Parasite with Grace Jung

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
On the Doll Cast, the questions asked if movies have
women in them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands,
or do they have individualism? The patriarchy? Zef invest start
changing it with the beck Del Cast. Hey, Caitlin, Yes,
Jamie starting to think capitalism might be dot dot dot

(00:22):
not so great with Wait what? Um? Well, that was
what I got for an opening love? You know, I
just I feel like I've really like my my opening
game has really diminished lately. And I don't know if
it's just because like my it's nine trillion degrees in
my brain is just boiling inside of my skull, or

(00:43):
or if it's all finally getting to me, you know.
Personal apologies for that real lukewarm opening. I could have
done better, and I will strive to do better. Jamie,
don't apologize. I mean this is a this is a
difficult time. Well, welcome to the Bectel Cast. Name is
Jamie Loftus, my name is Caitlin Darante, and this is

(01:03):
our our little podcast where we talk about some incredible
movies and some not incredible movies using an intersectional feminist
lens for discussion. That's right, and we use the Bechdel Tests,
often known as the Bechtel Wallace Test, as a way
to just inspire a larger conversation in That is a

(01:26):
media metric created by queer cartoonist Alison Bechtel, and it
requires that, for our purposes are sort of modified version
of the test. Two people from a marginalized gender must
have names, they must speak to each other, and they
must not talk about a man. Many movies don't do it,

(01:49):
but but but some movies do. But sometimes it happens.
That's just the nature. It's kind of a past failed test.
There's not really un middling, although sometimes there's those fun
ones like like the one we have to have a
whole conversation about it. Sometimes two women with with names,
or just apologizing over nothing like like I was doing,
you know, just two minutes ago. So um, you know

(02:10):
there there are shades of gray there as well. But
I'm really really really excited to talk about today's movie
popular request and uh and one of my face yes,
And we have a terrific guest joining us today. She
is a comedian. She is a PhD candidate in Cinema
and Media studies, and her academic publications have covered such

(02:35):
things as television studies, Korean media, Asian American history, gender
and sexuality. It's Grace Young. Hello, Hi, welcome, Thank you
so happy to be here. We're happy to have you
so Grace. Tell us about your general relationship with the

(02:55):
film Parasite. Oh yeah, we did. Also we're covering Parasite.
We were like, we were like, um, a popular request,
but leave your guessing as to what movie. I know.
I was like, why am I here? Who are these people? Yeah? Yeah,
I I love this movie Parasite. Um. I've been I've
been following the filmmaker poem Jun host career for a

(03:19):
long time, and I would say that he's like the
first Korean filmmaker to really make it into the mainstream
zeitgeist in the United States and other parts of the world. Yeah,
and I really love his filmmaking. Um. Interesting side note
on Punch. You know, he studied sociology in college, so

(03:41):
he actually did not study filmmaking per se. But yeah,
I would say because of his educational background, a lot
of his movies cover sort of that, like the sociological
kind of critique of Korean society and capitalism a lot.
And uh yeah, I mean I I was very excited

(04:02):
to see the movie because I saw in the trades
that he had won the Palm door for his latest movie, Parasite,
and I was like, Okay, that's a big deal because
you know, like a Korean filmmaker, to win a palm
door I can is a big deal. And then um,
I went to see it in theaters with a friend,
another creative American friend. It was her birthday. I went
to see it. I thought the movie was so astounding,

(04:25):
like such a such an amazing movie. You know, like
I watch a lot of films because you know, I
work in film and write about film, but like I
hadn't seen a movie that made me feel that like
elated and so long and um. Yeah. Right after the
movie ended, as we were leaving, my friend immediately wanted
to talk to me about and I was like, you
have to stop talking right now. I just I just

(04:47):
need to go home and process this alone. And so
I just I just went home processed it, and then
I texted like like two other creative American friends of mine,
and I just like Parasite, you have to see it.
We have to see it together, and like they want
to see it by themselves. And then we went as

(05:09):
a group together to go and see it again, and
um yeah, it's like a film that I could keep
returning to. I think it's really well done for sure.
Hell yeah, Jimmie, what about you? This was one of
I mean, this is in no way a hot take.
It was one of my favorite movies I saw last year.

(05:30):
I saw it a couple of different times in theaters
and this was kind of embarrassingly my first movie from
from this director. I hadn't seen anything else because before
this podcast started, I didn't watch a ton of movies. Um.
But after seeing Parasite, I went back into his film

(05:51):
catalog and now I've seen the majority and I haven't
seen um I think two of his films. But um yeah,
I just kind of uh swiveled into becoming a stand
and I love this movie. I hadn't seen it in
a couple of months, and it was really fun to
go back to after not having been watching it like
once a week towards the beginning of the year. Um yeah,

(06:14):
but I really love it. Yeah, Caitlin, what is your
experience with this movie? Pretty similar? Um? I had seen
a few of his films in the past, uh, And
I went into Parasite not knowing anything about it, and
because I had seen the host and because the movie
is called Parasite, I thought it was also going to

(06:35):
be like a monster movie. I was like, oh no,
just kidding, it's not that at all. Um. I'd also
seen snow Piercer, and I was like, Okay, it's more
aligned thematically with snow Piercer because of like the class commentary. Um,
but I hadn't seen Oakcha, which I saw. I watched

(06:56):
over the weekend, and I have never I've just saw
being at the end of like the kind of sobbing
where you're just you can't breathe because you're crying so hard. Anyways, Caitlin,
did you need an out Did you need outlet? I
mean it's very sad, but the animals, those super piglets

(07:18):
and anyway, Um, I was traumatized. In any case, I
I do really enjoy his filmography and I love to Parasite.
I only saw it once in theaters, but I've seen
it a number of times since then because it came
out on Hulu, so I was very thankful. Feminist icon Hulu,

(07:42):
owned by Fox was like Disney Capitalist. Have you seen
those Disney reboots for sure. They're feminists cash grab at all. Okay, So,
um uh should I just dive into of the recap
and we'll go from there. Yeah, let's do it. I

(08:02):
like how we asked that question every single episode. O,
thank you for asking for consent before starting to recap. Well,
you know, I just want to make sure we're all
on the same page. Alright. So we meet the Kim family.
It's a mother, father, son, and daughter. I believe the
son and daughter are in their late teens, maybe early twenties.

(08:27):
Not entirely sure early because at the end you find
out how old the daughter was because it says she
was born. Got it, I missed that detail. Good to
know in any case. Um, they come from a low
socio economic background. They live in this like semi basement

(08:50):
level apartment. Their phones have been shut off, they don't
have access to WiFi anymore. They do kind of odd
jobs like folding pizza boxes for work for money. Then
one day and apologies in advance for all of the
horrible pronunciations I'm going to do of these Korean characters names.

(09:10):
But k the Sun gets a visit from his friend Min,
who brings the family this stone that is meant to
bring like wealth and prosperity to the family, and he
is also leaving to study abroad. It's fun when the
when the stone comes in, You're like, oh, it's a
metaphor stone. I wonder what the metaphor will be, but

(09:31):
it just even when I don't know, you know, you
can sometimes tell it's a metaphor just by the way
it's framed. You're like, well, it's fun because like it's
but it's also like plant and payoff, so it's like
it has a narrative purpose, it has a symbolic purpose.
Even Ques is like, this is metaphorical. Um, just making

(09:51):
fun of people watching the movie in the all time.
It's great. Um. So anyway, so Min is leaving to
study abroad and he wants to recommend Q for his
old job tutoring a girl from a rich family. Q's
sister helps him forge a college degree I think um

(10:14):
or some kind of official academic document, and he goes
in for an interview and he meets Mrs Park, who
is naive and gullible. She interviews him and gives him
the job. He also meets the teen girl that he'll
be tutoring, and the young son, we also would think.
At this point meet the Park's housekeeper, so Mrs Park

(10:37):
then also tells him that her son, let me check
the pronunciation here, her son Dosson, needs an art teacher,
and Q is like, I know of someone who might
be a good fit this classmate of my cousin, and
who he really means is his sister Key young and

(11:01):
Um Illinois, Chicago. Yes, yes, And so Mrs Park gives
them English names, Kevin and Jessica, which I might default
to using for the sake of again not continuing to
embarrass myself every time I fail and pronounce pronounced them
just fine so far, Okay, thank you so much. I'm

(11:21):
very self conscious about it, but you're welcome. You're so welcome.
I just don't want to be disrespectful. Okay. So Jessica,
pretending to have the necessary credentials and experience, gets the
job doing art therapy for the young son Um. And
then we also meet the father of the rich family,

(11:44):
Mr Park, and his driver takes Jessica home and she
leaves her underwear in the car, planting it as incriminating evidence,
knowing that it will probably get him fired, which it does.
So now that driver position is open for Mr. Kim
to be able to get that job. Now, the only

(12:05):
thing they have left to do is to get rid
of the Park family's housekeeper, um so that their mom,
Mrs Kim, can have that job. Enter the Peach. Yes,
this one's a little trickier because the housekeeper has been
working in this home for years and years, but they
use her peach allergy against her, and they're able to

(12:27):
get her fired by convincing Mrs Park that the housekeeper
has tuberculosis. Just like one of the funniest secrets in
the movie that the whole sequence is just so fucking funny.
It's like when they're like shaving the little peach fuzz
off the peaches and collecting it in like a tiny
little vial the house at the end. It's just great. Yeah.

(12:49):
So then Mrs Kim gets tired as the Park family housekeeper,
and now they're all working for this rich family and
one day the Parks go on a camping trip up
the Kims are like, well, let's see what it's like
to live lavishly in this upscale home. So they're eating,
they're drinking, they're carrying on. But then someone shows up

(13:10):
at the door and it's the old housekeeper who says
she left something behind, so Mrs Kim reluctantly lets her
in the house. She goes down into the basement and
it turns out there is a secret bunker down there.
This is what we would call the midpoint of the film. Um,
and it's not as though I have a screenwriting master's

(13:33):
degree or anything like that. I'm the least educated person
in the chat and killing me, Okay. So they go
down into this secret bunker where the former housekeeper's husband
has been living for the past four years because he
is hiding from debt collectors. Now Mrs Kim threatens to

(13:56):
call the police on the former housekeeper and her husband,
but just then her family, who had been eavesdropping on
this whole interaction like like tumble down the stairs, uh
and accidentally reveal themselves, and the old housekeeper, who recognizes
all of them and realizes that they have been lying

(14:17):
about who they are, threatens to expose them to the
Park family. A big fight breaks out between them, and
then the Park family calls to be like, hey, it's raining.
The camping trip has been cut short. We're on our
way home. We're we'll be there in eight minutes, so
everyone has to scramble. The Kim's drag the housekeeper and

(14:39):
her husband back down into the basement. There's violence, and
then the Park family arrives back home and the meal
is made. It looked so good. The Kim family hides
in the living room under the coffee table. Uh. They
try to escape, but get delayed because Mr and Mrs
Park are right there jerking each other off on the

(15:01):
couch in matching pajamas. Too. It is just never not
disturbing to watch. And I'm like, I know, you're like,
I don't know, I'm do do your thing, but in
matching pajamas the realist portrayal of a married couple of
sex life. Yeah, imagining gray pajamas jerking each other off, joylessly,

(15:24):
each other off like their their son is an a
tent mirror yards away, like alright, gang, do you? So
they're right there and Mr Park thinks that he can
smell Mr Kim's smell because he has commented on how
different members of the family have commented on how the

(15:46):
Kim family has a distinct kind of foul smell about them.
So eventually the Kim family are able to escape, so Kevin, Jessica,
and Mr Kim return home, but their basement level apartment
has been flooded with sewage water because of this storm
that's happening. And then they're trying to figure out what

(16:07):
to do about this situation with the previous housekeeper and
her husband. Then the next day, the Park's throw an
impromptu birthday party for the Sun and they invite Kevin
and Jessica and Mr and Mrs Kim are there working
and helping out with the party. And then during the party,

(16:27):
Kevin goes down to the basement. He discovers the old
housekeeper who has died from her head injury, and the
housekeeper's husband bashes Kevin on the head, and then he
goes out into the party. Also she's she's told her
husband to like vow to kill Mrs Kim or at

(16:47):
least attempt to kill Mrs Kim right yes, And then
the housekeeper's husband goes out into the party and stabs Jessica.
All hell breaks loose. Then Mr Kim sees Mr Park
being disgusted by the smell that he smells on like
the housekeeper's husband. So Mr Kim stabs Mr Park and

(17:08):
then runs off and no one knows where he is
at first, but then some time passes, Q has survived
his head injury. He figures out that his dad is
in the bunker, and he forms a plan to become
rich enough that he can buy the house that his
dad is hiding in and then they can all reunite.

(17:28):
And we see this play out as a kind of
flash forward, but it cuts back to the present. He
is still in like the basement level apartment, implying that
that's probably never going to happen. The end. That the end,
it's a very uplifting film. Yeah, just brings joy. Um,

(17:51):
So that's the story. Let's take a quick break and
then we'll come right back to discuss and we're back. Um.
Something that I wasn't totally aware of before I started
researching for this episode was I mean, I know that

(18:11):
this movie really resonated with American audiences, but I didn't
know that much about the socioeconomics of uh, South Korea.
I am kind of running on like a basic subpar
American history education as it is. So I prior to
preparing for this episode, only new kind of the basics

(18:33):
on South Korean history like next to nothing, And so
for those of you that are in the same boat
as me on that. Uh. Here are a couple of
quick facts. This is from uh literally socialist dot net,
if you can believe feminist icon socialist it's a little
website called socialist dot net. But just to contextualize the

(18:55):
class disparity in South Korea. So this is from a
piece by Andy south work about parasite. Quote. Korea had
barely developed under the yoke of Japanese imperialism at the
end of the Korean War in nineteen fifty three. The
South remained a largely rural economy with a very low
standard of living. In the period immediately following the war,
the South was totally dependent on the US. It followed

(19:17):
the guidance of their American masters by relying on the
quote unquote free market to provide development. This growth was
driven by the rise of state sponsored conglomerates called I
don't know if I'm seeing this correctly UM shy balls
uh C, H A, E, B O, L S, Shabou,
which came to totally dominate the economy. The shade balls

(19:40):
were run by the country's elite families, who use corruption
and their state contacts to a mass humongous fortunes. They
of course made sure that their wealth was passed on
to their children. On the basis of this development, a
new working class was formed in the cities and a
massive wealth divide opened up with skyrocketing inequality. After the
Asia find aancial crisis, several shape balls went bankrupt, and

(20:02):
Korea entered a period of mass unemployment. Parasite hints that
this is the background to both the Park's wealth and
the Kim's poverty unquote. So that was just I wasn't
aware of the context of I mean, I guess that
this story certainly reads to any audience that has a
background of mass you know, income inequality. But yeah, I

(20:26):
just didn't know that for listeners that don't know, Yeah,
tip is the word, not shape boat, but yeah, tip
is a it's a it's a huge problem in South Korea, Like,
for instance, Samsung is a chip boy corporate conglomerate, Samsung,
you could kind of imagine it to be like a
massive it's like, you know, you have Apple iPhones and tablets,

(20:50):
you have Samsung mobile phones and tablets. In fact, I
saw a Samsung cell phone that blew my mind. It's
it's a it's just it's a glass, you know, typical,
but it folds. My god, oh I've yeah, I've heard
about these or like say no, no, no, no, you
have to see it. You have to see it with

(21:10):
your own eyeballs. It's like watching it is still mind blowing.
Like I would see this in Korean dramas a lot
because that's you know, embedded marketing. And when I saw that,
I was just like, I want that phone so badly,
you know, funck Apple, I don't care anymore. Samsung, you
have outdone yourself. But yeah, others are a huge problem.

(21:33):
For instance, some this film was executive produced by Mickey Lee.
Mickey Lee is the daughter of Samsung. Corporate conglomerate because
Samsung is associated with c J and c J well
it's actually a food conglomerate, but c J has a
subdivision called c J Entertainment, which handles filmmaking, TV and

(21:58):
some music, so they have a lot of cable channels.
They own a newspaper, so it's a huge corporate conglomerate.
Damn um. So yeah, these tippos are a problem, and
there are a problem because it's again it's like a
family based thing, right, So Nepotism is a big issue.
Corruption is a big issue. Cronyism is a big issue.

(22:18):
And so Mickey Lee, what's ironic about this film winning
an oscar and some I saw some people on social
media talk about this too, is that Mickey Lee is
like this daughter of this huge tipo establishment and yet
she's the one that's executive producing a film that has
a very sharp social critique of capitalism, right, And that

(22:41):
goes to asking like, well, how, like what's what parallels
do we have in the United States? Like you know,
I mean Fox is now owned by Disney, but before that,
like you know, when when you have The Simpsons or
Family Guy on on Fox, which always has a critique
of these mega corporations, right, it's like, how how impactful

(23:01):
is that critique when it is owned under the umbrella
of a huge corporate conglomerate. Right. Yeah. The irony, the
like perhaps hypocrisy of it all is yeah, But then
it comes into that whole discussion of like it feels
fucking impossible to make to get anything funded without some

(23:24):
sort of corporate underlying It is possible, but it's like
the hill is infinitely higher, and like, you know, imagine
how much harder it would have been for this movie
to get funded without the corporate underwriting. And I mean
it just goes back to like the no no ethical
consumption argument. Yeah it's I mean, even even if a

(23:46):
person does make a film without any of those corporate ties,
the goal is still to sell it, you know, to
have it distributed. And if that film, let's say, a
pure little film grassroots right, somehow made it big. The
first person that's going to be on the phone contacting
the filmmaker is somebody who is going to compromise all

(24:08):
of those things for that person. And will that person
say no? Most likely no, they will say yes all right,
if you want to if you want to be successful
as an artist, if you want to pay off your
your three credit cards that you maxed out in order
to make that film, you're gonna say yes. And um yeah,
I don't blame Punju at all for for doing that.
You know, it is like how much awareness do you

(24:31):
have of that? Like do you make these things with
that full awareness? You know? Um, knowing that all of us,
all of us are are tied to that. We're still
bound to that, um whether we like it or not.
I mean, we're on iHeart radio right now, Like exactly,
I noticed there is quite honestly no escaping it, right,

(24:53):
And how do you like without that funding, Like it
would have been as difficult to make as it would
have been for Q to like earn enough money to
buy the that Park house and like rescue his dad.
Like it's just it's not in the socio economic structures
that many countries operate under. It's simply not possible social

(25:15):
mobile like upboard mobility, damn near impossible. Yeah, And I
think that's so important to highlight. Like, first of all,
what that shows, or what this discussion shows, is that
capitalism is actually a lot more complex, right, It's more
complex than us just saying capitalism is the evil of all.
It's like, yeah, okay, that's true, but we're still working

(25:37):
within this framework of capitalism. What what can we do?
You know? And then what you just said about social
mobility is like I think it's so it's key to
this film. It's like a key marker of this film,
this concept of the odor, right, this odor that offends
Mr Park so much. And then Mr Park goes and

(25:58):
tells his wife, Mrs Park about she didn't even have
any awareness of it, he tells her about it, and
then the next day she notices the stench of Mr.
Kim right, which goes to show like, oh, well, she's
really under the thumb of her husband, you know, a
very impressionable wife. And he says something very interesting about

(26:20):
this odor. He's like, I like Mr Kim because he
never crosses that line. I don't like GI when people
across the line. But that odor crosses the line. And
that's a very very like clear cut rationale that all
rich people have. They don't want the poor to be
socially mobile. They simply do not, because as soon as

(26:41):
a person is socially mobile, right they crossed this so
called line, they loose that person to to continue to
function in their big houses, with their cars, you know,
with their with their regular lavish, convenient lifestyle, and so
they do not want social People with power do not

(27:02):
want the poor to be socially mobile, because then they
don't have anyone left to exploit. The smell works on
so many levels on like I don't know, when I
first saw the movie, I was like, I I guess
like semi triggered myself because that was, like, I don't know,
I grew up in like a family with that smell,

(27:23):
and it's a literal metaphor in some ways where it's
like the most deeply humiliating thing. You Like, it's one
of the most deeply humiliating feelings I've ever felt, is
hearing someone else talking about how you smell, thinking you
can't hear them, like it's the worst feeling in the world.
And then on top of that, I thought it was

(27:43):
really interesting that even when I mean it's also metaphorical right,
where there's nothing they can do to get the smell off,
they actively try to use different soaps. They're like trying
to strategically. That's like the one part of this whole
ruse that the Kim family has going that gives them away.
It's like that somehow being poor is you can't wash

(28:07):
it off, you can't hide it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you
can't hide smells and a smell offense, right, it's a well,
it depends on the smell. But if it's a smell
you don't like, it offends and it's something you can't hide, yeah,
like you said, it gives it away, gives your status away.
And yeah, I thought this use of the odor was

(28:27):
really clever. I thought it was a really clever device
in the film. Yeah, And like I was reading this
piece by Laura Marks. She writes it's like a it's
a it's an academic piece, a journal article, but she
talks about the smell as a potential sensory tool for analysis,
like analyzing a film or media. And I was just

(28:51):
thinking about like colonization to a certain extent. So, like
Korea is. South Korea is now a developed a nation.
It's one of the wealthier nations in the world now,
but there is still such a thing as global hierarchy, right,
And as we as we know, after the Korean Civil War,

(29:13):
South Korea and North Korea were separated because of USSR
and US Cold War tensions. So Russia Soviet Union was like,
will take care of North Korea. US, you take South
Korea and will be cool. Right, So Korea was divided
because of foreign Cold War tensions, and you know, South

(29:34):
Korea was pretty much right after its liberation from Japanese colonation,
which lasted from nineteen to nine, South Korea was like, okay, well,
I mean, I guess we're technically free, but now they
weren't free, right, Like USSR and US took over all
of those spaces and occupations and roles that Japan was occupying, right,

(29:55):
And when the Japanese colonized South Korea, they had this
notion that like, oh, Japan was going to be the
new imperial empire in Asia, and they were going to
colonize all these countries and you know, they were going
to become just as successful as the West, just as
you know, imperial as the West. That was the dream

(30:16):
Japan had. And then of course, you know, the United
States bombed the ship out of Japan and destroyed the
country and you know, lost World War Two. But Japan,
the Japanese, like during this colonization process with Korea, they
had this sanitation policy. So the Japanese would look down
on the Koreans and say, you know, they're so backward,

(30:37):
and you know they're very agrarian. Like you said that
it was a rural economy. South Korea's full of mountains
and fields, a lot of farming um, and they were like,
they don't know sanitation, you know. And and the Japanese
didn't like the smells of of South Koreans because of
what whatever their lifestyle was like. And so not only

(30:58):
do you have that, but you also have this the
cuisine of South Korea, where there's a lot of fermentation.
So you have like you know, ten jong, which is
a soybean fermentus soy being paste, and then you have kimchi.
As everybody now knows. Back in when I first immigrated
to the United States and I brought my Korean food
lunch to my ps Brooklyn Public School, Okay, the horror, right,

(31:26):
the trauma that it left on everybody because I brought
a role of keep up to class. I mean, it
was just unbelievable, right, the smell of sesame oil, the
smell of fermented kimchi. The smell and this this lunch
story is like universal. You could ask, you could literally
grab any Asian off the street and be like, do
you have a lunch story with white people? And they

(31:48):
would be like, yes, yes, I do. It's like a
childhood it's like a ritual. It's a rite of passage
into childhood, immigrant childhood trauma in the United States. And
so you have the smell that fence, the fermentic cabbage
smelled a fence. But today you have white people eating
kinchi in their cars like a salad with no problem.

(32:11):
Why how how does that happen? Right? And so like
South Korea went through this huge globalization process in the
in the nineties, this president in Kim Yong's ham was like,
I want South Korea to be just as globally branded
and successful as Japan. Right, because by the nineties, like
Japan was kicking as like Sony was global. You know,

(32:33):
Japan had a huge steak in Hollywood through Sony. Um.
You know, you know they had Walkman okay, Walkman's you
know that came from Japan. It Hello Kitty everywhere, right,
Japanese fashion sushi was a huge thing, right, and um,
you know, everybody was getting down with Japanese products, and
Korea was like, we need to get there, right because

(32:55):
you know, the Korea doesn't have a lot of natural resources,
they don't have a lot to explore, and they needed
to make it economically and so um, they started, you know,
doing this global branding process and kimchi was a big
part of that. So it's it's no accident that's suddenly
white people are eating kimchi in their cars like a salad. Okay.
This was very much like a step by step procedure

(33:18):
that South Korea went through as a government. K Pop
being global that's also not an accident. Korean dramas being
on Netflix is not an accident. Korean films winning a
can palm door is not an accident. You know, like
the Korea has been trying Korean films Finally winning an
oscar is not an accident. Korea has been trying to
win an oscar for decades and they finally was able

(33:41):
to do this and so um, yeah, globalization is a
big part of this. And uh, I will also say,
you know, US neo colonialism is also a big part
of this because it's like Korea had to convince the
United States that, you know, Korea was not a stinky
country or you can get down with the stink. You know,
it's an acquire your stench. It's an acquired odor, acquired taste,

(34:03):
and you can get down with it. And it's like
this the branding thing tricks to you, you know, it
gets people on board and South Korea has been doing
it for thirty years and they finally did it. Damn wow.
That yeah, that's such helpful context. Thank you for truly
like there, we we are very much on a learning
learning curve here, so that is incredibly helpful for I

(34:24):
mean even in understanding how the Parks behave in this
movie where there's like I had I was sort of
guessing my way around it previous in my previous reads
of the movie, where I mean they are very responsive
to Western culture. I think that there's like that commentary
in there with their son's fixation on Native American culture

(34:45):
and the native culture and also the cowboy culture that
is kind of the you know, false colonial inverse to it,
and as well as how easily they're fooled. So like
one of the themes that I really that like hit
for me more on this viewing, um, just having read
through more interviews with the director is the fact that

(35:08):
the Parks aren't necessarily They're not made out to be
these villains necessarily, which is cool. I mean, you still
aren't extremely upset when Mr Park dies at the end,
like he has it coming. It is cathartic, uh to
see him go down for treating poor people so dismissively.

(35:29):
But I there is a quote from Bung junho Uh
that he did in a really incredible Vulture profile from
last year where he says basically that it is a
movie with no heroes and no villains. And even though
the Parks are made out to be more gullible, dismissive,

(35:53):
and ignorant of the lower classes, rather than actively whatever
rubbing their hands together, patting the cat and saying like
I know exactly what they'll do, they're completely unaware, uninterested
and I mean even to bring back the smell metaphor
like upset when a reminder of the lower classes is

(36:16):
intrusive in the smallest way to their to their daily life,
especially because like the Park family only wants to deal
with anyone from the lower class as long as they
seem also like elite, you know what I mean, We're
like they he gets that little business card for like
the care which is like this elite housekeeping membership service

(36:39):
and with a lot of gates. Yeah, right exactly, And
they find Mr Kim as the driver appealing because he
was working for this wealthy family of and like the
forgery of the college degree document you know you had,
like in the and the two kids uh Kei Jung
and Q Jessica and Kevin, they actually presented themselves as

(37:01):
fellow equals, like fellow socio economic equals, like to say
that they studied abroad like Jessica says she studied in Illinois,
you know, to say that as a marker of elitism,
the way that Mrs Park specles in English whenever she can,
you know, to give these people, like to address them

(37:25):
in English names, Jessica and Kevin. You know, it's it's
a marker of elitism. And that's why I say that
US neo colonial kind of tones are in there, because Korea,
South Korea equates elitism and success and financial security with America. Well,

(37:47):
it's not working out for anybody in this concept of
I mean, I really like that poem mentioned that because
in the context of like I don't know, I don't
know if this might get two head, but in the
context of in a melodrama as a frame, right, melodrama
is oftentimes used. They say that there is a narrative

(38:08):
mode within melodrama. So when you watch a melodrama, there's
a very clear evil person and a very clear hero. Right,
Like a young girl, an orphan girl working class, works
so hard, so honest, you know, so beautiful, so caring, right,
but she just can't get out of the ships, right,
So what does she do. He's just to meet a hot,

(38:29):
rich guy and she does, and the hot rich guy
likes her because she's so honest and hard working. But
there's always an evil bitch who likes that rich guy too,
and she'll do anything to bring her down, right, And
so it's very clear who the villain is and who
the victim is. But in a neoliberal context of melodrama,

(38:51):
there's no clear villain. There's just a victim. You know,
nobody ever names the villain. Everybody always names the victimhood
like my victim and my plate. But and that that's
just a very clever way to present that, is to
say that, yeah, like in in capitalism, maybe there is
no villain after all, you know, to say, like all

(39:12):
these people are evil doers, is you know, perhaps not realistic.
Right to vilify these people would make it the characters
would be caricatures. They wouldn't be relatable at all. And
that's something we talked about on the podcast quite a bit,
although in a different context. We usually have discussed it

(39:34):
from the point of view of like certain male characters
in movies being predators and then being so cartoonishly evil
that no one would ever be able to see themselves
in someone so cartoonishly evil and they're like, well I can't.
I'm not a predator like that, So I'm not a predator.
But like exactly, not all men like you would never

(40:00):
make and it's I mean, it's and in a frustrating way,
it's just like good business to make that choice, because
you don't want your average consumer to look at something
and be like, wait a second, I feel called out.
I'm leaving, you know, like yeah, so it's easier to
go to the cartoon route exactly. And like Amy Schumer
talked about that too, where when she was like, you know,

(40:22):
people think that like rape is, you know, or sexual
assault is like they think of it very conveniently, you know,
like a stranger attacks you and an assaults you, r
rapes you. But most sexual assault happens with people you know,
people you trust, you know, somebody that's completely human in
your life. And that's what makes sexual assault all the
more traumatic and confusing. But it's not almost never depicted

(40:46):
that way in media. Never. It's never your beloved, handsome
boyfriend who has a stable job and knows your parents
really well and takes care of your younger brother. It's
never that guy. But in reality, it but more often
than that it is. It is, it's actually the prime candidate.

(41:06):
And that's what's so interesting to me about this movie
is that a lot of movies that comment on class
will be like rich people bad poor people good, poor
people can do no wrong, and it's the poor people
taking down the rich people. Which, don't get me wrong,
I like a lot of those movies, and I think

(41:27):
they have a lot of value and I find them
to be very catartic. But on the other hand, this
movie has a much more complex examination of that where
it's like it's almost like, well, the desperation of poverty
makes you have to compete with other lower class people,
and that's why that's when see to push a second

(41:48):
family into the basement so that you can live upstairs,
get other people fired so you could take their place. Yes, exactly.
There that there's the scene where the Kim family is drunk.
I feel like this is stated most succinctly where they
have this conversation. There's a few different poll quotes from
this conversation that you're like, Okay, this is kind of

(42:09):
the thesis, or it felt to me what the thesis
of the movie is. But one of the moments that
really stuck with me that I hadn't I don't know,
I hadn't given a ton of attention to in previous
watchings were when they're talking about I think it is
Q and Mr Kim start to talk about how the
driver got fired, and they're like, oh, what do you
think he's doing now? He probably got a good job,

(42:30):
he's fine. Their conscience plagues them, Yeah, but but then uh,
the daughter, who is more drunk than everyone interrupts and says,
we're the ones who need help, worry about us, okay,
And that line it never really jumped out to me before,
But that is so much of what it seems like
it's trying to be said about. Like you can't really

(42:51):
fault her for that mindset, because this is a family
that's trying to lift themselves out of poverty, and that
is a brutal experience that often requires pushing other people
down to get there, Like it grat we we we
were just saying about, I don't know, just kind of
the narrative we're presented with over and over and over

(43:11):
of you know, being lifted out of poverty, and then
you're just you've taken the place of the rich people
and you're probably gonna do the right thing. Uh, and
it's very easy and it's you know, but but this
is like the most one of the most brutal, like
funny interpretations of that experience, to the point where it's like, yeah,
she kind of has to say, we're the ones who

(43:32):
need help, worry about us, because if the Kim family
was worrying and doting on these other people, they wouldn't
be where they are. And that's not to say that
poor people are not helping each other out. That's certainly
not true. I mean we're seeing around us currently, um,
how much mutual aid is going on and how people are.

(43:54):
It's it's not to say that people are completely disinterested
in helping each other, even if they don't have a
lot of privilege themselves. But in this example and in
this large metaphor, it totally makes sense and it's like
brutal to hear. But yeah, I don't know that line
had never really jumped out to me before this viewing. Yeah,
I totally agree with everything you said. Statistically, it's the

(44:17):
people with a lower income who have more compassion and empathy.
This is this is factually true. The more money you have,
the less in touch you are with humanity and compassion
and all of that, no matter how many you know,
text adaptable charity donations in the person makes right. But

(44:38):
h so you have this sense of guilt, this conscience
that Mr Kim and and Q both kind of share.
And then ke Junk gets angry and says, you know,
focus on us, you know, we're the ones living in poverty,
and Mrs Kim also says that she's like, there's so
everybody in the family is so sweet and kind. They

(44:59):
have no goals because if you're wealthy, you of course
you'll be kind. Of course you'll be happy, you'll be nice.
You know. She was like, if I had money, I'd
be just as nice. It's like, yeah, it's kind of true.
You know, when you come from the ships, you're gonna
have some of the ship marks, the odors, and you
know you're gonna have more wrinkles, You're gonna seem a
little more refrainda edges, you know. Yeah, I loved that exchange. Yeah,

(45:23):
the whole as a family unit, it's like that that
dialogue was like, uh, it's a commentary on how complicated
it is to live in a capital society as a
low income household. And I like that it's Kei Jung
and Mrs Kim that point these things out because there
I mean in general, and this is it's not even

(45:45):
a criticism of the movie. I think it's just kind
of like, uh, something that shows up in male autour
movies all the time. It's like, at the end of
the day, it's about fathers and sons. Uh. And that's
so many movies, and that is I mean, it's not
from June Hoo's fault. It's just the fact that men
make most movies, and so this is a theme we
see a lot. So I don't know if on this

(46:07):
viewing looking for those like really clarify, like most of
those clarifying moments come from the women in the family
um and the fact that Kei Jung is the mastermind
of basically this entire plan and gets them to where
they are, which I think probably contributes to her frustration
that they're talking about something else when she is like

(46:29):
basically gotten them to all this in the first place.
That yeah, I don't know. I mean, I guess one
of the only things that I wish I had we
had more of in this movie. I wish that there
was a little more Mrs Kim, Like, I feel like
she steals every scene that she's in. She's amazing, and

(46:50):
but of the four, I feel like she's kind of
the least present. She's the last family member to get hired,
and then I don't know, I mean I think it's
just the father son dynamic that kind of takes up
more of the air in that plot, which again isn't
a problem. I just swished it you saw a little
more of her. I like her. I just really like that. Yeah,
she's Yeah. The actress's name is Um Tongue Hid and

(47:13):
she's actually in a very very popular Korean drama right
now on Netflix called Crash Landing Onto You Anyway, Yeah,
she's remarkable and her character is also really interesting. I
mean she was like, what is it, like a shot
put thrower. Yeah, I don't know what sport that is,
but she was like an Olympic athlete maybe, like she

(47:33):
was like she was an athlete. She was a silver
medal winning athlete, and like sports is such a big
deal for Korean's. You know, it's like sports is usually
a form of way out of poverty. Usually, you know,
it's like what went wrong? What we're what were wrong?
For her. I'm so curious, you know, like a silver medalist.

(47:54):
Like and the father, it's like he's done a bunch
of objects. Maybe he's the person who brought her to
and you know, she married the wrong piece of ship,
and you know, and oh and another interesting parallel was
that the Kim family they were also like they also
faced financial ruin with the cake shop. They say, like

(48:14):
a Castella Taiwanese cake shop, and like Costella is like
this this sponge cake pastry that like Koreans loved, you know,
like in the eighties and nineties because it was so
airy and fluffy and delicious, and like it was a
popular cultural product that they were selling in a lot
of bakeries. But anyway, that went bust and then they

(48:36):
were just stuck in you know, financial ruin. And in
the basement, the guys says the same thing. He's like,
oh my Costella bakery went bust and and then the
wife was like, yeah, and we took out money with
loan sharks, you know, it's much more severe than debt collectors.
Loan sharking is a huge issue in Korea. They're essentially

(48:56):
gangsters and thugs will come and break your leg you know,
destroy your house, destroy your business, kill people whatever, in
order to collect debt. And the interest rate is ridiculously high,
and it's like beyond credit cards, you know, and it's
impossible to get out of debt when you get stuck
with loan sharks. And so yeah, that's that's also like

(49:18):
this interesting parallel. It's like and how the Kim family
was in the same circumstances as the the housekeeper and
her husband, and yet they are not willing to give
up their position as of now, right, they're not willing
to really work with them. They just wanted to kind
of call the police and asked them right until the
family fell from the stairs and ruined everything. And I

(49:40):
would I would also say that, like I wouldn't say
Ki Jong is the mastermind and all of it. I
would say it's it's a it was a collective effort
between Kei Jong and Q, because Q wouldn't have gotten
that job if it wasn't for his friend right to
come in and give him that position. Ki Jong was
kind of like the a facilitator. She was good with

(50:01):
the documents this and that. I would say Q was
more of the mastermind, the one that was making all
these plans so called plans, right, just kind of calling
back to what you were just talking about Grace, where
it's kind of like the Kim's seem resistant to seeing
themselves in this other family, even though, like you were saying,
they had a very similar financial problem. Uh, and we're

(50:25):
taken advantage of in a similar way. Um. And another
example of where again it was just not something that
had jumped out to me on previous viewings, where it's
it's the scene where it's just Mr Kim and the
housekeeper's husband in the basement and Mr Kim is kind
of disgusted by the basement and it is asked basically
like how can you live here? Like how can you

(50:45):
live like this? And then the husband replies by saying, like, well,
it's not that dissimilar from you know, he doesn't know
that he said, it's not that dissimilar from your own apartment,
but that's essentially what he's saying, if like we are
not that different at all, say, and then to see
the environmental differences of and this is something we see

(51:05):
in the States all the time, of how something like
a rainstorm can seem so like nothing to a rich
family and they're kind of like, ah, the weather sucks,
but let's finger each other and our sons out in
his tent and cares and blah blah blah. They're like
fingering each other. And then people's homes are being destroyed.
You know, it's like there's a friend like community that

(51:27):
the kids are a part of and their whole life
is being destroyed. And then you've got these rich people
fingering each other on a hill and exactly, and it
was so that. I mean that scene of the rainstorm
and the father, daughter and son walking, you know, all
the way home through the rain and they're coming down
that huge you know, that was metaphorical, right, I mean,

(51:50):
like you have this rock shaped like mountains, you know,
and it's like how do you get there? But you
know all that does is come down, like you know,
you just follow them going down down down. That that
living is this huge metaphor of the basement every everybody,
all the poor living abasement, you know, and all that
rain and ship goes down there, all the rich people,
ship goes down there, and that's in their clothes, that's

(52:13):
in their stuff, and that's the smell that that comes
wafting out of them when they come in try to
meet with people in society, you know. I think the
house structure that that that big scene with the stairs
going down to their little town there, I think that
is like just the this visual metaphor of class infrastructure,

(52:37):
you know, and that mobility going upwards is so impossibly
difficult and high, and how does one do that. It's
like barely, it's barely doable. And then and then like
it's like no, it's like everybody just replaces one another's shoes, right,
It's like the Kim family kicked out everybody that was
working for the parks. And then even even the guy

(53:01):
that was hiding in the basement contentedly, right, he was like,
I mean, I just feel like I'm just of this
world now. It's like as if I was born here.
It's like it's like as if I got married here,
as as I live here. Right, That's what the housekeeper's
husband says. And it's like even that position is replaced

(53:21):
by Mr Kim, right, Like they really took over that
house like fully, and um even like I mean the
motif of the parasite is like it's like what else
can they do, you know, in order to survive? It's
like they have to lie, they have to steal. They
have to sneak out at night and try to steal
some fruit and take it back down to the basements

(53:42):
so they could eat and survive. You know, It's like
what else can they do? Yeah, certainly no one else
is making space for them to exist, so it's just
a matter of taking someone else down to take up
where they are. It's just yeah, I also like how
like we use the audience don't really even call into question, like, well,
wouldn't the Park family like what if they were to

(54:05):
meet like Mr Kim's spouse, But like, because the Park
family is so just consumed by themselves, and don't they
don't think about people lower class than them. You would
just imagine that Mr Park would never ask Mr Kim
about his wife or his children or like bother to
learn anything about them because they're far too self absorbed exactly. Yeah,

(54:30):
Like when Mr Kim, like as he's driving Mr Park
ground when whatever, he turns around to say something, you know,
and they almost get us an accident at one point,
like Mr Park says, just keep your eye on the road,
turn around right, You're you're supposed to face that way.
Not back towards me crossing a line, crossing the line
that offends him so much, you know, it's so interesting,

(54:51):
and like, just to talk a little bit more about
the basement, Like this is something I've been thinking about
a long time. And there's this there's a short story
that's very famous in Korea called Wings. It's written by
a modernist called He's Hung, and it's a story about
a man who is living in a room that is

(55:12):
it's like in the farthest back of the house, and
then there's this partition, and then beyond the partition is
the wife's room. And in order to access his room,
you have to go through the wife's room, right, So
this man is essentially stuck, right, and the wife is
like the gatekeeper, and the man is like unemployed, jobless,
He barely eats, barely gets any sunlight. Whatever he does

(55:34):
in that room is only permissible if the wife allows
him to. And the wife is a prostitute, so she
works in that other room. And and the man says,
in this other room, he's like, I'm very content with
my living here. And I felt like that was very
present in the basement scene with the housekeeper's husband. You know,
it's like and and he's hung wrote that story when

(55:57):
Korea was occupied by Japan, right, And it's like, when
you're colonized, let's say you're colonized by another imperial country,
or if you're colonized by capitalism, whatever it is, and
you become content in living there and you don't have
any desire to be mobile whatever, get out, then it's

(56:17):
like what happens? Right? And I thought that was very
much a theme in that, especially because I don't think
anybody does. That was just my reading of it. I
need to write about it before some household does well,
especially because the housekeeper's husband he worships Mr Park He
like almost looks at him as a god of sorts.

(56:40):
And I feel like that's also very I guess, just
kind of allegorical of the way society teaches people you
need to respect these rich people. You need to respect
the people with the rich jobs, and and but if
you encounter them, they're like, who the funk are you?
They don't smell, I don't like you exactly, like do
you know me? Right? And he's like he's like subservient,

(57:04):
like you know, ritualistically whenever when when anybody else walks
up those stairs, those lights don't go on. It's only
when Mr Park goes up those stairs then the lights
go on like that. And it's like when the housekeeper's
husband's down there, he goes into this like militaristic mode,
like he's saluting him, right, And I feel like again,

(57:24):
there is that you know, this colonial commentary again, like
a lot of Koreans before the division were recruited by
the Japanese for World War One and World War Two.
You know a lot of those kamakaze pilots were Koreans
who were unwilling to kill themselves, okay by crash landing
onto other countries. So yeah, there's that huge, huge US

(57:49):
military presence in Korea and all over the world. Actually
there's like, you know, over eighty countries with U S
military presence, and um yeah, I think I think a
lot of that is in there. And that's another example
too of Mr Kim kind of having a similar trait
to the housekeeper's husband that he, you know, probably wouldn't

(58:11):
want to admit that. There's I think I can think
of two examples where Mr Kim specifically. There's one when
they're drinking beer in the basement after they start getting
paid by the parks, and he's like, let's pour one
out for Mr Park, Like, it's so good of him
to give this to us, even though he doesn't know
he's giving it to us. And then again when he's
in the basement at the end of the movie, he

(58:33):
I mean, he's murdered Mr Park, but he like apologizes
to all the time, and and it's still like Mr Park,
even at his time of death, didn't know who he
was really, I mean, he just knew the facade that
he was presenting to survive. Yeah, we could have taken
another quick break, but then we'll come right back for

(58:54):
a more discussion. I wanted to bring us something that
I thought was funny and didn't really know how to
fully articulate until I m read the interview with Long
Dunho where he says there's no heroes and there's no villains. Intentionally, UM,
I think it does make it really challenging read for

(59:19):
rich people and people who are inclined to be like
but the rich people were nice. Um, And I wanted.
I wanted to shout out. I want I wanted to
shout out in a negative way. Comedian Neil Brennan who
famously could not figure out the themes in Parasite. Um

(59:41):
it was. I remember there was like a big everyone
was like dumping on him on Twitter when this happened,
and he for some reason did not delete the tweets.
But this is back in February this year. Um, he tweeted,
is it too early to say the central metaphor and
parasite didn't actually work? Who is the parasite, the richer
the pool? With that in mind, explain the third act

(01:00:02):
to me? Like he just it was really listening to
this podcast. Neil Brennan. He would never but he's very problematic. Yeah,
he's the worst. I don't like his general perspect outlook
on gender. Yeah, his his outlook, I just I've yet

(01:00:24):
to see it. And yet he is such a victim
right as we've seen in three mics. I thought it
was so interesting how like nobody gave Neil Brennan any
ship for doing three mikes, which was like a third
of it was just like this, you know, him groveling
on stage of his victimhood. And then when Hannah Gadsby

(01:00:45):
did her thing, everybody was so up in arms about
whether or not this is comedy for cultural pasttime dumping
on her. Yeah, yeah, yeah, And it's like, uh, why
don't you start with Neil Brennan's special which came out
before the Net and then question how to Gadsby if

(01:01:05):
you want to be fair New York Times, right. I
think his most recent funk up was immediately defending Chrystal
Lia but oh my God, which which really swept his
not understanding parasite even one under the rug. But I

(01:01:26):
remember that Neil Brennan insisted that Twitter explained parasite to him.
And it's funny. He's too rich. He's like, the rich
people were nice, So what's the problems like? And that's
kind of the brilliance of this movie is like there
the problem is looming over them, but it's not personified.

(01:01:47):
Grace and Jamie two people have mentioned the idea of
like the Plan and the master plan that the Kim
family kind of have like crafted and are trying to follow,
and this is a huge motif and themes throughout the
movie be And we talked about this a little bit
on our recent set It Off episode, where in that movie,
different characters discuss having a plan for the future and

(01:02:09):
what's your five year plan and stuff. Like that, and
the you know, upper class character is always like, well, yes,
of course I have a plan and it's this, and
then the lower income characters are always like, I'm just
trying to survive one day at a time. And just
the idea of like having a plan is such a
like middle or upper middle class or wealthy, privileged thing

(01:02:31):
to be able to have. And and this gets explored
quite a bit in Parasite, where you know, they form
this plan to infiltrate the Park family and to end
up working for them. It works for a very short
amount of time, but then like ship hits the fan,
even like when the former housekeeper shows up on the doorstep,

(01:02:54):
like Q is like, this isn't part of the plan.
We don't know what to do, This isn't the is unexpected,
This is not part of our plan. And then Mr
Kim gives this really great monologue after their apartment has
been flooded and they're like having to spend the night
in a gym. He says, um, you know what kind
of plan never fails? No plan at all. If you

(01:03:17):
make a plan, life never works out that way. That's
why people shouldn't make plans. With no plan, nothing can
go wrong and if something spins out of control, it
doesn't matter. None of it fucking matters, because yeah, like
people from a lower socioeconomic class just simply don't have
the resources and the privilege to form and execute plans

(01:03:37):
that actually ever work. And then the movie ends with
Q being like, here's my plan. I'm gonna get a job,
I'm gonna go to that university. I'm gonna, you know,
have a career. I'm going to make a bunch of money,
and then I'm going to buy this house. And then
you know, Dad, you're going to come out of hiding
and we're all going to reunite. But it all plays

(01:03:58):
out again is a flash forward. It's like a dream
sequence more than anything, because then it cuts back to
Q in the in his basement level apartment. It's a fantasy.
It's completely a fantasy. Yeah, there's no way he's going
to get out of that basely the way he suffered
a huge brain injury. You know, I mean he's he's
a disabled man, and he has a record. You know,

(01:04:21):
he has a criminal record, and I mean having a
criminal record and carea is also like a huge damning thing,
you know, um, being a disabled person is huge damning thing.
He actually does play with themes like that, like criminality
and disability in his other films. I would really strongly
recommend Memories of Murder by the Way. I would say

(01:04:44):
of all of his films, that's his best work. I
haven't seen that one. Yeah, I really enjoyed it. Yeah,
where did you see that? I'm just curious. I had
to find a rip of it online. Yeah there's It's
like it's not available anyway. Yeah, it's such a good movie.
The man who plays Mr Kim is also in that.

(01:05:04):
But yeah, anyway, Uh, yeah, there's always somebody with a
disability and like a lot of his movies, and I
think that's there intentionally. He has, like is making a
commentary about South Korea not making it that easy for
people with disabilities to survive and like live among everybody,
you know, harmoniously in society. Yeah. There was a read

(01:05:28):
of the planned theme that I really liked was from
that same Vulture profile. It was for I guess, from
a follow up of that profile by a writer named
e Alex Jung who we've we've quoted him before. We
put him Alex alex Jung, the same as my last name. Yeah, okay.

(01:05:51):
So Alex Jung, we have quoted him a number of times.
He writes most of the major profiles for New York Magazine,
and he's just a fucking incredible But he argues in
the follow up to the profile that Hope is the
emotional parents. So I'm quoting him. Hope is the emotional
parasite in the film, the thing that keeps us going
but sucks our marrow dry. So the whatever the true

(01:06:16):
parasite being discussed, because I feel like in the initial
wave of reviews and discussion about this film, there was
a lot of who was the parasite? Who am the parasite?
Neil Brennan, who what is a parasite? Was like, But
they didn't tell me who the parasite wasn't my third act?
People are so basic? Yeah, I mean, it's even It's like,

(01:06:38):
I mean, there is a very different example. When things
are spoon fed to them. They want somebody to say,
and I am the parasite. Oh that's why the title's parasite.
I am the devil wares product, I am the parasite.
Everyone wants that Spartacus moment, like that moment Poisoned, I

(01:07:03):
am a demon Prince. I'm quoting I Frankenstein. Now I
am I Frankenstein. Uh he does say that though, Uh
he basically does, But but I do. I mean that
is I think the most discinct read of what if
there is a parasite that it's it's that desire to

(01:07:25):
want to keep trying to make a plan in spite
of all evidence to the contrary, which is kind of
what capitalism encourages you to do. Is like, oh, who
cares how many times this dream kicks you in the
face and tells you to funk off and tells you
you smell and tells you you know, just works against
you in every way. Just get you know, bootstrap, get
back up, try again. You've got this American capitalist Christian mentality. Yeah,

(01:07:49):
like pay your dues, Yeah, suck it up, keep going.
And it's like, what does that say? They're like, if
you keep doing something over and over again, expecting a
different result every time, you're a psychopath, right, Like that's
everybody in a capital of society. That's literally everybody, you know.

(01:08:09):
But yeah, I mean with the planned thing though, I
think alex Is reading is so beautiful. It's like an
inverse Shawshank redemption. Right, Morgan Freeman is like Hope kills
a man, like hope drives a man crazy. And then
like the guy he's like, you know, he writes work
your freemane letters like hope is a beautiful thing or

(01:08:29):
blah blah blah. Yeah, yeah, and it's like like, no,
it doesn't. It makes you cool, destroy you, It will
destroy everything inside of you, your family, everything you love.
But yeah, I think that's a really lovely reading to
say that Hope is the parasite for sure. I mean

(01:08:50):
his plan at the end that I mean, in a way,
it feel like hopes like that even though in your
heart of heart, of heart of hearts, you're like, this
is not going to fucking happen like that, I could
see how that would be necessary to his continuing to
survive is like hoping that things will change or hoping
that this might be attainable, even though we watching it

(01:09:11):
know that it is deeply unlikely that that will ever happen. Right.
It's like everybody has this inner will to live for
some reason, even the guy in the basement with who
has literally no life, no sunlight, no Netflix, you know,
how does he pass the time? Right? And it's like

(01:09:32):
he's still living, he's still stealing food and living. He's
going on. Oh and in the Mr Kim's monologue, which
I love that monologue, Um and you you read it beautifully.
But he does also say, you know, when you're making
these plans, like even if you don't even if it's
not in your plan, you know, in the spur of

(01:09:52):
the moment, like you might kill a man, you might
say country. He says those things. I think that's very
important because you know, again like create as a colony
had to do those very things. You know, like a
lot of people had to in order to keep their
wealth or attain wealth, they had to sell their country

(01:10:13):
out and you know, align with the Japanese imperial forces.
A lot of people had to do that. And then
when North and South was divided, a lot of South
Koreans had to go into hiding because they were like,
well you were you you were a traitor to your country.
You know, there was a lot of that too. But
a lot of those people continue to retain their wealth.

(01:10:34):
I knew that's where Samson comes from. Um. Yeah, you
have a lot of that, a lot of murdering, especially
you know during the Korean War when when you know,
it's like you couldn't tell who is a communist who
is not? You know, how can you tell that there's
no marker of communism per se. A lot of innocent
people lost their lives because of this whole this paranoia

(01:10:56):
which comes from McCarthyism, you know, because from the US
it's a it's a constructed paranoia that was injected into
other countries, right, this paranoia over the Kami and a
lot of innocent people lost their lives. And there's actually
a a movie um that was set on Chiju Island,
which is like an island just off the coast to
South Korea. It belongs to South Korea, but it's like

(01:11:18):
they're an island. So their languages, like their their dialect
is also very unique too in Chiju. But a lot
of innocent people lost their lives on that island during
the Korean War, Like people showed up and they were like,
are you a communist? And they're like, what's a communist?
And they get shot? You know what I mean? It
was literally like that, you know. And when Americans were there,

(01:11:40):
you know, in Korea bombing the ship out of Korea,
they couldn't tell who was a North Korean who was
a South Korean. Right, They just simply couldn't how could
you tell? You know, And that's where the word gook
comes from. You know a lot of these derogatory, racially
and ethnically derogatory terms come from military speaking military, because

(01:12:00):
you have to create an enemy, right, and you have
to make them consciously, have to lower them in your brain, right,
you have to dehumanize them in order to kill justify them. Exactly. Yeah,
So this rational this hyper rationalizing of killing a man,
of selling out your country. It's also kind of this
capitalist motif. You know, this hyper hyper rationalizing is done

(01:12:22):
in capitalist systems. This happens a lot. It's like, oh,
like I will lose thirty five pounds in a month
because I will fit into that dress for that film role,
because they told me to. Because it means wealth, it
means fame. I will do it because I'm not I'm
not selling my soul out, I'm not disrespecting my body.

(01:12:44):
I'm doing it for a job. I'm doing it for money,
which I will give to my family to whatever. Right.
It's a hyperrationalizing. We're all under that, including the Kim family,
including the Park family. Everybody well even yeah, in the
way that the Kim family needs to lower a family
very similar to themselves in order to rationalize killing them,

(01:13:06):
like even like and when they first encounter the housekeeper
and her husband in the basement, and the housekeeper is
like pleading with the Kim and like, sis, come on, sister,
we have a sisterhood, we're in the we're of the
same ilk, we are in the same class and and
and Mrs Kim is like, no, we're not, like fuck
you uh. And then as soon as the tables turn

(01:13:28):
she has to take the exact same approach and be like, please, sister,
come on. And it's just like everybody's replaceable. Everybody's replaceable.
And on the other end of that, where the Kim
family has to, you know, bullshit to survive so often
and so much, and they have to do it with
people who are in there who are also poor, and

(01:13:49):
then they have to do it with the Park family,
where I mean, like, some of the funniest moments in
this movie just involved how easily the Park family is
able to be convinced that something is luxury is top
of the line because of how it's framed to them
and how it's presented to them where the Key Jung
scene where she's the art therapist and she's just like

(01:14:12):
speaking bullshit and she says later like I googled art
therapy and like ad lived the rest. But she just
she's the word schizophrenia, yeah, the schizophrenia zone. I'm like,
well that's not good. Yeah, she just made that, not
a doctor, just made it up. And again I think
it's because she was English. You know, like these English

(01:14:33):
words you know, make it sound like key Jong knows
what she's talking about. And so Mrs Park is just
like okay, yeah, yeah, Mrs Park is interesting too as
a character. I would say she's really interested. I had
never I guess that this is the closest I've ever
looked at her character specifically because I was curious, and
I mean, the Park family represents a lot of you know,

(01:14:54):
elitism and a lot of rich people, uh stuff right,
But but it feels she really encapsulates the ignorance of
a rich family where I mean it's mentioned in that
scene we talked about that she's so nice and she's
and naive. Yeah, yeah, that deep naivete that she will.

(01:15:15):
I mean that we hear her described as young and
simple before we ever meet her by men um in
a scene where they are I mean, we haven't even
talked about the relationship with the teenager atte but we'll
get there. I mean, it's like, I feel like it's
clear to the viewer that she thinks that she's doing
the right thing. She is trying to be a good mother,

(01:15:37):
she is trying to be a good wife. But it's
not what she's thinking about that's the problem. It's what
she is not thinking about defines her like and makes
her look bad. Is she's not thinking about the people
around her. She's not thinking about her employees. She doesn't
I mean, her and Mr Park don't ever ask the
Kim's anything about themselves, which is part of the reason

(01:15:59):
there is because that the way with so much is
because the Parks don't care who they are or what
their background is. They just need the right pitch of
like the elitism we talked about before. You know, I
have studied abroad, I've done this, I've done that, And
they're like, okay, great, I will believe whatever you say
good enough, and I don't want to hear anything else
about you ever again. Stopped talking to me. Yeah, yeah,

(01:16:21):
that's such a good point. Like when Mr Kim gets
Mr Park the care card and then Mrs Park calls
the care's phone number and then Keep Jong picks up
the phone and pretends to be that gatekeeper, the manager
at the care. She's like asking for all these documents,
a the ded to your house, social security number. She

(01:16:44):
like she knows the Parks inside out right takes all
of their information down and Mrs Park is just like, okay,
you need the title to my house. Fine, makes sense,
it makes sense to me, right, And she's like so
desperate you could see and mean the nisan sin is
like she's pulling out the dishwasher that's overpacked, like you

(01:17:06):
should never moan a dishwasher like that, yeah, you know.
And then and then it's like, you know, she's clearly suffering,
like you know, and Mr Park says, it's like my
wife sucks at household duty, you know, and she just
desperate to stop doing that, Like she wants to sit
out on her in her garden on her patio and
take a nap like we that's how we first encounter her, right,

(01:17:28):
and you know, just to not do those things, she'll
she'll give away the house, like all of those all
that information, no problemoy, she thinks housework is beneath her.
She never got good at it because she's never had
to do it. Yeah, why, just like it's been spoon
fedts over spoon, Like, what do you mean I have
to do these things? Just make the lady do it.

(01:17:49):
And in the same way, Mr and Mrs Parker able
to be convinced the absolute worst of people that they
find lesser than them. And that's part of the reason
the Kims are able to get their jobs is because immediately,
I mean, this was another thing I hadn't really considered
super carefully because the scene is pretty funny, how grossed
out Mr and Mrs park are by finding underwear in

(01:18:12):
the car and she touches her face with the gloves
and then it's like, oh no, like like you just
touched those underwears. This movie is very funny. But but
the subtext to that scene is they jump from finding
a parent like a pair of underwear in the back
of a car to our driver, who has far less
money than us, is probably addicted to drugs and it

(01:18:33):
is probably doing this and and the Kims are, I mean,
they know that these rich people have all these preconceptions
of what poor people are like, and if you just
give them the smallest scrap of anything, they're going to
catastrophize it into this completely false narrative and and fire
someone instead of just instead of I mean that whole
thing is, yeah, asking one thing, it's like they don't

(01:18:59):
want it to it with any kind of discomfort, including
an uncomfortable conversation right at the end. The fucked up
thing is they don't give them a chance to explain
or possibly improve. It's like you suck up once you're out,
and they don't tell you why they're out in you.
That's the That's a constant thing that comes up with

(01:19:20):
every single person that's fired. They never they never, they
They're always like, you know, I'm not going to say
like that I found, you know, a bloody tissue and
the thing, I'll just you know, make up something and
ask her to leave some vague excuse. With the With
the driver too, it's like some something big I'm not
going to talk to him about, like whether or not
yet sex with a you know, a hooker who's on

(01:19:41):
drugs in the backseat of my car. I'm not going
to ask that. I'm just gonna maybe, you know, just
make some make up, some excuse and fire, and that
again comes you know, it ties into this motive of
social mobility being impossible. Right, It's like if somebody fires
you without cause, without explaining to you why, without having
a conversation, it's an injustice, you know. And they can't.
I mean, this couple can't even be straight with each other.

(01:20:03):
Like they can't. How they can't. Yeah, like she she
does not tell Mr Park why she's fired the housekeeper, Like,
there's just and he doesn't ask either. Yeah, he's just
my wife won't explain, You won't tell me. But it's fine.
They're simply living a lie. They really are every convenient lie. Yeah.

(01:20:27):
So I wanted to about Mr Kim and Queues relationship,
even though I mean we we kind of reference often,
like how father son relationships are usually given more narrative
weight in movies in general than mother son, mother daughter
whatever it is. But even though that is true of

(01:20:48):
this movie, I really really appreciate how emotionally open this
father son relationship is. I feel like that's usually the
friction in a father son relationship is like, but we
just can't talk to each other. Men can't express themselves.
But I mean from the jump, Mr Kim is so

(01:21:08):
effusive with his praise and how proud he is of
both of his kids. Um where I didn't when when
Ki jung Um forges the document, he's like, Wow, you're
a genius. You did it. You're amazing. And when k
discusses his first plan at the beginning of the movie,
when he's going off to the Park's house and he's like,

(01:21:29):
I'm going to go to college and you know this
is temporary, and then I'm going to do this, this
and this, and Mr Kim is like thrilled. He's like,
I'm so proud of you. That's amazing. Good job. And
I really appreciated seeing a father son relationship where the
conflict is not that they are being dishonest or not
emotionally open with each other. I feel like you don't

(01:21:50):
see that very much. Yeah, they're they are very open
as a family. I noticed that too, Like the children
kind of like cursing a lot in front of their parents,
like they swear a lot, Like they say she boy,
like over and over again, like very casually. And I
was just like WHOA, Like what does that mean? She
by means like fuck, It's like it's a swear word.
They say she by all the time, and I was

(01:22:11):
just like wow, like I couldn't speak that way in
front of my parents, like I curse but in English,
like I couldn't this curson Korean in front of them,
you know, Like that's just like another level of I
don't know, like rebellion and trust that I just simply
don't have in me, I guess, uh. But yeah, they're
they're quite open, and it's like they they're very tightly

(01:22:32):
knit because they're co dependent on one another, you know,
And it's like you see a lot of that among
lower income communities and families, like you have to depend
on one another, Like a farm will not function without
you having twelve children, you know what I mean, you
need to have those twelve kids in order for the
farm to really work. So yeah, it's definitely visible, especially

(01:22:55):
where the parks, I mean with their children as well.
There's just there's only walls and kind of seeing how
those walls are kind of a privilege in even though
you can tell, I mean, the park's daughter is kind
of suffering from the lack of communication and attention that
her parents will give her. They clearly think that their
son is hot shit and is a favoritism here definitely,

(01:23:20):
And I mean I think Mrs Park goes kind of
out of her way to be like, I don't think
my daughter is very smart, but we'll just kind of
miss that part. She mentions that, like she's she's struggling
in school, where she's kind of saying like, oh, my
son made a drawing and he's a genius. And then
she's like my daughter, like it just her. Yeah, she
says something like um, regardless of her grades, implying that

(01:23:42):
she doesn't get good grades despite her having this intensive tutoring,
which kind of transitions into talking about Q and their
daughter as well. But I mean it's like she's she's
she definitely has some emotional suffering going that. I mean,
the movie doesn't really have full She's neglected by her family.

(01:24:03):
The son absorbs everything, not only because of this past
trauma that he has, but also because of this potential
genius whatever he has, Like the father obviously favors. When
he comes home, he shouts, you know, passon, he like
calls the son that's like all the daughter. You know,
it's very obvious, like who is the center? Like the

(01:24:25):
centerpiece of this household, and it's definitely the son. And yeah,
she's neglected. And when she gets some attention from her
male tutor, who is she is under age and he
is in his twenties, it's completely inappropriate. She does it.
And it's like, of course she did it with the
other guy, right, with mini help the friend. Right, It's like,

(01:24:47):
and we want to be really careful about how this
is framed, because you know, she's a child. She is
not to blame here. It's the adult. It's key who
is seeing how she's neglected, you know, seeing her vulnerability ease,
And even if his intentions aren't nefarious, doesn't matter. It's
still very wrong. It's still predatory. Exactly. It's exactly what

(01:25:08):
Crystallia did to all those girls. Yeah, God damn, I
knew Crystallya was gonna weasel his way into the podcast.
And then and then Neil Brennan's like, Krystalia good, he's good.
He's a good boy. I mean that relationship, that's like
I think one of the It's it's interesting though, because

(01:25:29):
it's grace. If you mentioned this a bit ago, the
kind of traditional lifting yourself out of poverty, narrative in
movies tends to be, you know, like an attractive person
from a higher class pays you mind, and all of
a sudden you're lifted and everything is so easy, which
is kind of becomes over time. Qu'es original plan is

(01:25:50):
he does seem to like her. We think it's not
like a complete falsehood, even though it is deeply I mean,
he should not be pursuing this child, right, but but
it does seem like that as a part of the
original plan of like, oh, this girl likes me, so
I'm gonna I mean, similar to he kind of just
co ops men's original plan, which is to wait it

(01:26:13):
out until she leading university, right, so she goes to
college and then marry into this family and be set
for life in the way that exactly. I mean, it's
I guess it's it's a bit of a It is
this subversion in that not only is it kind of
gender swapped, uh, it also doesn't work, uh and shouldn't work.

(01:26:34):
But you do, I mean, you do feel for her
because it's like she the kids are like not they're
not necessarily doing anything wrong. They're yeah, they're just children. Oh,
he shouldn't have pursued a fifteen year old, you know,
just right. And I don't know like what the movie
is trying to say exactly with this predatory relationship. I

(01:26:55):
don't know if it's like again, like the desperation of
poverty and like here's what you might stoop to to
try to get out of poverty, you know, like being
a predator or being a murderer. And I don't think
this movie is saying that, like, if you're poor, you're
going to be driven to murder and predatory behavior. And

(01:27:16):
that's a blanket statement across the board. No, the movie
isn't saying that. It's it's an explanation of the motives. Yeah. Yeah,
I've seen a few the few mis misinterpretation or not misinterpreting,
I mean, no interpretations wrong, but basically just saying like,
uh there. There was an article in The Guardian that
basically makes the argument of like, well, doesn't this movie

(01:27:39):
just say that if poor people have access to a
rich person's lifestyle that they will then murder and prey
on people. But I don't think that that's what this
movie is really saying at all. And I mean even
the criticism that I've seen, I've this is a piece.
I don't know, I just disagree with this writer's uh statement.
Her name's Hannah yun Uh and this was a piece

(01:28:02):
that was in the Guardian in February of this year.
But her argument, which I understand, but she's she's basically
like kind of dumping on the Kims uh for the
second the parks leave, they start drinking and like having fun, which,
first of all, this family does not get to fucking
have fun. And I don't know what bothers me about

(01:28:24):
that read of their behavior is it completely lines up
with the no plan mentality that this family you know,
generally has to thrive on of Like if not, now,
when are they going to get the chance to drink
all this overpriced, like ridiculous alcohol and like eat and
have fun and talk with each other and like yeah, yeah,

(01:28:47):
like the rich families on vacation, why shouldn't the the
poor family also go on vacation? Right, And they're just
restributing to themselves, Yeah, yeah, yeah. Does anyone have any
final thoughts about the film? I mean, we haven't necessarily
discussed the representation of gender that much, but also like

(01:29:09):
I didn't even know what else what to say about it,
aside from just like there's gender parity in the cast
of characters between men and women. The female characters are
all actively participating in the story in meaningful ways. There's
a few kind of like slightly gendered things that I

(01:29:29):
notice where it's like, oh, well, like, of three of
the four major female characters in the movie, one of
the main things we know about them is how good
or bad they are at domestic housework. But I mean that,
like it's like kind of the men that are discussing that,

(01:29:50):
and it's like, well, what do they care about these
female characters? And then it's the first thing they think
to discuss, So I write, I'm like, I'm gonna give
him the benefit of the data that one. Yeah, it
didn't like bump me too much. Um yeah, Puma, he's
a like of the Korean like Oh tours, the male
O tours that are heralded by can and all these

(01:30:13):
other top tier one film festivals around the world. I
would say Punino was like of the tamer you know,
because a lot of these other filmmakers Koreano tours are
very misogynistic, you know, Puck ton of being one of them,
you know, with Old Boy and all that ship but
I have a lot of admiration and respect for Puno.
He's not necessarily my favorite Korean filmmaker, but um, I

(01:30:37):
think he tries to strike a balance in his movies
and he casts really good people, like just a quick think.
He did have another like underage teenage girl having sex
with an older man in his two thousand nine film Mother,
So this is like, this is a thing that comes up,
and I just wish he wouldn't fetishize that too much. Yeah,

(01:30:58):
he had. He has two short films that really excellent.
One is called Influenza and it's again that's like another
class commentary of crazy society. And Shaking Tokyo, which is
part of an Omnibus, is a really really good um
short film that's set in Japan and it's got pizza
boxes with this Hiko Morty character, which is really interesting.

(01:31:20):
So um, I would recommend those two short films by him. Good. Yeah,
I'll check this out. Yeah, check them out. One thing
that I thought was kind of funny that I didn't
notice that. I thought it was funny that the only
like heralded rich person above criticism in this movie the
Architect and Architect, which I was just like okay, you know,

(01:31:43):
but he does have a taint, like a smudge of
you know, because he built these He built this home
with this bunker that was made for rich people to
survive if there was an attack from North Korea or
to escape creditors like debt collectors, you know what I mean.
So this was a haven that he created for the
elite class to get away, and he never told the

(01:32:06):
parks about it because he was ashamed of it. And
this is what the housekeeper mentions, right, So I thought
that was fascinating. Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's I. I
thought that that that character was playing and it does
seem like his father was um. He was a graphic
and industrial designer, so it means like that might be
him discussing his father a little bit. Who knows, um.

(01:32:28):
And then the last thing I wanted to bring up,
just because it's like a very it also connects to
something that's going on a lot in the States right now,
is kind of the the WiFi motif. I guess you
could call it, but it's just reference. It's the first
time I've seen WiFi access treated seriously in terms of
like it being a real problem if you don't have

(01:32:50):
access to WiFi where it seems like, I mean, I've
just heard that problem is dismissed so many times off
like you don't need a computer, like you know, that's
a privilege, not a but at this point that is
absolutely not true there, I mean right now where there
are so many students that are attending school digitally. There
was a whole story the day we recorded this about

(01:33:11):
students having like sitting outside of taco bells to have
access to WiFi in order to free WiFi go to school, right,
didn't to have a quiet room so that they can
have classes live digitally to study WiFi access. Even the
strength of your WiFi um not only the laptop and tablets,

(01:33:32):
but the strength and then this other undergird of like
where does all this e waste go? You know, like
us having WiFi? Who does that hurt? In what country?
All of that is is Actually Toby Miller is a
really good scholar you guys can look into if you
want to learn more about the waste and global inequality. Cool.
Thanks for that. Well, does parasite pass the Bechtel test?

(01:33:58):
That's the real question. That's the most important class commentary.
Who cares? But Bachtel test? Uh? It does, it does,
it does just barely. Yeah, there are some discussions where
it's I mean, we can pick it apart all day.
I don't think it's super relevant to this specific movie,

(01:34:18):
but there are some conversations between women where a man
isn't explicitly mentioned, but he is kind of like the
underlying theme. Either way, it passes and even but like
you know, it's like when it comes to that sex
scene when he's like fingering her nipple and she's like,
oh clockwise, I'm like, honestly, a guy fingering my nipple

(01:34:40):
does nothing for me because you know, it's like I understand,
I understand sexuality is complex, but come on, Mrs Park,
like really, you know, like you want him down in
between your legs, you know, in your bush, like his
face in your bush, man, Like, don't lie. Stop lying
to him that clockwise counter. It doesn't matter. It's ever

(01:35:00):
been a directional nipple issue. Yeah, that was never the problem.
It was just like stop it, you know, just like
can be like yeah yeah yeah with that, like I
was just just barely passes. It's like that doesn't know
female sexuality. I don't know, right, I mean, and it
would pass more handily if he had given more significant

(01:35:25):
to the mother daughter relationship in the Kim family or
in the Park family, which he really doesn't, and whether
or not this is a deliberate decision made or whether
he's just kind of not equipped as a writer to
be able to write those relationships. It would have been
nice to see a little more between, especially in the
Kim family. Yeah, but like with all the women, they
were all about like their men. You know, the housekeeper

(01:35:47):
was everything was about like, you know, taking care of
that husband in the basement with um, you know, the
Mrs Park was all about taking care of her quote
unquote six son, you know, and her and her husband,
not her daughter, not her daughter. And with Ms Kim
and Kei Jong, it was again it was about like
he was planned. Yeah. So yeah, I think in that
sense it's somewhat problematic, but yeah, it just barely passes.

(01:36:10):
Yeah for sure. Well that brings us to our our
nipple scale, the pectel Cast nipple scale, which is speaking
of clockwise counterclockwise nipple today it's today it's clock clockwise
nipple scale, yes, in which we rate the movie on
a scale of zero to five nipples. Um, just examining

(01:36:30):
it from an intersectional feminist lens. I don't and I
don't know what to do with this movie really, because again,
there wasn't much of a conversation to be had necessarily
specific to gender. I mean, obviously the class component is
the far bigger conversation surrounding this movie. UM So, I
guess I would I would give it like a three

(01:36:53):
or three and a half. Again, I think different female
characters could have had more agency or could have been
given more focus. I think that the relationship between Q
and the young daughter was why is it They're not
really sure what the function of that is, or there's
like there was another way to make that point that

(01:37:15):
was right. Yeah, so I guess I'll give it a three.
As much as I love this movie and as much
as like looking at it from a screenwriting point of view,
I'm just like loss Chef's Kiss, and I think it
is an effective class commentary that explores a lot of
really interesting themes in a way that we haven't necessarily
seen explored in that way before of a lot of

(01:37:36):
class commentary movies. UM So, I appreciated that, but I
guess from a more gender perspective, I'm like it could
do better. So three nipples, um, three clockwise nipples, and
I'll give one to each of the little dogs whose
names I forget. I think one was like Foo food.
One I don't remember, that was definitely j Yeah, so

(01:38:00):
each dog, because I'll go for a three as well. Yeah. Again,
it's like, in terms of how much I enjoy and
appreciate this movie, it's a million nipples. In terms of
class commentary, it's a million nipples. But yeah, from a
from a gender perspective, Um, I'll also go at three.
And I also think on top of what we're talking

(01:38:23):
about in terms of the predatory relationship and how um,
the Park's daughter is kind of sideline and ignored and
mistreated in a way that you see but isn't really
examined in any meaningful way. When I feel like there
is space for that, and just as much as there
was space for a relationship between the Kim women, like

(01:38:43):
there there was space for that that would have uplifted
the rest of the movie. And I also, uh, well,
I don't know, maybe this is like but I was
thinking a little bit. I'm like, I feel like it
is so devastating to lose Key Jung at the end
of this movie. Yes, yes, yeah, but I think that

(01:39:04):
impact would have hit even harder if we had had
more time with her, and if we had gotten to
know her more outside of her relationship with her father
and her brother, which is what we see more of
and we don't I mean, but again, it's like that
we we do know things about her. We know that
she is very talented, we know that she's really smart,

(01:39:24):
she's a queer icon now she gay men love her. Yeah,
hell yeah, she's she's fucking awesome. But I do. Yeah,
I think that if we had had more time with her,
especially her and her mother. Yeah, I don't, I don't know.
I'm like, I I understand why. You know, our rich
had to die a pole or had to die and

(01:39:44):
the ending completely works and makes sense. But yeah, I
was sorry to see her go to Yeah, of the
of the four as well, it's like she had I
don't know, she was just awesome. Yeah. Yeah, So I'll
go with three for Parasite and let's see. I guess

(01:40:05):
I will give two to Keijung rest in power, and
I will give one to the housekeeper who didn't do
anything wrong. I felt so bad for her. I know
she's and that actress is amazing, She's so many things.
Um yeah, I would give it a two out of

(01:40:25):
five in terms of gender because again, like I saw
like a lot of the focus was, you know, the
women's focus was on men oftentimes more so than anything else.
And yeah, I think you still can do a little
bit more when it comes to exhibiting gender equality or

(01:40:45):
giving women a little bit more substance in in his screenplays. Yeah,
his first film Barking Dogs Never Bite with Pidna, Like,
she has a very interesting role, Like she's very much
a strong role in there, and I feel I would
like to see him kind of go back to more
of that. Yeah. Cool, I'll have to check that one

(01:41:06):
out too. Yeah. Well, Grace, thank you so much for
being here. This was incredible for having me. I hope
that our Korean pronunciations did not uh ruined. You girls
have to stop that like that put so much burden
on us. We're just like we kind of don't care.
It's like you guys care more than we do, and

(01:41:29):
putting that on us is like it can get annoying sometimes.
It's like within this frame, you did too much of that.
It's like you could just start with it and then
stop saying it for the rest of the things, you
know what I mean, I don't have to apologize every
single time. You know, it's like it's it's fine. It's
like I said, it's no big deal. Yeah cool. Yeah,
thank you for saying that. That's a good learning moment

(01:41:50):
for us, and I'm sure some of our listeners will
find that helpful as well. And thank you so much
for for joining us, for being here. Where can people
check out your stuff, check out your writing? Follow you online? Yeah?
So my handle is h J. It's a E C
h J A y. You could find that on Instagram, Twitter, TikTok.

(01:42:14):
It's also my website. Uh yeah, and you know I
post show updates there. Um sometimes I do videos, but yeah,
please follow me. I would really appreciate it. Thank you,
This is really fun. Thank you come back anytime. I
would love to come back. Thanks. Of course, we'll have
you back soon, y um. And you can follow us

(01:42:37):
on social media at becketel Cast. You can subscribe to
our Patreon ak Matreon It's patreon dot com slash becktel
cast yep uh and it gets you to bonus episodes
every month, plus access to the entire back catalog. Just
like it's like seventy eight episodes at this point, some
seventy ish. Yeah, this show has been on for seventy

(01:42:58):
five million year. Still going strong. It's still going just
still so many movies left to cover. And then our
t public store where you can get all of our
merch t public dot com slash. The Bechtel Cast just
had to end on a little bit of capitalism for
you at the end of our parents that were like
also by our merge, yeah, but by our stuff, give

(01:43:21):
us money, subscribe to our Patreon. But yeah, I mean,
do what you can to help out your fellow human being.
That's what will end on. Bye bye bye

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