In doing so I could have the students compare and contrast the two families and their social classes.
However, I could show different clips of the movie that show the two family’s dynamics, their lifestyle and their attitudes. This movie is rated R and it would be inappropriate to have high school students view it in its entirety. This movie has all the dynamics between the patriarchal family unit as well as among the servants and their masters and the aspirations, envy and materialism that people seek. The movie not only shows the Kim’s willingness to manipulate and work together to get what they want, it also clearly defines the social class divisions among them and the wealthy Parks. It all shows the desperation families may feel when they are fighting to survive as well as the measures they are willing to take to move out of poverty and climb up the social ladder.
Despite their nonemployment situation, they work together to encourage and support each other. The movie has some comedy portrayed between the Kim siblings but it also shows love and support within the family structure. They work together to manipulate situations setting up servants of a well to do family, the Parks, to get fired while setting themselves in the perfect position to take up the vacancies to work for the wealthy family as a tutoring, an art teacher, a chauffeur and a house keeper. It’s no accident that the lower-class protagonists happen to have the single most common surname in South Korea.The movie Parasite is about the Kims, a family of four living in poverty in a basement. One clear way to explain the movie is: “ Parasite is about class.” Class is the primary target of social commentary within Parasite.Īnd every single element of the film from the scholar’s stone, to the architecture of the homes, to the very names of the families all contribute to this central theme.
“What is the movie Parasite about?” has many answers. Parasite 2019 Meaning Perfecting Social Commentary The cultural swell around Parasite is much deserved and hopefully leads more audience members to check out Parasite director Bong Joon-ho’s previous films and more South Korean cinema in general. After being added Hulu’s catalogue for exclusive streaming, it became the platform’s most streamed film in both the independent and foreign film categories, reaching even more audience members and wowing them with its immaculate presentation and resonant themes. The record-setting trend continued for the Parasite film. Parasite broke a number of financial records as well, including the highest foreign film opening weekend of all time for the UK box office, and a number of records with the Indie Box Office. It wasn’t just awards records that Parasite broke in 2019. The metaphorical themes are presented in as literal a way as possible with the act of this stabbing. The Kim family is destroyed Ki-jung is killed, Ki-woo is left brain-damaged, and Ki-taek is forced into hiding after he snaps and acts out a classism-driven murder in the chaos of the birthday party. Blood is shed and deaths are cast at the birthday party of the Park family’s youngest child.Īll three families at play are damaged by this explosive act of violence. Outside of the sub-basement, violence erupts, and the prophetic scholar’s stone becomes an instrument of violence. The film’s social commentary on class is at its strongest in this depiction of the lower classes fighting against each other rather than against the 1% who truly hold more accountability. Both parties have dark secrets, and both threaten to expose the other to the Park family, who remain above all the drama, currently unaware. Power shifts from Moon-gwang and her incognito husband to the Kim family as both lower-class families fight for leverage over each other.