with the main plot involving political corruption that spreads as far as the police, media...
The themes are always very similar, political corruption, corrupted law enforcement and judicial bodies, mega corps getting away with severe crimes by using money, the little people being unable to go after the rich unless they have irrefutable proof and even then... classism and economic inequality.
As far as I can recall, that one also has a rich guy, almost a member of the team, who has been of much help to the cause.
>Abolish “irregular work” (part-time, temporary or contract labor with little or no benefits) and extend labor protections to all workers
Or maybe a fucking tv show told them to do it...
Makes me wonder, what overall tax burden is in Korea. Can they afford raising it to 65-80%?
art imitates life which imitates art. It's a cycle.
When you actively watch for perspective in the movie, you will find it. You will find those 10 minutes that confirm what you want to see.
The lower classes fighting amongst themselves needlessly because they don't see that they can work together is like, class struggle 101.
So many people read the wrong way into that movie and it's disappointing.
It has absolutely nothing to do with "class clashing or class struggling against each other" no matter how much the media wants to make you think that.
I think that movie just dont conform to Hollywood tropes. Hollywood movie would make victims obvious bad guys, perpetrators obvious good guys. It would also made poor people obviously lazy. People used to American production have problem interpret movie like Parasite. They read commentary and make above assumptions.
Parasite went out of way to show the rich family as caring about each other, oblivious and easy to manipulate, but not bad people all in all. And the poor family is caring among themselves, but they are not obvious good guys. And they are in fact hard working, very hard working.
Class conflict is mostly the action of classes conflicting with each other. Otherwise it's just people conflict.
>I think that movie just dont conform to Hollywood tropes.
It's not a Hollywood movie, why would it care about Hollywood tropes? I take it you haven't seen much Korean cinema?
>but they are not obvious good guys.
Yes. That's the most important thing about the movie. Neither side are bad guys, but they're both doing what their class is made to do. Poor guys are made to get their money in any way they can, rich are made to spend it and not work. When poor finds poor trying to get the same rewards, things get ugly.
You point out something very important. You know, in Mother, you see the have nots and the needy clawing at each other and hurting one another. On the other hand, in The Host, you see the solidarity between them, they save each other and they gather their strengths together. And you could say Parasite is closer to Mother, where the weak and have nots are fighting one another. And that's sad, but it's also realistic. And from those moments, you get this element of sadness, but also the comedy, as well"
A direct quote from Bong Joon Ho himself.
https://www.gq.com/story/parasite-director-bong-joon-ho-inte...
Bong Joon Ho would be a fool to write that everyone read the wrong thing into his movie.
The weak and have-nots are definitely not fighting each other in Parasite.
If you want to read his real thoughts, read the interviews surrounding the releases of The Host and Mother. Or possibly something entirely for a Korean audience beyond the release of Parasite.
Edit: Actually, I read it wrong. And I guess so did you. He is saying the same exact thing I am. Your quote from Bong Joon Ho doesn't actually reference any class fighting. It represents the lower class fighting itself.
and in the end it was 16K instead 500K, I can't even count that low - 0.06% of active population ??
The Kims - mother and father Chung-sook and Ki-taek, and their young adult offspring, son Ki-woo and daughter Ki-jung - are a poor family living in a shabby and cramped half basement apartment in a busy lower working class commercial district of Seoul. Without even knowing it, they, especially Mr. and Mrs. Kim, literally smell of poverty. Often as a collective, they perpetrate minor scams to get by, and even when they have jobs, they do the minimum work required. Ki-woo is the one who has dreams of getting out of poverty by one day going to university. Despite not having that university education, Ki-woo is chosen by his university student friend Min, who is leaving to go to school, to take over his tutoring job to Park Da-hye, who Min plans to date once he returns to Seoul and she herself is in university. The Parks are a wealthy family who for four years have lived in their modernistic house designed by and the former residence of famed architect Namgoong. While Mr. and Mrs. Park are all about status, Mrs. Park has a flighty, simpleminded mentality and temperament, which Min tells Ki-woo to feel comfortable in lying to her about his education to get the job. In getting the job, Ki-woo further learns that Mrs. Park is looking for an art therapist for the Parks' adolescent son, Da-song, Ki-woo quickly recommending his professional art therapist friend "Jessica", really Ki-jung who he knows can pull off the scam in being the easiest liar of the four Kims. In Ki-woo also falling for Da-hye, he begins to envision himself in that house, and thus the Kims as a collective start a plan for all the Kims, like Ki-jung using assumed names, to replace existing servants in the Parks' employ in orchestrating reasons for them to be fired. The most difficult to get rid of may be Moon-gwang, the Parks' housekeeper who literally came with the house - she Namgoong's housekeeper when he lived there - and thus knows all the little nooks and crannies of it better than the Parks themselves. The question then becomes how far the Kims can take this scam in their quest to become their version of the Parks.
This is the whole point of the movie. You'd think that the Kims are the obvious parasites, but if you look further, you realize that the Parks are the ones benefiting the most from other people's hard work.
https://www.thisislocallondon.co.uk/youngreporter/18401889.p...
The movie is not "dystopic, zombie, monster, battle royale". It is not about how poor are angelic. It is not about how rich are evil. It is not about how poor are lazy and deserve to be poor either. And that confuses people.
I agree. I find that people can't help themselves but think in clichés, labels and phrases. What is actually happening is 2nd to the preconceived notion of what is supposed to happen. Everyone is projecting his inner psyche into an interpretation of the world that makes them feel at ease and morally righteous.
> Maybe all these snowpiercer, squid games, parasite narratives are having an effect?