OH LORD! DON'T ASK ME WHAT I MEAN!

another thing to note is how he makes the poor family the protagonist(s) of the movie. in this way, it’s easier, by nature of the fact that the audience experiences events from their perspective, to sympathise with them and not the rich family being manipulated. they are allowed complexity and humanity in the narrative and you can’t help but feel satisfied and even a little triumphant on their behalf when they successfully take over the rich family’s home.

in contrast, the rich family is deliberately denied interiority in the narrative, rendered generic and almost archetypal as a result of being positioned as the object and not the subject. the mere act of shifting the privilege of perspective away from them effectively divests them of narrative power and casts them as the suckers, the fools. they are not demonised—in fact, they’re decent enough people in their own right and you could even sympathise with them if you ignore the spectre of their stuctural power and the fact that they’re socially and politically obtuse—but they do not need to be demonised to be distasteful.

and THAT is the true genius of the movie: the wealthy are not cartoon villains—that is not what makes them malignant. it is the very fact of their existence as a class that makes them malignant, an existence that is not neutral but inherently violent by nature bc their wealth and the complacency that comes with the privilege and comfort attached to that wealth depend upon the active impoverishment of the working class. the poor are poor not bc they lack intelligence, or talent, or resourcefulness, or capability; they are poor bc they are rendered poor through the exploitation of their labour and subordination to the wealthy class. bong joon-ho makes salient this sober reality through a very realist approach to constructing the narrative. parasite is a home invasion movie that turns into a horror film that doubles as a social satire.

and it’s not like the poor family doesn’t face the consequences of their actions—they do, very brutally. they don’t get the last laugh. it’s a depressing movie bc it denies its audience a happy ending. the writers and director know that a happy ending is not possible in the world of parasite, our world—not when you still operate within the terms of the system. ultimately, the poor family did not “win” bc the comfort and luxury they obtained are ersatz, and their presence in the wealthy home—symbolic of their farcical penetration into the wealthy class—is parasitic in nature. it was a temporary freedom, in the end almost illusory bc they end up back where they started. the son’s pledge to his father to work hard and get a job so he can ascend the socioeconomic ladder briefly infuses the narrative with hope and optimism, but then we’re brought back down (literally) to reality and left with the sinking feeling that nothing much is going to change.