Speaker 1: On the Doll Cast, the questions asked if movies have
Speaker 1: women in them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands,
Speaker 1: or do they have individualism? The patriarchy? Zef invest start
Speaker 1: changing it with the beck Del Cast. Hey, Caitlin, Yes,
Speaker 1: Jamie starting to think capitalism might be dot dot dot
Speaker 1: not so great with Wait what? Um? Well, that was
Speaker 1: what I got for an opening love? You know, I
Speaker 1: just I feel like I've really like my my opening
Speaker 1: game has really diminished lately. And I don't know if
Speaker 1: it's just because like my it's nine trillion degrees in
Speaker 1: my brain is just boiling inside of my skull, or
Speaker 1: or if it's all finally getting to me, you know.
Speaker 1: Personal apologies for that real lukewarm opening. I could have
Speaker 1: done better, and I will strive to do better. Jamie,
Speaker 1: don't apologize. I mean this is a this is a
Speaker 1: difficult time. Well, welcome to the Bectel Cast. Name is
Speaker 1: Jamie Loftus, my name is Caitlin Darante, and this is
Speaker 1: our our little podcast where we talk about some incredible
Speaker 1: movies and some not incredible movies using an intersectional feminist
Speaker 1: lens for discussion. That's right, and we use the Bechdel Tests,
Speaker 1: often known as the Bechtel Wallace Test, as a way
Speaker 1: to just inspire a larger conversation in That is a
Speaker 1: media metric created by queer cartoonist Alison Bechtel, and it
Speaker 1: requires that, for our purposes are sort of modified version
Speaker 1: of the test. Two people from a marginalized gender must
Speaker 1: have names, they must speak to each other, and they
Speaker 1: must not talk about a man. Many movies don't do it,
Speaker 1: but but but some movies do. But sometimes it happens.
Speaker 1: That's just the nature. It's kind of a past failed test.
Speaker 1: There's not really un middling, although sometimes there's those fun
Speaker 1: ones like like the one we have to have a
Speaker 1: whole conversation about it. Sometimes two women with with names,
Speaker 1: or just apologizing over nothing like like I was doing,
Speaker 1: you know, just two minutes ago. So um, you know
Speaker 1: there there are shades of gray there as well. But
Speaker 1: I'm really really really excited to talk about today's movie
Speaker 1: popular request and uh and one of my face yes,
Speaker 1: And we have a terrific guest joining us today. She
Speaker 1: is a comedian. She is a PhD candidate in Cinema
Speaker 1: and Media studies, and her academic publications have covered such
Speaker 1: things as television studies, Korean media, Asian American history, gender
Speaker 1: and sexuality. It's Grace Young. Hello, Hi, welcome, Thank you
Speaker 1: so happy to be here. We're happy to have you
Speaker 1: so Grace. Tell us about your general relationship with the
Speaker 1: film Parasite. Oh yeah, we did. Also we're covering Parasite.
Speaker 1: We were like, we were like, um, a popular request,
Speaker 1: but leave your guessing as to what movie. I know.
Speaker 1: I was like, why am I here? Who are these people? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I I love this movie Parasite. Um. I've been I've
Speaker 1: been following the filmmaker poem Jun host career for a
Speaker 1: long time, and I would say that he's like the
Speaker 1: first Korean filmmaker to really make it into the mainstream
Speaker 1: zeitgeist in the United States and other parts of the world. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I really love his filmmaking. Um. Interesting side note
Speaker 1: on Punch. You know, he studied sociology in college, so
Speaker 1: he actually did not study filmmaking per se. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I would say because of his educational background, a lot
Speaker 1: of his movies cover sort of that, like the sociological
Speaker 1: kind of critique of Korean society and capitalism a lot.
Speaker 1: And uh yeah, I mean I I was very excited
Speaker 1: to see the movie because I saw in the trades
Speaker 1: that he had won the Palm door for his latest movie, Parasite,
Speaker 1: and I was like, Okay, that's a big deal because
Speaker 1: you know, like a Korean filmmaker, to win a palm
Speaker 1: door I can is a big deal. And then um,
Speaker 1: I went to see it in theaters with a friend,
Speaker 1: another creative American friend. It was her birthday. I went
Speaker 1: to see it. I thought the movie was so astounding,
Speaker 1: like such a such an amazing movie. You know, like
Speaker 1: I watch a lot of films because you know, I
Speaker 1: work in film and write about film, but like I
Speaker 1: hadn't seen a movie that made me feel that like
Speaker 1: elated and so long and um. Yeah. Right after the
Speaker 1: movie ended, as we were leaving, my friend immediately wanted
Speaker 1: to talk to me about and I was like, you
Speaker 1: have to stop talking right now. I just I just
Speaker 1: need to go home and process this alone. And so
Speaker 1: I just I just went home processed it, and then
Speaker 1: I texted like like two other creative American friends of mine,
Speaker 1: and I just like Parasite, you have to see it.
Speaker 1: We have to see it together, and like they want
Speaker 1: to see it by themselves. And then we went as
Speaker 1: a group together to go and see it again, and
Speaker 1: um yeah, it's like a film that I could keep
Speaker 1: returning to. I think it's really well done for sure.
Speaker 1: Hell yeah, Jimmie, what about you? This was one of
Speaker 1: I mean, this is in no way a hot take.
Speaker 1: It was one of my favorite movies I saw last year.
Speaker 1: I saw it a couple of different times in theaters
Speaker 1: and this was kind of embarrassingly my first movie from
Speaker 1: from this director. I hadn't seen anything else because before
Speaker 1: this podcast started, I didn't watch a ton of movies. Um.
Speaker 1: But after seeing Parasite, I went back into his film
Speaker 1: catalog and now I've seen the majority and I haven't
Speaker 1: seen um I think two of his films. But um yeah,
Speaker 1: I just kind of uh swiveled into becoming a stand
Speaker 1: and I love this movie. I hadn't seen it in
Speaker 1: a couple of months, and it was really fun to
Speaker 1: go back to after not having been watching it like
Speaker 1: once a week towards the beginning of the year. Um yeah,
Speaker 1: but I really love it. Yeah, Caitlin, what is your
Speaker 1: experience with this movie? Pretty similar? Um? I had seen
Speaker 1: a few of his films in the past, uh, And
Speaker 1: I went into Parasite not knowing anything about it, and
Speaker 1: because I had seen the host and because the movie
Speaker 1: is called Parasite, I thought it was also going to
Speaker 1: be like a monster movie. I was like, oh no,
Speaker 1: just kidding, it's not that at all. Um. I'd also
Speaker 1: seen snow Piercer, and I was like, Okay, it's more
Speaker 1: aligned thematically with snow Piercer because of like the class commentary. Um,
Speaker 1: but I hadn't seen Oakcha, which I saw. I watched
Speaker 1: over the weekend, and I have never I've just saw
Speaker 1: being at the end of like the kind of sobbing
Speaker 1: where you're just you can't breathe because you're crying so hard. Anyways, Caitlin,
Speaker 1: did you need an out Did you need outlet? I
Speaker 1: mean it's very sad, but the animals, those super piglets
Speaker 1: and anyway, Um, I was traumatized. In any case, I
Speaker 1: I do really enjoy his filmography and I love to Parasite.
Speaker 1: I only saw it once in theaters, but I've seen
Speaker 1: it a number of times since then because it came
Speaker 1: out on Hulu, so I was very thankful. Feminist icon Hulu,
Speaker 1: owned by Fox was like Disney Capitalist. Have you seen
Speaker 1: those Disney reboots for sure. They're feminists cash grab at all. Okay, So,
Speaker 1: um uh should I just dive into of the recap
Speaker 1: and we'll go from there. Yeah, let's do it. I
Speaker 1: like how we asked that question every single episode. O,
Speaker 1: thank you for asking for consent before starting to recap. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, I just want to make sure we're all
Speaker 1: on the same page. Alright. So we meet the Kim family.
Speaker 1: It's a mother, father, son, and daughter. I believe the
Speaker 1: son and daughter are in their late teens, maybe early twenties.
Speaker 1: Not entirely sure early because at the end you find
Speaker 1: out how old the daughter was because it says she
Speaker 1: was born. Got it, I missed that detail. Good to
Speaker 1: know in any case. Um, they come from a low
Speaker 1: socio economic background. They live in this like semi basement
Speaker 1: level apartment. Their phones have been shut off, they don't
Speaker 1: have access to WiFi anymore. They do kind of odd
Speaker 1: jobs like folding pizza boxes for work for money. Then
Speaker 1: one day and apologies in advance for all of the
Speaker 1: horrible pronunciations I'm going to do of these Korean characters names.
Speaker 1: But k the Sun gets a visit from his friend Min,
Speaker 1: who brings the family this stone that is meant to
Speaker 1: bring like wealth and prosperity to the family, and he
Speaker 1: is also leaving to study abroad. It's fun when the
Speaker 1: when the stone comes in, You're like, oh, it's a
Speaker 1: metaphor stone. I wonder what the metaphor will be, but
Speaker 1: it just even when I don't know, you know, you
Speaker 1: can sometimes tell it's a metaphor just by the way
Speaker 1: it's framed. You're like, well, it's fun because like it's
Speaker 1: but it's also like plant and payoff, so it's like
Speaker 1: it has a narrative purpose, it has a symbolic purpose.
Speaker 1: Even Ques is like, this is metaphorical. Um, just making
Speaker 1: fun of people watching the movie in the all time.
Speaker 1: It's great. Um. So anyway, so Min is leaving to
Speaker 1: study abroad and he wants to recommend Q for his
Speaker 1: old job tutoring a girl from a rich family. Q's
Speaker 1: sister helps him forge a college degree I think um
Speaker 1: or some kind of official academic document, and he goes
Speaker 1: in for an interview and he meets Mrs Park, who
Speaker 1: is naive and gullible. She interviews him and gives him
Speaker 1: the job. He also meets the teen girl that he'll
Speaker 1: be tutoring, and the young son, we also would think.
Speaker 1: At this point meet the Park's housekeeper, so Mrs Park
Speaker 1: then also tells him that her son, let me check
Speaker 1: the pronunciation here, her son Dosson, needs an art teacher,
Speaker 1: and Q is like, I know of someone who might
Speaker 1: be a good fit this classmate of my cousin, and
Speaker 1: who he really means is his sister Key young and
Speaker 1: Um Illinois, Chicago. Yes, yes, And so Mrs Park gives
Speaker 1: them English names, Kevin and Jessica, which I might default
Speaker 1: to using for the sake of again not continuing to
Speaker 1: embarrass myself every time I fail and pronounce pronounced them
Speaker 1: just fine so far, Okay, thank you so much. I'm
Speaker 1: very self conscious about it, but you're welcome. You're so welcome.
Speaker 1: I just don't want to be disrespectful. Okay. So Jessica,
Speaker 1: pretending to have the necessary credentials and experience, gets the
Speaker 1: job doing art therapy for the young son Um. And
Speaker 1: then we also meet the father of the rich family,
Speaker 1: Mr Park, and his driver takes Jessica home and she
Speaker 1: leaves her underwear in the car, planting it as incriminating evidence,
Speaker 1: knowing that it will probably get him fired, which it does.
Speaker 1: So now that driver position is open for Mr. Kim
Speaker 1: to be able to get that job. Now, the only
Speaker 1: thing they have left to do is to get rid
Speaker 1: of the Park family's housekeeper, um so that their mom,
Speaker 1: Mrs Kim, can have that job. Enter the Peach. Yes,
Speaker 1: this one's a little trickier because the housekeeper has been
Speaker 1: working in this home for years and years, but they
Speaker 1: use her peach allergy against her, and they're able to
Speaker 1: get her fired by convincing Mrs Park that the housekeeper
Speaker 1: has tuberculosis. Just like one of the funniest secrets in
Speaker 1: the movie that the whole sequence is just so fucking funny.
Speaker 1: It's like when they're like shaving the little peach fuzz
Speaker 1: off the peaches and collecting it in like a tiny
Speaker 1: little vial the house at the end. It's just great. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So then Mrs Kim gets tired as the Park family housekeeper,
Speaker 1: and now they're all working for this rich family and
Speaker 1: one day the Parks go on a camping trip up
Speaker 1: the Kims are like, well, let's see what it's like
Speaker 1: to live lavishly in this upscale home. So they're eating,
Speaker 1: they're drinking, they're carrying on. But then someone shows up
Speaker 1: at the door and it's the old housekeeper who says
Speaker 1: she left something behind, so Mrs Kim reluctantly lets her
Speaker 1: in the house. She goes down into the basement and
Speaker 1: it turns out there is a secret bunker down there.
Speaker 1: This is what we would call the midpoint of the film. Um,
Speaker 1: and it's not as though I have a screenwriting master's
Speaker 1: degree or anything like that. I'm the least educated person
Speaker 1: in the chat and killing me, Okay. So they go
Speaker 1: down into this secret bunker where the former housekeeper's husband
Speaker 1: has been living for the past four years because he
Speaker 1: is hiding from debt collectors. Now Mrs Kim threatens to
Speaker 1: call the police on the former housekeeper and her husband,
Speaker 1: but just then her family, who had been eavesdropping on
Speaker 1: this whole interaction like like tumble down the stairs, uh
Speaker 1: and accidentally reveal themselves, and the old housekeeper, who recognizes
Speaker 1: all of them and realizes that they have been lying
Speaker 1: about who they are, threatens to expose them to the
Speaker 1: Park family. A big fight breaks out between them, and
Speaker 1: then the Park family calls to be like, hey, it's raining.
Speaker 1: The camping trip has been cut short. We're on our
Speaker 1: way home. We're we'll be there in eight minutes, so
Speaker 1: everyone has to scramble. The Kim's drag the housekeeper and
Speaker 1: her husband back down into the basement. There's violence, and
Speaker 1: then the Park family arrives back home and the meal
Speaker 1: is made. It looked so good. The Kim family hides
Speaker 1: in the living room under the coffee table. Uh. They
Speaker 1: try to escape, but get delayed because Mr and Mrs
Speaker 1: Park are right there jerking each other off on the
Speaker 1: couch in matching pajamas. Too. It is just never not
Speaker 1: disturbing to watch. And I'm like, I know, you're like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, I'm do do your thing, but in
Speaker 1: matching pajamas the realist portrayal of a married couple of
Speaker 1: sex life. Yeah, imagining gray pajamas jerking each other off, joylessly,
Speaker 1: each other off like their their son is an a
Speaker 1: tent mirror yards away, like alright, gang, do you? So
Speaker 1: they're right there and Mr Park thinks that he can
Speaker 1: smell Mr Kim's smell because he has commented on how
Speaker 1: different members of the family have commented on how the
Speaker 1: Kim family has a distinct kind of foul smell about them.
Speaker 1: So eventually the Kim family are able to escape, so Kevin, Jessica,
Speaker 1: and Mr Kim return home, but their basement level apartment
Speaker 1: has been flooded with sewage water because of this storm
Speaker 1: that's happening. And then they're trying to figure out what
Speaker 1: to do about this situation with the previous housekeeper and
Speaker 1: her husband. Then the next day, the Park's throw an
Speaker 1: impromptu birthday party for the Sun and they invite Kevin
Speaker 1: and Jessica and Mr and Mrs Kim are there working
Speaker 1: and helping out with the party. And then during the party,
Speaker 1: Kevin goes down to the basement. He discovers the old
Speaker 1: housekeeper who has died from her head injury, and the
Speaker 1: housekeeper's husband bashes Kevin on the head, and then he
Speaker 1: goes out into the party. Also she's she's told her
Speaker 1: husband to like vow to kill Mrs Kim or at
Speaker 1: least attempt to kill Mrs Kim right yes, And then
Speaker 1: the housekeeper's husband goes out into the party and stabs Jessica.
Speaker 1: All hell breaks loose. Then Mr Kim sees Mr Park
Speaker 1: being disgusted by the smell that he smells on like
Speaker 1: the housekeeper's husband. So Mr Kim stabs Mr Park and
Speaker 1: then runs off and no one knows where he is
Speaker 1: at first, but then some time passes, Q has survived
Speaker 1: his head injury. He figures out that his dad is
Speaker 1: in the bunker, and he forms a plan to become
Speaker 1: rich enough that he can buy the house that his
Speaker 1: dad is hiding in and then they can all reunite.
Speaker 1: And we see this play out as a kind of
Speaker 1: flash forward, but it cuts back to the present. He
Speaker 1: is still in like the basement level apartment, implying that
Speaker 1: that's probably never going to happen. The end. That the end,
Speaker 1: it's a very uplifting film. Yeah, just brings joy. Um,
Speaker 1: So that's the story. Let's take a quick break and
Speaker 1: then we'll come right back to discuss and we're back. Um.
Speaker 1: Something that I wasn't totally aware of before I started
Speaker 1: researching for this episode was I mean, I know that
Speaker 1: this movie really resonated with American audiences, but I didn't
Speaker 1: know that much about the socioeconomics of uh, South Korea.
Speaker 1: I am kind of running on like a basic subpar
Speaker 1: American history education as it is. So I prior to
Speaker 1: preparing for this episode, only new kind of the basics
Speaker 1: on South Korean history like next to nothing, And so
Speaker 1: for those of you that are in the same boat
Speaker 1: as me on that. Uh. Here are a couple of
Speaker 1: quick facts. This is from uh literally socialist dot net,
Speaker 1: if you can believe feminist icon socialist it's a little
Speaker 1: website called socialist dot net. But just to contextualize the
Speaker 1: class disparity in South Korea. So this is from a
Speaker 1: piece by Andy south work about parasite. Quote. Korea had
Speaker 1: barely developed under the yoke of Japanese imperialism at the
Speaker 1: end of the Korean War in nineteen fifty three. The
Speaker 1: South remained a largely rural economy with a very low
Speaker 1: standard of living. In the period immediately following the war,
Speaker 1: the South was totally dependent on the US. It followed
Speaker 1: the guidance of their American masters by relying on the
Speaker 1: quote unquote free market to provide development. This growth was
Speaker 1: driven by the rise of state sponsored conglomerates called I
Speaker 1: don't know if I'm seeing this correctly UM shy balls
Speaker 1: uh C, H A, E, B O, L S, Shabou,
Speaker 1: which came to totally dominate the economy. The shade balls
Speaker 1: were run by the country's elite families, who use corruption
Speaker 1: and their state contacts to a mass humongous fortunes. They
Speaker 1: of course made sure that their wealth was passed on
Speaker 1: to their children. On the basis of this development, a
Speaker 1: new working class was formed in the cities and a
Speaker 1: massive wealth divide opened up with skyrocketing inequality. After the
Speaker 1: Asia find aancial crisis, several shape balls went bankrupt, and
Speaker 1: Korea entered a period of mass unemployment. Parasite hints that
Speaker 1: this is the background to both the Park's wealth and
Speaker 1: the Kim's poverty unquote. So that was just I wasn't
Speaker 1: aware of the context of I mean, I guess that
Speaker 1: this story certainly reads to any audience that has a
Speaker 1: background of mass you know, income inequality. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: just didn't know that for listeners that don't know, Yeah,
Speaker 1: tip is the word, not shape boat, but yeah, tip
Speaker 1: is a it's a it's a huge problem in South Korea, Like,
Speaker 1: for instance, Samsung is a chip boy corporate conglomerate, Samsung,
Speaker 1: you could kind of imagine it to be like a
Speaker 1: massive it's like, you know, you have Apple iPhones and tablets,
Speaker 1: you have Samsung mobile phones and tablets. In fact, I
Speaker 1: saw a Samsung cell phone that blew my mind. It's
Speaker 1: it's a it's just it's a glass, you know, typical,
Speaker 1: but it folds. My god, oh I've yeah, I've heard
Speaker 1: about these or like say no, no, no, no, you
Speaker 1: have to see it. You have to see it with
Speaker 1: your own eyeballs. It's like watching it is still mind blowing.
Speaker 1: Like I would see this in Korean dramas a lot
Speaker 1: because that's you know, embedded marketing. And when I saw that,
Speaker 1: I was just like, I want that phone so badly,
Speaker 1: you know, funck Apple, I don't care anymore. Samsung, you
Speaker 1: have outdone yourself. But yeah, others are a huge problem.
Speaker 1: For instance, some this film was executive produced by Mickey Lee.
Speaker 1: Mickey Lee is the daughter of Samsung. Corporate conglomerate because
Speaker 1: Samsung is associated with c J and c J well
Speaker 1: it's actually a food conglomerate, but c J has a
Speaker 1: subdivision called c J Entertainment, which handles filmmaking, TV and
Speaker 1: some music, so they have a lot of cable channels.
Speaker 1: They own a newspaper, so it's a huge corporate conglomerate.
Speaker 1: Damn um. So yeah, these tippos are a problem, and
Speaker 1: there are a problem because it's again it's like a
Speaker 1: family based thing, right, So Nepotism is a big issue.
Speaker 1: Corruption is a big issue. Cronyism is a big issue.
Speaker 1: And so Mickey Lee, what's ironic about this film winning
Speaker 1: an oscar and some I saw some people on social
Speaker 1: media talk about this too, is that Mickey Lee is
Speaker 1: like this daughter of this huge tipo establishment and yet
Speaker 1: she's the one that's executive producing a film that has
Speaker 1: a very sharp social critique of capitalism, right, And that
Speaker 1: goes to asking like, well, how, like what's what parallels
Speaker 1: do we have in the United States? Like you know,
Speaker 1: I mean Fox is now owned by Disney, but before that,
Speaker 1: like you know, when when you have The Simpsons or
Speaker 1: Family Guy on on Fox, which always has a critique
Speaker 1: of these mega corporations, right, it's like, how how impactful
Speaker 1: is that critique when it is owned under the umbrella
Speaker 1: of a huge corporate conglomerate. Right. Yeah. The irony, the
Speaker 1: like perhaps hypocrisy of it all is yeah, But then
Speaker 1: it comes into that whole discussion of like it feels
Speaker 1: fucking impossible to make to get anything funded without some
Speaker 1: sort of corporate underlying It is possible, but it's like
Speaker 1: the hill is infinitely higher, and like, you know, imagine
Speaker 1: how much harder it would have been for this movie
Speaker 1: to get funded without the corporate underwriting. And I mean
Speaker 1: it just goes back to like the no no ethical
Speaker 1: consumption argument. Yeah it's I mean, even even if a
Speaker 1: person does make a film without any of those corporate ties,
Speaker 1: the goal is still to sell it, you know, to
Speaker 1: have it distributed. And if that film, let's say, a
Speaker 1: pure little film grassroots right, somehow made it big. The
Speaker 1: first person that's going to be on the phone contacting
Speaker 1: the filmmaker is somebody who is going to compromise all
Speaker 1: of those things for that person. And will that person
Speaker 1: say no? Most likely no, they will say yes all right,
Speaker 1: if you want to if you want to be successful
Speaker 1: as an artist, if you want to pay off your
Speaker 1: your three credit cards that you maxed out in order
Speaker 1: to make that film, you're gonna say yes. And um yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't blame Punju at all for for doing that.
Speaker 1: You know, it is like how much awareness do you
Speaker 1: have of that? Like do you make these things with
Speaker 1: that full awareness? You know? Um, knowing that all of us,
Speaker 1: all of us are are tied to that. We're still
Speaker 1: bound to that, um whether we like it or not.
Speaker 1: I mean, we're on iHeart radio right now, Like exactly,
Speaker 1: I noticed there is quite honestly no escaping it, right,
Speaker 1: And how do you like without that funding, Like it
Speaker 1: would have been as difficult to make as it would
Speaker 1: have been for Q to like earn enough money to
Speaker 1: buy the that Park house and like rescue his dad.
Speaker 1: Like it's just it's not in the socio economic structures
Speaker 1: that many countries operate under. It's simply not possible social
Speaker 1: mobile like upboard mobility, damn near impossible. Yeah, And I
Speaker 1: think that's so important to highlight. Like, first of all,
Speaker 1: what that shows, or what this discussion shows, is that
Speaker 1: capitalism is actually a lot more complex, right, It's more
Speaker 1: complex than us just saying capitalism is the evil of all.
Speaker 1: It's like, yeah, okay, that's true, but we're still working
Speaker 1: within this framework of capitalism. What what can we do?
Speaker 1: You know? And then what you just said about social
Speaker 1: mobility is like I think it's so it's key to
Speaker 1: this film. It's like a key marker of this film,
Speaker 1: this concept of the odor, right, this odor that offends
Speaker 1: Mr Park so much. And then Mr Park goes and
Speaker 1: tells his wife, Mrs Park about she didn't even have
Speaker 1: any awareness of it, he tells her about it, and
Speaker 1: then the next day she notices the stench of Mr.
Speaker 1: Kim right, which goes to show like, oh, well, she's
Speaker 1: really under the thumb of her husband, you know, a
Speaker 1: very impressionable wife. And he says something very interesting about
Speaker 1: this odor. He's like, I like Mr Kim because he
Speaker 1: never crosses that line. I don't like GI when people
Speaker 1: across the line. But that odor crosses the line. And
Speaker 1: that's a very very like clear cut rationale that all
Speaker 1: rich people have. They don't want the poor to be
Speaker 1: socially mobile. They simply do not, because as soon as
Speaker 1: a person is socially mobile, right they crossed this so
Speaker 1: called line, they loose that person to to continue to
Speaker 1: function in their big houses, with their cars, you know,
Speaker 1: with their with their regular lavish, convenient lifestyle, and so
Speaker 1: they do not want social People with power do not
Speaker 1: want the poor to be socially mobile, because then they
Speaker 1: don't have anyone left to exploit. The smell works on
Speaker 1: so many levels on like I don't know, when I
Speaker 1: first saw the movie, I was like, I I guess
Speaker 1: like semi triggered myself because that was, like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: I grew up in like a family with that smell,
Speaker 1: and it's a literal metaphor in some ways where it's
Speaker 1: like the most deeply humiliating thing. You Like, it's one
Speaker 1: of the most deeply humiliating feelings I've ever felt, is
Speaker 1: hearing someone else talking about how you smell, thinking you
Speaker 1: can't hear them, like it's the worst feeling in the world.
Speaker 1: And then on top of that, I thought it was
Speaker 1: really interesting that even when I mean it's also metaphorical right,
Speaker 1: where there's nothing they can do to get the smell off,
Speaker 1: they actively try to use different soaps. They're like trying
Speaker 1: to strategically. That's like the one part of this whole
Speaker 1: ruse that the Kim family has going that gives them away.
Speaker 1: It's like that somehow being poor is you can't wash
Speaker 1: it off, you can't hide it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you
Speaker 1: can't hide smells and a smell offense, right, it's a well,
Speaker 1: it depends on the smell. But if it's a smell
Speaker 1: you don't like, it offends and it's something you can't hide, yeah,
Speaker 1: like you said, it gives it away, gives your status away.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I thought this use of the odor was
Speaker 1: really clever. I thought it was a really clever device
Speaker 1: in the film. Yeah, And like I was reading this
Speaker 1: piece by Laura Marks. She writes it's like a it's
Speaker 1: a it's an academic piece, a journal article, but she
Speaker 1: talks about the smell as a potential sensory tool for analysis,
Speaker 1: like analyzing a film or media. And I was just
Speaker 1: thinking about like colonization to a certain extent. So, like
Speaker 1: Korea is. South Korea is now a developed a nation.
Speaker 1: It's one of the wealthier nations in the world now,
Speaker 1: but there is still such a thing as global hierarchy, right,
Speaker 1: And as we as we know, after the Korean Civil War,
Speaker 1: South Korea and North Korea were separated because of USSR
Speaker 1: and US Cold War tensions. So Russia Soviet Union was like,
Speaker 1: will take care of North Korea. US, you take South
Speaker 1: Korea and will be cool. Right, So Korea was divided
Speaker 1: because of foreign Cold War tensions, and you know, South
Speaker 1: Korea was pretty much right after its liberation from Japanese colonation,
Speaker 1: which lasted from nineteen to nine, South Korea was like, okay, well,
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess we're technically free, but now they
Speaker 1: weren't free, right, Like USSR and US took over all
Speaker 1: of those spaces and occupations and roles that Japan was occupying, right,
Speaker 1: And when the Japanese colonized South Korea, they had this
Speaker 1: notion that like, oh, Japan was going to be the
Speaker 1: new imperial empire in Asia, and they were going to
Speaker 1: colonize all these countries and you know, they were going
Speaker 1: to become just as successful as the West, just as
Speaker 1: you know, imperial as the West. That was the dream
Speaker 1: Japan had. And then of course, you know, the United
Speaker 1: States bombed the ship out of Japan and destroyed the
Speaker 1: country and you know, lost World War Two. But Japan,
Speaker 1: the Japanese, like during this colonization process with Korea, they
Speaker 1: had this sanitation policy. So the Japanese would look down
Speaker 1: on the Koreans and say, you know, they're so backward,
Speaker 1: and you know they're very agrarian. Like you said that
Speaker 1: it was a rural economy. South Korea's full of mountains
Speaker 1: and fields, a lot of farming um, and they were like,
Speaker 1: they don't know sanitation, you know. And and the Japanese
Speaker 1: didn't like the smells of of South Koreans because of
Speaker 1: what whatever their lifestyle was like. And so not only
Speaker 1: do you have that, but you also have this the
Speaker 1: cuisine of South Korea, where there's a lot of fermentation.
Speaker 1: So you have like you know, ten jong, which is
Speaker 1: a soybean fermentus soy being paste, and then you have kimchi.
Speaker 1: As everybody now knows. Back in when I first immigrated
Speaker 1: to the United States and I brought my Korean food
Speaker 1: lunch to my ps Brooklyn Public School, Okay, the horror, right,
Speaker 1: the trauma that it left on everybody because I brought
Speaker 1: a role of keep up to class. I mean, it
Speaker 1: was just unbelievable, right, the smell of sesame oil, the
Speaker 1: smell of fermented kimchi. The smell and this this lunch
Speaker 1: story is like universal. You could ask, you could literally
Speaker 1: grab any Asian off the street and be like, do
Speaker 1: you have a lunch story with white people? And they
Speaker 1: would be like, yes, yes, I do. It's like a
Speaker 1: childhood it's like a ritual. It's a rite of passage
Speaker 1: into childhood, immigrant childhood trauma in the United States. And
Speaker 1: so you have the smell that fence, the fermentic cabbage
Speaker 1: smelled a fence. But today you have white people eating
Speaker 1: kinchi in their cars like a salad with no problem.
Speaker 1: Why how how does that happen? Right? And so like
Speaker 1: South Korea went through this huge globalization process in the
Speaker 1: in the nineties, this president in Kim Yong's ham was like,
Speaker 1: I want South Korea to be just as globally branded
Speaker 1: and successful as Japan. Right, because by the nineties, like
Speaker 1: Japan was kicking as like Sony was global. You know,
Speaker 1: Japan had a huge steak in Hollywood through Sony. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, you know they had Walkman okay, Walkman's you
Speaker 1: know that came from Japan. It Hello Kitty everywhere, right,
Speaker 1: Japanese fashion sushi was a huge thing, right, and um,
Speaker 1: you know, everybody was getting down with Japanese products, and
Speaker 1: Korea was like, we need to get there, right because
Speaker 1: you know, the Korea doesn't have a lot of natural resources,
Speaker 1: they don't have a lot to explore, and they needed
Speaker 1: to make it economically and so um, they started, you know,
Speaker 1: doing this global branding process and kimchi was a big
Speaker 1: part of that. So it's it's no accident that's suddenly
Speaker 1: white people are eating kimchi in their cars like a salad. Okay.
Speaker 1: This was very much like a step by step procedure
Speaker 1: that South Korea went through as a government. K Pop
Speaker 1: being global that's also not an accident. Korean dramas being
Speaker 1: on Netflix is not an accident. Korean films winning a
Speaker 1: can palm door is not an accident. You know, like
Speaker 1: the Korea has been trying Korean films Finally winning an
Speaker 1: oscar is not an accident. Korea has been trying to
Speaker 1: win an oscar for decades and they finally was able
Speaker 1: to do this and so um, yeah, globalization is a
Speaker 1: big part of this. And uh, I will also say,
Speaker 1: you know, US neo colonialism is also a big part
Speaker 1: of this because it's like Korea had to convince the
Speaker 1: United States that, you know, Korea was not a stinky
Speaker 1: country or you can get down with the stink. You know,
Speaker 1: it's an acquire your stench. It's an acquired odor, acquired taste,
Speaker 1: and you can get down with it. And it's like
Speaker 1: this the branding thing tricks to you, you know, it
Speaker 1: gets people on board and South Korea has been doing
Speaker 1: it for thirty years and they finally did it. Damn wow.
Speaker 1: That yeah, that's such helpful context. Thank you for truly
Speaker 1: like there, we we are very much on a learning
Speaker 1: learning curve here, so that is incredibly helpful for I
Speaker 1: mean even in understanding how the Parks behave in this
Speaker 1: movie where there's like I had I was sort of
Speaker 1: guessing my way around it previous in my previous reads
Speaker 1: of the movie, where I mean they are very responsive
Speaker 1: to Western culture. I think that there's like that commentary
Speaker 1: in there with their son's fixation on Native American culture
Speaker 1: and the native culture and also the cowboy culture that
Speaker 1: is kind of the you know, false colonial inverse to it,
Speaker 1: and as well as how easily they're fooled. So like
Speaker 1: one of the themes that I really that like hit
Speaker 1: for me more on this viewing, um, just having read
Speaker 1: through more interviews with the director is the fact that
Speaker 1: the Parks aren't necessarily They're not made out to be
Speaker 1: these villains necessarily, which is cool. I mean, you still
Speaker 1: aren't extremely upset when Mr Park dies at the end,
Speaker 1: like he has it coming. It is cathartic, uh to
Speaker 1: see him go down for treating poor people so dismissively.
Speaker 1: But I there is a quote from Bung junho Uh
Speaker 1: that he did in a really incredible Vulture profile from
Speaker 1: last year where he says basically that it is a
Speaker 1: movie with no heroes and no villains. And even though
Speaker 1: the Parks are made out to be more gullible, dismissive,
Speaker 1: and ignorant of the lower classes, rather than actively whatever
Speaker 1: rubbing their hands together, patting the cat and saying like
Speaker 1: I know exactly what they'll do, they're completely unaware, uninterested
Speaker 1: and I mean even to bring back the smell metaphor
Speaker 1: like upset when a reminder of the lower classes is
Speaker 1: intrusive in the smallest way to their to their daily life,
Speaker 1: especially because like the Park family only wants to deal
Speaker 1: with anyone from the lower class as long as they
Speaker 1: seem also like elite, you know what I mean, We're
Speaker 1: like they he gets that little business card for like
Speaker 1: the care which is like this elite housekeeping membership service
Speaker 1: and with a lot of gates. Yeah, right exactly, And
Speaker 1: they find Mr Kim as the driver appealing because he
Speaker 1: was working for this wealthy family of and like the
Speaker 1: forgery of the college degree document you know you had,
Speaker 1: like in the and the two kids uh Kei Jung
Speaker 1: and Q Jessica and Kevin, they actually presented themselves as
Speaker 1: fellow equals, like fellow socio economic equals, like to say
Speaker 1: that they studied abroad like Jessica says she studied in Illinois,
Speaker 1: you know, to say that as a marker of elitism,
Speaker 1: the way that Mrs Park specles in English whenever she can,
Speaker 1: you know, to give these people, like to address them
Speaker 1: in English names, Jessica and Kevin. You know, it's it's
Speaker 1: a marker of elitism. And that's why I say that
Speaker 1: US neo colonial kind of tones are in there, because Korea,
Speaker 1: South Korea equates elitism and success and financial security with America. Well,
Speaker 1: it's not working out for anybody in this concept of
Speaker 1: I mean, I really like that poem mentioned that because
Speaker 1: in the context of like I don't know, I don't
Speaker 1: know if this might get two head, but in the
Speaker 1: context of in a melodrama as a frame, right, melodrama
Speaker 1: is oftentimes used. They say that there is a narrative
Speaker 1: mode within melodrama. So when you watch a melodrama, there's
Speaker 1: a very clear evil person and a very clear hero. Right,
Speaker 1: Like a young girl, an orphan girl working class, works
Speaker 1: so hard, so honest, you know, so beautiful, so caring, right,
Speaker 1: but she just can't get out of the ships, right,
Speaker 1: So what does she do. He's just to meet a hot,
Speaker 1: rich guy and she does, and the hot rich guy
Speaker 1: likes her because she's so honest and hard working. But
Speaker 1: there's always an evil bitch who likes that rich guy too,
Speaker 1: and she'll do anything to bring her down, right, And
Speaker 1: so it's very clear who the villain is and who
Speaker 1: the victim is. But in a neoliberal context of melodrama,
Speaker 1: there's no clear villain. There's just a victim. You know,
Speaker 1: nobody ever names the villain. Everybody always names the victimhood
Speaker 1: like my victim and my plate. But and that that's
Speaker 1: just a very clever way to present that, is to
Speaker 1: say that, yeah, like in in capitalism, maybe there is
Speaker 1: no villain after all, you know, to say, like all
Speaker 1: these people are evil doers, is you know, perhaps not realistic.
Speaker 1: Right to vilify these people would make it the characters
Speaker 1: would be caricatures. They wouldn't be relatable at all. And
Speaker 1: that's something we talked about on the podcast quite a bit,
Speaker 1: although in a different context. We usually have discussed it
Speaker 1: from the point of view of like certain male characters
Speaker 1: in movies being predators and then being so cartoonishly evil
Speaker 1: that no one would ever be able to see themselves
Speaker 1: in someone so cartoonishly evil and they're like, well I can't.
Speaker 1: I'm not a predator like that, So I'm not a predator.
Speaker 1: But like exactly, not all men like you would never
Speaker 1: make and it's I mean, it's and in a frustrating way,
Speaker 1: it's just like good business to make that choice, because
Speaker 1: you don't want your average consumer to look at something
Speaker 1: and be like, wait a second, I feel called out.
Speaker 1: I'm leaving, you know, like yeah, so it's easier to
Speaker 1: go to the cartoon route exactly. And like Amy Schumer
Speaker 1: talked about that too, where when she was like, you know,
Speaker 1: people think that like rape is, you know, or sexual
Speaker 1: assault is like they think of it very conveniently, you know,
Speaker 1: like a stranger attacks you and an assaults you, r
Speaker 1: rapes you. But most sexual assault happens with people you know,
Speaker 1: people you trust, you know, somebody that's completely human in
Speaker 1: your life. And that's what makes sexual assault all the
Speaker 1: more traumatic and confusing. But it's not almost never depicted
Speaker 1: that way in media. Never. It's never your beloved, handsome
Speaker 1: boyfriend who has a stable job and knows your parents
Speaker 1: really well and takes care of your younger brother. It's
Speaker 1: never that guy. But in reality, it but more often
Speaker 1: than that it is. It is, it's actually the prime candidate.
Speaker 1: And that's what's so interesting to me about this movie
Speaker 1: is that a lot of movies that comment on class
Speaker 1: will be like rich people bad poor people good, poor
Speaker 1: people can do no wrong, and it's the poor people
Speaker 1: taking down the rich people. Which, don't get me wrong,
Speaker 1: I like a lot of those movies, and I think
Speaker 1: they have a lot of value and I find them
Speaker 1: to be very catartic. But on the other hand, this
Speaker 1: movie has a much more complex examination of that where
Speaker 1: it's like it's almost like, well, the desperation of poverty
Speaker 1: makes you have to compete with other lower class people,
Speaker 1: and that's why that's when see to push a second
Speaker 1: family into the basement so that you can live upstairs,
Speaker 1: get other people fired so you could take their place. Yes, exactly.
Speaker 1: There that there's the scene where the Kim family is drunk.
Speaker 1: I feel like this is stated most succinctly where they
Speaker 1: have this conversation. There's a few different poll quotes from
Speaker 1: this conversation that you're like, Okay, this is kind of
Speaker 1: the thesis, or it felt to me what the thesis
Speaker 1: of the movie is. But one of the moments that
Speaker 1: really stuck with me that I hadn't I don't know,
Speaker 1: I hadn't given a ton of attention to in previous
Speaker 1: watchings were when they're talking about I think it is
Speaker 1: Q and Mr Kim start to talk about how the
Speaker 1: driver got fired, and they're like, oh, what do you
Speaker 1: think he's doing now? He probably got a good job,
Speaker 1: he's fine. Their conscience plagues them, Yeah, but but then uh,
Speaker 1: the daughter, who is more drunk than everyone interrupts and says,
Speaker 1: we're the ones who need help, worry about us, okay,
Speaker 1: And that line it never really jumped out to me before,
Speaker 1: But that is so much of what it seems like
Speaker 1: it's trying to be said about. Like you can't really
Speaker 1: fault her for that mindset, because this is a family
Speaker 1: that's trying to lift themselves out of poverty, and that
Speaker 1: is a brutal experience that often requires pushing other people
Speaker 1: down to get there, Like it grat we we we
Speaker 1: were just saying about, I don't know, just kind of
Speaker 1: the narrative we're presented with over and over and over
Speaker 1: of you know, being lifted out of poverty, and then
Speaker 1: you're just you've taken the place of the rich people
Speaker 1: and you're probably gonna do the right thing. Uh, and
Speaker 1: it's very easy and it's you know, but but this
Speaker 1: is like the most one of the most brutal, like
Speaker 1: funny interpretations of that experience, to the point where it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: she kind of has to say, we're the ones who
Speaker 1: need help, worry about us, because if the Kim family
Speaker 1: was worrying and doting on these other people, they wouldn't
Speaker 1: be where they are. And that's not to say that
Speaker 1: poor people are not helping each other out. That's certainly
Speaker 1: not true. I mean we're seeing around us currently, um,
Speaker 1: how much mutual aid is going on and how people are.
Speaker 1: It's it's not to say that people are completely disinterested
Speaker 1: in helping each other, even if they don't have a
Speaker 1: lot of privilege themselves. But in this example and in
Speaker 1: this large metaphor, it totally makes sense and it's like
Speaker 1: brutal to hear. But yeah, I don't know that line
Speaker 1: had never really jumped out to me before this viewing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I totally agree with everything you said. Statistically, it's the
Speaker 1: people with a lower income who have more compassion and empathy.
Speaker 1: This is this is factually true. The more money you have,
Speaker 1: the less in touch you are with humanity and compassion
Speaker 1: and all of that, no matter how many you know,
Speaker 1: text adaptable charity donations in the person makes right. But
Speaker 1: h so you have this sense of guilt, this conscience
Speaker 1: that Mr Kim and and Q both kind of share.
Speaker 1: And then ke Junk gets angry and says, you know,
Speaker 1: focus on us, you know, we're the ones living in poverty,
Speaker 1: and Mrs Kim also says that she's like, there's so
Speaker 1: everybody in the family is so sweet and kind. They
Speaker 1: have no goals because if you're wealthy, you of course
Speaker 1: you'll be kind. Of course you'll be happy, you'll be nice.
Speaker 1: You know. She was like, if I had money, I'd
Speaker 1: be just as nice. It's like, yeah, it's kind of true.
Speaker 1: You know, when you come from the ships, you're gonna
Speaker 1: have some of the ship marks, the odors, and you
Speaker 1: know you're gonna have more wrinkles, You're gonna seem a
Speaker 1: little more refrainda edges, you know. Yeah, I loved that exchange. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the whole as a family unit, it's like that that
Speaker 1: dialogue was like, uh, it's a commentary on how complicated
Speaker 1: it is to live in a capital society as a
Speaker 1: low income household. And I like that it's Kei Jung
Speaker 1: and Mrs Kim that point these things out because there
Speaker 1: I mean in general, and this is it's not even
Speaker 1: a criticism of the movie. I think it's just kind
Speaker 1: of like, uh, something that shows up in male autour
Speaker 1: movies all the time. It's like, at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, it's about fathers and sons. Uh. And that's
Speaker 1: so many movies, and that is I mean, it's not
Speaker 1: from June Hoo's fault. It's just the fact that men
Speaker 1: make most movies, and so this is a theme we
Speaker 1: see a lot. So I don't know if on this
Speaker 1: viewing looking for those like really clarify, like most of
Speaker 1: those clarifying moments come from the women in the family
Speaker 1: um and the fact that Kei Jung is the mastermind
Speaker 1: of basically this entire plan and gets them to where
Speaker 1: they are, which I think probably contributes to her frustration
Speaker 1: that they're talking about something else when she is like
Speaker 1: basically gotten them to all this in the first place.
Speaker 1: That yeah, I don't know. I mean, I guess one
Speaker 1: of the only things that I wish I had we
Speaker 1: had more of in this movie. I wish that there
Speaker 1: was a little more Mrs Kim, Like, I feel like
Speaker 1: she steals every scene that she's in. She's amazing, and
Speaker 1: but of the four, I feel like she's kind of
Speaker 1: the least present. She's the last family member to get hired,
Speaker 1: and then I don't know, I mean I think it's
Speaker 1: just the father son dynamic that kind of takes up
Speaker 1: more of the air in that plot, which again isn't
Speaker 1: a problem. I just swished it you saw a little
Speaker 1: more of her. I like her. I just really like that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she's Yeah. The actress's name is Um Tongue Hid and
Speaker 1: she's actually in a very very popular Korean drama right
Speaker 1: now on Netflix called Crash Landing Onto You Anyway, Yeah,
Speaker 1: she's remarkable and her character is also really interesting. I
Speaker 1: mean she was like, what is it, like a shot
Speaker 1: put thrower. Yeah, I don't know what sport that is,
Speaker 1: but she was like an Olympic athlete maybe, like she
Speaker 1: was like she was an athlete. She was a silver
Speaker 1: medal winning athlete, and like sports is such a big
Speaker 1: deal for Korean's. You know, it's like sports is usually
Speaker 1: a form of way out of poverty. Usually, you know,
Speaker 1: it's like what went wrong? What we're what were wrong?
Speaker 1: For her. I'm so curious, you know, like a silver medalist.
Speaker 1: Like and the father, it's like he's done a bunch
Speaker 1: of objects. Maybe he's the person who brought her to
Speaker 1: and you know, she married the wrong piece of ship,
Speaker 1: and you know, and oh and another interesting parallel was
Speaker 1: that the Kim family they were also like they also
Speaker 1: faced financial ruin with the cake shop. They say, like
Speaker 1: a Castella Taiwanese cake shop, and like Costella is like
Speaker 1: this this sponge cake pastry that like Koreans loved, you know,
Speaker 1: like in the eighties and nineties because it was so
Speaker 1: airy and fluffy and delicious, and like it was a
Speaker 1: popular cultural product that they were selling in a lot
Speaker 1: of bakeries. But anyway, that went bust and then they
Speaker 1: were just stuck in you know, financial ruin. And in
Speaker 1: the basement, the guys says the same thing. He's like,
Speaker 1: oh my Costella bakery went bust and and then the
Speaker 1: wife was like, yeah, and we took out money with
Speaker 1: loan sharks, you know, it's much more severe than debt collectors.
Speaker 1: Loan sharking is a huge issue in Korea. They're essentially
Speaker 1: gangsters and thugs will come and break your leg you know,
Speaker 1: destroy your house, destroy your business, kill people whatever, in
Speaker 1: order to collect debt. And the interest rate is ridiculously high,
Speaker 1: and it's like beyond credit cards, you know, and it's
Speaker 1: impossible to get out of debt when you get stuck
Speaker 1: with loan sharks. And so yeah, that's that's also like
Speaker 1: this interesting parallel. It's like and how the Kim family
Speaker 1: was in the same circumstances as the the housekeeper and
Speaker 1: her husband, and yet they are not willing to give
Speaker 1: up their position as of now, right, they're not willing
Speaker 1: to really work with them. They just wanted to kind
Speaker 1: of call the police and asked them right until the
Speaker 1: family fell from the stairs and ruined everything. And I
Speaker 1: would I would also say that, like I wouldn't say
Speaker 1: Ki Jong is the mastermind and all of it. I
Speaker 1: would say it's it's a it was a collective effort
Speaker 1: between Kei Jong and Q, because Q wouldn't have gotten
Speaker 1: that job if it wasn't for his friend right to
Speaker 1: come in and give him that position. Ki Jong was
Speaker 1: kind of like the a facilitator. She was good with
Speaker 1: the documents this and that. I would say Q was
Speaker 1: more of the mastermind, the one that was making all
Speaker 1: these plans so called plans, right, just kind of calling
Speaker 1: back to what you were just talking about Grace, where
Speaker 1: it's kind of like the Kim's seem resistant to seeing
Speaker 1: themselves in this other family, even though, like you were saying,
Speaker 1: they had a very similar financial problem. Uh, and we're
Speaker 1: taken advantage of in a similar way. Um. And another
Speaker 1: example of where again it was just not something that
Speaker 1: had jumped out to me on previous viewings, where it's
Speaker 1: it's the scene where it's just Mr Kim and the
Speaker 1: housekeeper's husband in the basement and Mr Kim is kind
Speaker 1: of disgusted by the basement and it is asked basically
Speaker 1: like how can you live here? Like how can you
Speaker 1: live like this? And then the husband replies by saying, like, well,
Speaker 1: it's not that dissimilar from you know, he doesn't know
Speaker 1: that he said, it's not that dissimilar from your own apartment,
Speaker 1: but that's essentially what he's saying, if like we are
Speaker 1: not that different at all, say, and then to see
Speaker 1: the environmental differences of and this is something we see
Speaker 1: in the States all the time, of how something like
Speaker 1: a rainstorm can seem so like nothing to a rich
Speaker 1: family and they're kind of like, ah, the weather sucks,
Speaker 1: but let's finger each other and our sons out in
Speaker 1: his tent and cares and blah blah blah. They're like
Speaker 1: fingering each other. And then people's homes are being destroyed.
Speaker 1: You know, it's like there's a friend like community that
Speaker 1: the kids are a part of and their whole life
Speaker 1: is being destroyed. And then you've got these rich people
Speaker 1: fingering each other on a hill and exactly, and it
Speaker 1: was so that. I mean that scene of the rainstorm
Speaker 1: and the father, daughter and son walking, you know, all
Speaker 1: the way home through the rain and they're coming down
Speaker 1: that huge you know, that was metaphorical, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: like you have this rock shaped like mountains, you know,
Speaker 1: and it's like how do you get there? But you
Speaker 1: know all that does is come down, like you know,
Speaker 1: you just follow them going down down down. That that
Speaker 1: living is this huge metaphor of the basement every everybody,
Speaker 1: all the poor living abasement, you know, and all that
Speaker 1: rain and ship goes down there, all the rich people,
Speaker 1: ship goes down there, and that's in their clothes, that's
Speaker 1: in their stuff, and that's the smell that that comes
Speaker 1: wafting out of them when they come in try to
Speaker 1: meet with people in society, you know. I think the
Speaker 1: house structure that that that big scene with the stairs
Speaker 1: going down to their little town there, I think that
Speaker 1: is like just the this visual metaphor of class infrastructure,
Speaker 1: you know, and that mobility going upwards is so impossibly
Speaker 1: difficult and high, and how does one do that. It's
Speaker 1: like barely, it's barely doable. And then and then like
Speaker 1: it's like no, it's like everybody just replaces one another's shoes, right,
Speaker 1: It's like the Kim family kicked out everybody that was
Speaker 1: working for the parks. And then even even the guy
Speaker 1: that was hiding in the basement contentedly, right, he was like,
Speaker 1: I mean, I just feel like I'm just of this
Speaker 1: world now. It's like as if I was born here.
Speaker 1: It's like it's like as if I got married here,
Speaker 1: as as I live here. Right, That's what the housekeeper's
Speaker 1: husband says. And it's like even that position is replaced
Speaker 1: by Mr Kim, right, Like they really took over that
Speaker 1: house like fully, and um even like I mean the
Speaker 1: motif of the parasite is like it's like what else
Speaker 1: can they do, you know, in order to survive? It's
Speaker 1: like they have to lie, they have to steal. They
Speaker 1: have to sneak out at night and try to steal
Speaker 1: some fruit and take it back down to the basements
Speaker 1: so they could eat and survive. You know, It's like
Speaker 1: what else can they do? Yeah, certainly no one else
Speaker 1: is making space for them to exist, so it's just
Speaker 1: a matter of taking someone else down to take up
Speaker 1: where they are. It's just yeah, I also like how
Speaker 1: like we use the audience don't really even call into question, like, well,
Speaker 1: wouldn't the Park family like what if they were to
Speaker 1: meet like Mr Kim's spouse, But like, because the Park
Speaker 1: family is so just consumed by themselves, and don't they
Speaker 1: don't think about people lower class than them. You would
Speaker 1: just imagine that Mr Park would never ask Mr Kim
Speaker 1: about his wife or his children or like bother to
Speaker 1: learn anything about them because they're far too self absorbed exactly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like when Mr Kim, like as he's driving Mr Park
Speaker 1: ground when whatever, he turns around to say something, you know,
Speaker 1: and they almost get us an accident at one point,
Speaker 1: like Mr Park says, just keep your eye on the road,
Speaker 1: turn around right, You're you're supposed to face that way.
Speaker 1: Not back towards me crossing a line, crossing the line
Speaker 1: that offends him so much, you know, it's so interesting,
Speaker 1: and like, just to talk a little bit more about
Speaker 1: the basement, Like this is something I've been thinking about
Speaker 1: a long time. And there's this there's a short story
Speaker 1: that's very famous in Korea called Wings. It's written by
Speaker 1: a modernist called He's Hung, and it's a story about
Speaker 1: a man who is living in a room that is
Speaker 1: it's like in the farthest back of the house, and
Speaker 1: then there's this partition, and then beyond the partition is
Speaker 1: the wife's room. And in order to access his room,
Speaker 1: you have to go through the wife's room, right, So
Speaker 1: this man is essentially stuck, right, and the wife is
Speaker 1: like the gatekeeper, and the man is like unemployed, jobless,
Speaker 1: He barely eats, barely gets any sunlight. Whatever he does
Speaker 1: in that room is only permissible if the wife allows
Speaker 1: him to. And the wife is a prostitute, so she
Speaker 1: works in that other room. And and the man says,
Speaker 1: in this other room, he's like, I'm very content with
Speaker 1: my living here. And I felt like that was very
Speaker 1: present in the basement scene with the housekeeper's husband. You know,
Speaker 1: it's like and and he's hung wrote that story when
Speaker 1: Korea was occupied by Japan, right, And it's like, when
Speaker 1: you're colonized, let's say you're colonized by another imperial country,
Speaker 1: or if you're colonized by capitalism, whatever it is, and
Speaker 1: you become content in living there and you don't have
Speaker 1: any desire to be mobile whatever, get out, then it's
Speaker 1: like what happens? Right? And I thought that was very
Speaker 1: much a theme in that, especially because I don't think
Speaker 1: anybody does. That was just my reading of it. I
Speaker 1: need to write about it before some household does well,
Speaker 1: especially because the housekeeper's husband he worships Mr Park He
Speaker 1: like almost looks at him as a god of sorts.
Speaker 1: And I feel like that's also very I guess, just
Speaker 1: kind of allegorical of the way society teaches people you
Speaker 1: need to respect these rich people. You need to respect
Speaker 1: the people with the rich jobs, and and but if
Speaker 1: you encounter them, they're like, who the funk are you?
Speaker 1: They don't smell, I don't like you exactly, like do
Speaker 1: you know me? Right? And he's like he's like subservient,
Speaker 1: like you know, ritualistically whenever when when anybody else walks
Speaker 1: up those stairs, those lights don't go on. It's only
Speaker 1: when Mr Park goes up those stairs then the lights
Speaker 1: go on like that. And it's like when the housekeeper's
Speaker 1: husband's down there, he goes into this like militaristic mode,
Speaker 1: like he's saluting him, right, And I feel like again,
Speaker 1: there is that you know, this colonial commentary again, like
Speaker 1: a lot of Koreans before the division were recruited by
Speaker 1: the Japanese for World War One and World War Two.
Speaker 1: You know a lot of those kamakaze pilots were Koreans
Speaker 1: who were unwilling to kill themselves, okay by crash landing
Speaker 1: onto other countries. So yeah, there's that huge, huge US
Speaker 1: military presence in Korea and all over the world. Actually
Speaker 1: there's like, you know, over eighty countries with U S
Speaker 1: military presence, and um yeah, I think I think a
Speaker 1: lot of that is in there. And that's another example
Speaker 1: too of Mr Kim kind of having a similar trait
Speaker 1: to the housekeeper's husband that he, you know, probably wouldn't
Speaker 1: want to admit that. There's I think I can think
Speaker 1: of two examples where Mr Kim specifically. There's one when
Speaker 1: they're drinking beer in the basement after they start getting
Speaker 1: paid by the parks, and he's like, let's pour one
Speaker 1: out for Mr Park, Like, it's so good of him
Speaker 1: to give this to us, even though he doesn't know
Speaker 1: he's giving it to us. And then again when he's
Speaker 1: in the basement at the end of the movie, he
Speaker 1: I mean, he's murdered Mr Park, but he like apologizes
Speaker 1: to all the time, and and it's still like Mr Park,
Speaker 1: even at his time of death, didn't know who he
Speaker 1: was really, I mean, he just knew the facade that
Speaker 1: he was presenting to survive. Yeah, we could have taken
Speaker 1: another quick break, but then we'll come right back for
Speaker 1: a more discussion. I wanted to bring us something that
Speaker 1: I thought was funny and didn't really know how to
Speaker 1: fully articulate until I m read the interview with Long
Speaker 1: Dunho where he says there's no heroes and there's no villains. Intentionally, UM,
Speaker 1: I think it does make it really challenging read for
Speaker 1: rich people and people who are inclined to be like
Speaker 1: but the rich people were nice. Um, And I wanted.
Speaker 1: I wanted to shout out. I want I wanted to
Speaker 1: shout out in a negative way. Comedian Neil Brennan who
Speaker 1: famously could not figure out the themes in Parasite. Um
Speaker 1: it was. I remember there was like a big everyone
Speaker 1: was like dumping on him on Twitter when this happened,
Speaker 1: and he for some reason did not delete the tweets.
Speaker 1: But this is back in February this year. Um, he tweeted,
Speaker 1: is it too early to say the central metaphor and
Speaker 1: parasite didn't actually work? Who is the parasite, the richer
Speaker 1: the pool? With that in mind, explain the third act
Speaker 1: to me? Like he just it was really listening to
Speaker 1: this podcast. Neil Brennan. He would never but he's very problematic. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's the worst. I don't like his general perspect outlook
Speaker 1: on gender. Yeah, his his outlook, I just I've yet
Speaker 1: to see it. And yet he is such a victim
Speaker 1: right as we've seen in three mics. I thought it
Speaker 1: was so interesting how like nobody gave Neil Brennan any
Speaker 1: ship for doing three mikes, which was like a third
Speaker 1: of it was just like this, you know, him groveling
Speaker 1: on stage of his victimhood. And then when Hannah Gadsby
Speaker 1: did her thing, everybody was so up in arms about
Speaker 1: whether or not this is comedy for cultural pasttime dumping
Speaker 1: on her. Yeah, yeah, yeah, And it's like, uh, why
Speaker 1: don't you start with Neil Brennan's special which came out
Speaker 1: before the Net and then question how to Gadsby if
Speaker 1: you want to be fair New York Times, right. I
Speaker 1: think his most recent funk up was immediately defending Chrystal
Speaker 1: Lia but oh my God, which which really swept his
Speaker 1: not understanding parasite even one under the rug. But I
Speaker 1: remember that Neil Brennan insisted that Twitter explained parasite to him.
Speaker 1: And it's funny. He's too rich. He's like, the rich
Speaker 1: people were nice, So what's the problems like? And that's
Speaker 1: kind of the brilliance of this movie is like there
Speaker 1: the problem is looming over them, but it's not personified.
Speaker 1: Grace and Jamie two people have mentioned the idea of
Speaker 1: like the Plan and the master plan that the Kim
Speaker 1: family kind of have like crafted and are trying to follow,
Speaker 1: and this is a huge motif and themes throughout the
Speaker 1: movie be And we talked about this a little bit
Speaker 1: on our recent set It Off episode, where in that movie,
Speaker 1: different characters discuss having a plan for the future and
Speaker 1: what's your five year plan and stuff. Like that, and
Speaker 1: the you know, upper class character is always like, well, yes,
Speaker 1: of course I have a plan and it's this, and
Speaker 1: then the lower income characters are always like, I'm just
Speaker 1: trying to survive one day at a time. And just
Speaker 1: the idea of like having a plan is such a
Speaker 1: like middle or upper middle class or wealthy, privileged thing
Speaker 1: to be able to have. And and this gets explored
Speaker 1: quite a bit in Parasite, where you know, they form
Speaker 1: this plan to infiltrate the Park family and to end
Speaker 1: up working for them. It works for a very short
Speaker 1: amount of time, but then like ship hits the fan,
Speaker 1: even like when the former housekeeper shows up on the doorstep,
Speaker 1: like Q is like, this isn't part of the plan.
Speaker 1: We don't know what to do, This isn't the is unexpected,
Speaker 1: This is not part of our plan. And then Mr
Speaker 1: Kim gives this really great monologue after their apartment has
Speaker 1: been flooded and they're like having to spend the night
Speaker 1: in a gym. He says, um, you know what kind
Speaker 1: of plan never fails? No plan at all. If you
Speaker 1: make a plan, life never works out that way. That's
Speaker 1: why people shouldn't make plans. With no plan, nothing can
Speaker 1: go wrong and if something spins out of control, it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter. None of it fucking matters, because yeah, like
Speaker 1: people from a lower socioeconomic class just simply don't have
Speaker 1: the resources and the privilege to form and execute plans
Speaker 1: that actually ever work. And then the movie ends with
Speaker 1: Q being like, here's my plan. I'm gonna get a job,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go to that university. I'm gonna, you know,
Speaker 1: have a career. I'm going to make a bunch of money,
Speaker 1: and then I'm going to buy this house. And then
Speaker 1: you know, Dad, you're going to come out of hiding
Speaker 1: and we're all going to reunite. But it all plays
Speaker 1: out again is a flash forward. It's like a dream
Speaker 1: sequence more than anything, because then it cuts back to
Speaker 1: Q in the in his basement level apartment. It's a fantasy.
Speaker 1: It's completely a fantasy. Yeah, there's no way he's going
Speaker 1: to get out of that basely the way he suffered
Speaker 1: a huge brain injury. You know, I mean he's he's
Speaker 1: a disabled man, and he has a record. You know,
Speaker 1: he has a criminal record, and I mean having a
Speaker 1: criminal record and carea is also like a huge damning thing,
Speaker 1: you know, um, being a disabled person is huge damning thing.
Speaker 1: He actually does play with themes like that, like criminality
Speaker 1: and disability in his other films. I would really strongly
Speaker 1: recommend Memories of Murder by the Way. I would say
Speaker 1: of all of his films, that's his best work. I
Speaker 1: haven't seen that one. Yeah, I really enjoyed it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: where did you see that? I'm just curious. I had
Speaker 1: to find a rip of it online. Yeah there's It's
Speaker 1: like it's not available anyway. Yeah, it's such a good movie.
Speaker 1: The man who plays Mr Kim is also in that.
Speaker 1: But yeah, anyway, Uh, yeah, there's always somebody with a
Speaker 1: disability and like a lot of his movies, and I
Speaker 1: think that's there intentionally. He has, like is making a
Speaker 1: commentary about South Korea not making it that easy for
Speaker 1: people with disabilities to survive and like live among everybody,
Speaker 1: you know, harmoniously in society. Yeah. There was a read
Speaker 1: of the planned theme that I really liked was from
Speaker 1: that same Vulture profile. It was for I guess, from
Speaker 1: a follow up of that profile by a writer named
Speaker 1: e Alex Jung who we've we've quoted him before. We
Speaker 1: put him Alex alex Jung, the same as my last name. Yeah, okay.
Speaker 1: So Alex Jung, we have quoted him a number of times.
Speaker 1: He writes most of the major profiles for New York Magazine,
Speaker 1: and he's just a fucking incredible But he argues in
Speaker 1: the follow up to the profile that Hope is the
Speaker 1: emotional parents. So I'm quoting him. Hope is the emotional
Speaker 1: parasite in the film, the thing that keeps us going
Speaker 1: but sucks our marrow dry. So the whatever the true
Speaker 1: parasite being discussed, because I feel like in the initial
Speaker 1: wave of reviews and discussion about this film, there was
Speaker 1: a lot of who was the parasite? Who am the parasite?
Speaker 1: Neil Brennan, who what is a parasite? Was like, But
Speaker 1: they didn't tell me who the parasite wasn't my third act?
Speaker 1: People are so basic? Yeah, I mean, it's even It's like,
Speaker 1: I mean, there is a very different example. When things
Speaker 1: are spoon fed to them. They want somebody to say,
Speaker 1: and I am the parasite. Oh that's why the title's parasite.
Speaker 1: I am the devil wares product, I am the parasite.
Speaker 1: Everyone wants that Spartacus moment, like that moment Poisoned, I
Speaker 1: am a demon Prince. I'm quoting I Frankenstein. Now I
Speaker 1: am I Frankenstein. Uh he does say that though, Uh
Speaker 1: he basically does, But but I do. I mean that
Speaker 1: is I think the most discinct read of what if
Speaker 1: there is a parasite that it's it's that desire to
Speaker 1: want to keep trying to make a plan in spite
Speaker 1: of all evidence to the contrary, which is kind of
Speaker 1: what capitalism encourages you to do. Is like, oh, who
Speaker 1: cares how many times this dream kicks you in the
Speaker 1: face and tells you to funk off and tells you
Speaker 1: you smell and tells you you know, just works against
Speaker 1: you in every way. Just get you know, bootstrap, get
Speaker 1: back up, try again. You've got this American capitalist Christian mentality. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like pay your dues, Yeah, suck it up, keep going.
Speaker 1: And it's like, what does that say? They're like, if
Speaker 1: you keep doing something over and over again, expecting a
Speaker 1: different result every time, you're a psychopath, right, Like that's
Speaker 1: everybody in a capital of society. That's literally everybody, you know.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean with the planned thing though, I
Speaker 1: think alex Is reading is so beautiful. It's like an
Speaker 1: inverse Shawshank redemption. Right, Morgan Freeman is like Hope kills
Speaker 1: a man, like hope drives a man crazy. And then
Speaker 1: like the guy he's like, you know, he writes work
Speaker 1: your freemane letters like hope is a beautiful thing or
Speaker 1: blah blah blah. Yeah, yeah, and it's like like, no,
Speaker 1: it doesn't. It makes you cool, destroy you, It will
Speaker 1: destroy everything inside of you, your family, everything you love.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I think that's a really lovely reading to
Speaker 1: say that Hope is the parasite for sure. I mean
Speaker 1: his plan at the end that I mean, in a way,
Speaker 1: it feel like hopes like that even though in your
Speaker 1: heart of heart, of heart of hearts, you're like, this
Speaker 1: is not going to fucking happen like that, I could
Speaker 1: see how that would be necessary to his continuing to
Speaker 1: survive is like hoping that things will change or hoping
Speaker 1: that this might be attainable, even though we watching it
Speaker 1: know that it is deeply unlikely that that will ever happen. Right.
Speaker 1: It's like everybody has this inner will to live for
Speaker 1: some reason, even the guy in the basement with who
Speaker 1: has literally no life, no sunlight, no Netflix, you know,
Speaker 1: how does he pass the time? Right? And it's like
Speaker 1: he's still living, he's still stealing food and living. He's
Speaker 1: going on. Oh and in the Mr Kim's monologue, which
Speaker 1: I love that monologue, Um and you you read it beautifully.
Speaker 1: But he does also say, you know, when you're making
Speaker 1: these plans, like even if you don't even if it's
Speaker 1: not in your plan, you know, in the spur of
Speaker 1: the moment, like you might kill a man, you might
Speaker 1: say country. He says those things. I think that's very
Speaker 1: important because you know, again like create as a colony
Speaker 1: had to do those very things. You know, like a
Speaker 1: lot of people had to in order to keep their
Speaker 1: wealth or attain wealth, they had to sell their country
Speaker 1: out and you know, align with the Japanese imperial forces.
Speaker 1: A lot of people had to do that. And then
Speaker 1: when North and South was divided, a lot of South
Speaker 1: Koreans had to go into hiding because they were like,
Speaker 1: well you were you you were a traitor to your country.
Speaker 1: You know, there was a lot of that too. But
Speaker 1: a lot of those people continue to retain their wealth.
Speaker 1: I knew that's where Samson comes from. Um. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: have a lot of that, a lot of murdering, especially
Speaker 1: you know during the Korean War when when you know,
Speaker 1: it's like you couldn't tell who is a communist who
Speaker 1: is not? You know, how can you tell that there's
Speaker 1: no marker of communism per se. A lot of innocent
Speaker 1: people lost their lives because of this whole this paranoia
Speaker 1: which comes from McCarthyism, you know, because from the US
Speaker 1: it's a it's a constructed paranoia that was injected into
Speaker 1: other countries, right, this paranoia over the Kami and a
Speaker 1: lot of innocent people lost their lives. And there's actually
Speaker 1: a a movie um that was set on Chiju Island,
Speaker 1: which is like an island just off the coast to
Speaker 1: South Korea. It belongs to South Korea, but it's like
Speaker 1: they're an island. So their languages, like their their dialect
Speaker 1: is also very unique too in Chiju. But a lot
Speaker 1: of innocent people lost their lives on that island during
Speaker 1: the Korean War, Like people showed up and they were like,
Speaker 1: are you a communist? And they're like, what's a communist?
Speaker 1: And they get shot? You know what I mean? It
Speaker 1: was literally like that, you know. And when Americans were there,
Speaker 1: you know, in Korea bombing the ship out of Korea,
Speaker 1: they couldn't tell who was a North Korean who was
Speaker 1: a South Korean. Right, They just simply couldn't how could
Speaker 1: you tell? You know, And that's where the word gook
Speaker 1: comes from. You know a lot of these derogatory, racially
Speaker 1: and ethnically derogatory terms come from military speaking military, because
Speaker 1: you have to create an enemy, right, and you have
Speaker 1: to make them consciously, have to lower them in your brain, right,
Speaker 1: you have to dehumanize them in order to kill justify them. Exactly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So this rational this hyper rationalizing of killing a man,
Speaker 1: of selling out your country. It's also kind of this
Speaker 1: capitalist motif. You know, this hyper hyper rationalizing is done
Speaker 1: in capitalist systems. This happens a lot. It's like, oh,
Speaker 1: like I will lose thirty five pounds in a month
Speaker 1: because I will fit into that dress for that film role,
Speaker 1: because they told me to. Because it means wealth, it
Speaker 1: means fame. I will do it because I'm not I'm
Speaker 1: not selling my soul out, I'm not disrespecting my body.
Speaker 1: I'm doing it for a job. I'm doing it for money,
Speaker 1: which I will give to my family to whatever. Right.
Speaker 1: It's a hyperrationalizing. We're all under that, including the Kim family,
Speaker 1: including the Park family. Everybody well even yeah, in the
Speaker 1: way that the Kim family needs to lower a family
Speaker 1: very similar to themselves in order to rationalize killing them,
Speaker 1: like even like and when they first encounter the housekeeper
Speaker 1: and her husband in the basement, and the housekeeper is
Speaker 1: like pleading with the Kim and like, sis, come on, sister,
Speaker 1: we have a sisterhood, we're in the we're of the
Speaker 1: same ilk, we are in the same class and and
Speaker 1: and Mrs Kim is like, no, we're not, like fuck
Speaker 1: you uh. And then as soon as the tables turn
Speaker 1: she has to take the exact same approach and be like, please, sister,
Speaker 1: come on. And it's just like everybody's replaceable. Everybody's replaceable.
Speaker 1: And on the other end of that, where the Kim
Speaker 1: family has to, you know, bullshit to survive so often
Speaker 1: and so much, and they have to do it with
Speaker 1: people who are in there who are also poor, and
Speaker 1: then they have to do it with the Park family,
Speaker 1: where I mean, like, some of the funniest moments in
Speaker 1: this movie just involved how easily the Park family is
Speaker 1: able to be convinced that something is luxury is top
Speaker 1: of the line because of how it's framed to them
Speaker 1: and how it's presented to them where the Key Jung
Speaker 1: scene where she's the art therapist and she's just like
Speaker 1: speaking bullshit and she says later like I googled art
Speaker 1: therapy and like ad lived the rest. But she just
Speaker 1: she's the word schizophrenia, yeah, the schizophrenia zone. I'm like,
Speaker 1: well that's not good. Yeah, she just made that, not
Speaker 1: a doctor, just made it up. And again I think
Speaker 1: it's because she was English. You know, like these English
Speaker 1: words you know, make it sound like key Jong knows
Speaker 1: what she's talking about. And so Mrs Park is just
Speaker 1: like okay, yeah, yeah, Mrs Park is interesting too as
Speaker 1: a character. I would say she's really interested. I had
Speaker 1: never I guess that this is the closest I've ever
Speaker 1: looked at her character specifically because I was curious, and
Speaker 1: I mean, the Park family represents a lot of you know,
Speaker 1: elitism and a lot of rich people, uh stuff right,
Speaker 1: But but it feels she really encapsulates the ignorance of
Speaker 1: a rich family where I mean it's mentioned in that
Speaker 1: scene we talked about that she's so nice and she's
Speaker 1: and naive. Yeah, yeah, that deep naivete that she will.
Speaker 1: I mean that we hear her described as young and
Speaker 1: simple before we ever meet her by men um in
Speaker 1: a scene where they are I mean, we haven't even
Speaker 1: talked about the relationship with the teenager atte but we'll
Speaker 1: get there. I mean, it's like, I feel like it's
Speaker 1: clear to the viewer that she thinks that she's doing
Speaker 1: the right thing. She is trying to be a good mother,
Speaker 1: she is trying to be a good wife. But it's
Speaker 1: not what she's thinking about that's the problem. It's what
Speaker 1: she is not thinking about defines her like and makes
Speaker 1: her look bad. Is she's not thinking about the people
Speaker 1: around her. She's not thinking about her employees. She doesn't
Speaker 1: I mean, her and Mr Park don't ever ask the
Speaker 1: Kim's anything about themselves, which is part of the reason
Speaker 1: there is because that the way with so much is
Speaker 1: because the Parks don't care who they are or what
Speaker 1: their background is. They just need the right pitch of
Speaker 1: like the elitism we talked about before. You know, I
Speaker 1: have studied abroad, I've done this, I've done that, And
Speaker 1: they're like, okay, great, I will believe whatever you say
Speaker 1: good enough, and I don't want to hear anything else
Speaker 1: about you ever again. Stopped talking to me. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's such a good point. Like when Mr Kim gets
Speaker 1: Mr Park the care card and then Mrs Park calls
Speaker 1: the care's phone number and then Keep Jong picks up
Speaker 1: the phone and pretends to be that gatekeeper, the manager
Speaker 1: at the care. She's like asking for all these documents,
Speaker 1: a the ded to your house, social security number. She
Speaker 1: like she knows the Parks inside out right takes all
Speaker 1: of their information down and Mrs Park is just like, okay,
Speaker 1: you need the title to my house. Fine, makes sense,
Speaker 1: it makes sense to me, right, And she's like so
Speaker 1: desperate you could see and mean the nisan sin is
Speaker 1: like she's pulling out the dishwasher that's overpacked, like you
Speaker 1: should never moan a dishwasher like that, yeah, you know.
Speaker 1: And then and then it's like, you know, she's clearly suffering,
Speaker 1: like you know, and Mr Park says, it's like my
Speaker 1: wife sucks at household duty, you know, and she just
Speaker 1: desperate to stop doing that, Like she wants to sit
Speaker 1: out on her in her garden on her patio and
Speaker 1: take a nap like we that's how we first encounter her, right,
Speaker 1: and you know, just to not do those things, she'll
Speaker 1: she'll give away the house, like all of those all
Speaker 1: that information, no problemoy, she thinks housework is beneath her.
Speaker 1: She never got good at it because she's never had
Speaker 1: to do it. Yeah, why, just like it's been spoon
Speaker 1: fedts over spoon, Like, what do you mean I have
Speaker 1: to do these things? Just make the lady do it.
Speaker 1: And in the same way, Mr and Mrs Parker able
Speaker 1: to be convinced the absolute worst of people that they
Speaker 1: find lesser than them. And that's part of the reason
Speaker 1: the Kims are able to get their jobs is because immediately,
Speaker 1: I mean, this was another thing I hadn't really considered
Speaker 1: super carefully because the scene is pretty funny, how grossed
Speaker 1: out Mr and Mrs park are by finding underwear in
Speaker 1: the car and she touches her face with the gloves
Speaker 1: and then it's like, oh no, like like you just
Speaker 1: touched those underwears. This movie is very funny. But but
Speaker 1: the subtext to that scene is they jump from finding
Speaker 1: a parent like a pair of underwear in the back
Speaker 1: of a car to our driver, who has far less
Speaker 1: money than us, is probably addicted to drugs and it
Speaker 1: is probably doing this and and the Kims are, I mean,
Speaker 1: they know that these rich people have all these preconceptions
Speaker 1: of what poor people are like, and if you just
Speaker 1: give them the smallest scrap of anything, they're going to
Speaker 1: catastrophize it into this completely false narrative and and fire
Speaker 1: someone instead of just instead of I mean that whole
Speaker 1: thing is, yeah, asking one thing, it's like they don't
Speaker 1: want it to it with any kind of discomfort, including
Speaker 1: an uncomfortable conversation right at the end. The fucked up
Speaker 1: thing is they don't give them a chance to explain
Speaker 1: or possibly improve. It's like you suck up once you're out,
Speaker 1: and they don't tell you why they're out in you.
Speaker 1: That's the That's a constant thing that comes up with
Speaker 1: every single person that's fired. They never they never, they
Speaker 1: They're always like, you know, I'm not going to say
Speaker 1: like that I found, you know, a bloody tissue and
Speaker 1: the thing, I'll just you know, make up something and
Speaker 1: ask her to leave some vague excuse. With the With
Speaker 1: the driver too, it's like some something big I'm not
Speaker 1: going to talk to him about, like whether or not
Speaker 1: yet sex with a you know, a hooker who's on
Speaker 1: drugs in the backseat of my car. I'm not going
Speaker 1: to ask that. I'm just gonna maybe, you know, just
Speaker 1: make some make up, some excuse and fire, and that
Speaker 1: again comes you know, it ties into this motive of
Speaker 1: social mobility being impossible. Right, It's like if somebody fires
Speaker 1: you without cause, without explaining to you why, without having
Speaker 1: a conversation, it's an injustice, you know. And they can't.
Speaker 1: I mean, this couple can't even be straight with each other.
Speaker 1: Like they can't. How they can't. Yeah, like she she
Speaker 1: does not tell Mr Park why she's fired the housekeeper, Like,
Speaker 1: there's just and he doesn't ask either. Yeah, he's just
Speaker 1: my wife won't explain, You won't tell me. But it's fine.
Speaker 1: They're simply living a lie. They really are every convenient lie. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I wanted to about Mr Kim and Queues relationship,
Speaker 1: even though I mean we we kind of reference often,
Speaker 1: like how father son relationships are usually given more narrative
Speaker 1: weight in movies in general than mother son, mother daughter
Speaker 1: whatever it is. But even though that is true of
Speaker 1: this movie, I really really appreciate how emotionally open this
Speaker 1: father son relationship is. I feel like that's usually the
Speaker 1: friction in a father son relationship is like, but we
Speaker 1: just can't talk to each other. Men can't express themselves.
Speaker 1: But I mean from the jump, Mr Kim is so
Speaker 1: effusive with his praise and how proud he is of
Speaker 1: both of his kids. Um where I didn't when when
Speaker 1: Ki jung Um forges the document, he's like, Wow, you're
Speaker 1: a genius. You did it. You're amazing. And when k
Speaker 1: discusses his first plan at the beginning of the movie,
Speaker 1: when he's going off to the Park's house and he's like,
Speaker 1: I'm going to go to college and you know this
Speaker 1: is temporary, and then I'm going to do this, this
Speaker 1: and this, and Mr Kim is like thrilled. He's like,
Speaker 1: I'm so proud of you. That's amazing. Good job. And
Speaker 1: I really appreciated seeing a father son relationship where the
Speaker 1: conflict is not that they are being dishonest or not
Speaker 1: emotionally open with each other. I feel like you don't
Speaker 1: see that very much. Yeah, they're they are very open
Speaker 1: as a family. I noticed that too, Like the children
Speaker 1: kind of like cursing a lot in front of their parents,
Speaker 1: like they swear a lot, Like they say she boy,
Speaker 1: like over and over again, like very casually. And I
Speaker 1: was just like WHOA, Like what does that mean? She
Speaker 1: by means like fuck, It's like it's a swear word.
Speaker 1: They say she by all the time, and I was
Speaker 1: just like wow, like I couldn't speak that way in
Speaker 1: front of my parents, like I curse but in English,
Speaker 1: like I couldn't this curson Korean in front of them,
Speaker 1: you know, Like that's just like another level of I
Speaker 1: don't know, like rebellion and trust that I just simply
Speaker 1: don't have in me, I guess, uh. But yeah, they're
Speaker 1: they're quite open, and it's like they they're very tightly
Speaker 1: knit because they're co dependent on one another, you know,
Speaker 1: And it's like you see a lot of that among
Speaker 1: lower income communities and families, like you have to depend
Speaker 1: on one another, Like a farm will not function without
Speaker 1: you having twelve children, you know what I mean, you
Speaker 1: need to have those twelve kids in order for the
Speaker 1: farm to really work. So yeah, it's definitely visible, especially
Speaker 1: where the parks, I mean with their children as well.
Speaker 1: There's just there's only walls and kind of seeing how
Speaker 1: those walls are kind of a privilege in even though
Speaker 1: you can tell, I mean, the park's daughter is kind
Speaker 1: of suffering from the lack of communication and attention that
Speaker 1: her parents will give her. They clearly think that their
Speaker 1: son is hot shit and is a favoritism here definitely,
Speaker 1: And I mean I think Mrs Park goes kind of
Speaker 1: out of her way to be like, I don't think
Speaker 1: my daughter is very smart, but we'll just kind of
Speaker 1: miss that part. She mentions that, like she's she's struggling
Speaker 1: in school, where she's kind of saying like, oh, my
Speaker 1: son made a drawing and he's a genius. And then
Speaker 1: she's like my daughter, like it just her. Yeah, she
Speaker 1: says something like um, regardless of her grades, implying that
Speaker 1: she doesn't get good grades despite her having this intensive tutoring,
Speaker 1: which kind of transitions into talking about Q and their
Speaker 1: daughter as well. But I mean it's like she's she's
Speaker 1: she definitely has some emotional suffering going that. I mean,
Speaker 1: the movie doesn't really have full She's neglected by her family.
Speaker 1: The son absorbs everything, not only because of this past
Speaker 1: trauma that he has, but also because of this potential
Speaker 1: genius whatever he has, Like the father obviously favors. When
Speaker 1: he comes home, he shouts, you know, passon, he like
Speaker 1: calls the son that's like all the daughter. You know,
Speaker 1: it's very obvious, like who is the center? Like the
Speaker 1: centerpiece of this household, and it's definitely the son. And yeah,
Speaker 1: she's neglected. And when she gets some attention from her
Speaker 1: male tutor, who is she is under age and he
Speaker 1: is in his twenties, it's completely inappropriate. She does it.
Speaker 1: And it's like, of course she did it with the
Speaker 1: other guy, right, with mini help the friend. Right, It's like,
Speaker 1: and we want to be really careful about how this
Speaker 1: is framed, because you know, she's a child. She is
Speaker 1: not to blame here. It's the adult. It's key who
Speaker 1: is seeing how she's neglected, you know, seeing her vulnerability ease,
Speaker 1: And even if his intentions aren't nefarious, doesn't matter. It's
Speaker 1: still very wrong. It's still predatory. Exactly. It's exactly what
Speaker 1: Crystallia did to all those girls. Yeah, God damn, I
Speaker 1: knew Crystallya was gonna weasel his way into the podcast.
Speaker 1: And then and then Neil Brennan's like, Krystalia good, he's good.
Speaker 1: He's a good boy. I mean that relationship, that's like
Speaker 1: I think one of the It's it's interesting though, because
Speaker 1: it's grace. If you mentioned this a bit ago, the
Speaker 1: kind of traditional lifting yourself out of poverty, narrative in
Speaker 1: movies tends to be, you know, like an attractive person
Speaker 1: from a higher class pays you mind, and all of
Speaker 1: a sudden you're lifted and everything is so easy, which
Speaker 1: is kind of becomes over time. Qu'es original plan is
Speaker 1: he does seem to like her. We think it's not
Speaker 1: like a complete falsehood, even though it is deeply I mean,
Speaker 1: he should not be pursuing this child, right, but but
Speaker 1: it does seem like that as a part of the
Speaker 1: original plan of like, oh, this girl likes me, so
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I mean, similar to he kind of just
Speaker 1: co ops men's original plan, which is to wait it
Speaker 1: out until she leading university, right, so she goes to
Speaker 1: college and then marry into this family and be set
Speaker 1: for life in the way that exactly. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: I guess it's it's a bit of a It is
Speaker 1: this subversion in that not only is it kind of
Speaker 1: gender swapped, uh, it also doesn't work, uh and shouldn't work.
Speaker 1: But you do, I mean, you do feel for her
Speaker 1: because it's like she the kids are like not they're
Speaker 1: not necessarily doing anything wrong. They're yeah, they're just children. Oh,
Speaker 1: he shouldn't have pursued a fifteen year old, you know,
Speaker 1: just right. And I don't know like what the movie
Speaker 1: is trying to say exactly with this predatory relationship. I
Speaker 1: don't know if it's like again, like the desperation of
Speaker 1: poverty and like here's what you might stoop to to
Speaker 1: try to get out of poverty, you know, like being
Speaker 1: a predator or being a murderer. And I don't think
Speaker 1: this movie is saying that, like, if you're poor, you're
Speaker 1: going to be driven to murder and predatory behavior. And
Speaker 1: that's a blanket statement across the board. No, the movie
Speaker 1: isn't saying that. It's it's an explanation of the motives. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've seen a few the few mis misinterpretation or not misinterpreting,
Speaker 1: I mean, no interpretations wrong, but basically just saying like,
Speaker 1: uh there. There was an article in The Guardian that
Speaker 1: basically makes the argument of like, well, doesn't this movie
Speaker 1: just say that if poor people have access to a
Speaker 1: rich person's lifestyle that they will then murder and prey
Speaker 1: on people. But I don't think that that's what this
Speaker 1: movie is really saying at all. And I mean even
Speaker 1: the criticism that I've seen, I've this is a piece.
Speaker 1: I don't know, I just disagree with this writer's uh statement.
Speaker 1: Her name's Hannah yun Uh and this was a piece
Speaker 1: that was in the Guardian in February of this year.
Speaker 1: But her argument, which I understand, but she's she's basically
Speaker 1: like kind of dumping on the Kims uh for the
Speaker 1: second the parks leave, they start drinking and like having fun, which,
Speaker 1: first of all, this family does not get to fucking
Speaker 1: have fun. And I don't know what bothers me about
Speaker 1: that read of their behavior is it completely lines up
Speaker 1: with the no plan mentality that this family you know,
Speaker 1: generally has to thrive on of Like if not, now,
Speaker 1: when are they going to get the chance to drink
Speaker 1: all this overpriced, like ridiculous alcohol and like eat and
Speaker 1: have fun and talk with each other and like yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: like the rich families on vacation, why shouldn't the the
Speaker 1: poor family also go on vacation? Right, And they're just
Speaker 1: restributing to themselves, Yeah, yeah, yeah. Does anyone have any
Speaker 1: final thoughts about the film? I mean, we haven't necessarily
Speaker 1: discussed the representation of gender that much, but also like
Speaker 1: I didn't even know what else what to say about it,
Speaker 1: aside from just like there's gender parity in the cast
Speaker 1: of characters between men and women. The female characters are
Speaker 1: all actively participating in the story in meaningful ways. There's
Speaker 1: a few kind of like slightly gendered things that I
Speaker 1: notice where it's like, oh, well, like, of three of
Speaker 1: the four major female characters in the movie, one of
Speaker 1: the main things we know about them is how good
Speaker 1: or bad they are at domestic housework. But I mean that,
Speaker 1: like it's like kind of the men that are discussing that,
Speaker 1: and it's like, well, what do they care about these
Speaker 1: female characters? And then it's the first thing they think
Speaker 1: to discuss, So I write, I'm like, I'm gonna give
Speaker 1: him the benefit of the data that one. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: didn't like bump me too much. Um yeah, Puma, he's
Speaker 1: a like of the Korean like Oh tours, the male
Speaker 1: O tours that are heralded by can and all these
Speaker 1: other top tier one film festivals around the world. I
Speaker 1: would say Punino was like of the tamer you know,
Speaker 1: because a lot of these other filmmakers Koreano tours are
Speaker 1: very misogynistic, you know, Puck ton of being one of them,
Speaker 1: you know, with Old Boy and all that ship but
Speaker 1: I have a lot of admiration and respect for Puno.
Speaker 1: He's not necessarily my favorite Korean filmmaker, but um, I
Speaker 1: think he tries to strike a balance in his movies
Speaker 1: and he casts really good people, like just a quick think.
Speaker 1: He did have another like underage teenage girl having sex
Speaker 1: with an older man in his two thousand nine film Mother,
Speaker 1: So this is like, this is a thing that comes up,
Speaker 1: and I just wish he wouldn't fetishize that too much. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he had. He has two short films that really excellent.
Speaker 1: One is called Influenza and it's again that's like another
Speaker 1: class commentary of crazy society. And Shaking Tokyo, which is
Speaker 1: part of an Omnibus, is a really really good um
Speaker 1: short film that's set in Japan and it's got pizza
Speaker 1: boxes with this Hiko Morty character, which is really interesting.
Speaker 1: So um, I would recommend those two short films by him. Good. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll check this out. Yeah, check them out. One thing
Speaker 1: that I thought was kind of funny that I didn't
Speaker 1: notice that. I thought it was funny that the only
Speaker 1: like heralded rich person above criticism in this movie the
Speaker 1: Architect and Architect, which I was just like okay, you know,
Speaker 1: but he does have a taint, like a smudge of
Speaker 1: you know, because he built these He built this home
Speaker 1: with this bunker that was made for rich people to
Speaker 1: survive if there was an attack from North Korea or
Speaker 1: to escape creditors like debt collectors, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: So this was a haven that he created for the
Speaker 1: elite class to get away, and he never told the
Speaker 1: parks about it because he was ashamed of it. And
Speaker 1: this is what the housekeeper mentions, right, So I thought
Speaker 1: that was fascinating. Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's I. I
Speaker 1: thought that that that character was playing and it does
Speaker 1: seem like his father was um. He was a graphic
Speaker 1: and industrial designer, so it means like that might be
Speaker 1: him discussing his father a little bit. Who knows, um.
Speaker 1: And then the last thing I wanted to bring up,
Speaker 1: just because it's like a very it also connects to
Speaker 1: something that's going on a lot in the States right now,
Speaker 1: is kind of the the WiFi motif. I guess you
Speaker 1: could call it, but it's just reference. It's the first
Speaker 1: time I've seen WiFi access treated seriously in terms of
Speaker 1: like it being a real problem if you don't have
Speaker 1: access to WiFi where it seems like, I mean, I've
Speaker 1: just heard that problem is dismissed so many times off
Speaker 1: like you don't need a computer, like you know, that's
Speaker 1: a privilege, not a but at this point that is
Speaker 1: absolutely not true there, I mean right now where there
Speaker 1: are so many students that are attending school digitally. There
Speaker 1: was a whole story the day we recorded this about
Speaker 1: students having like sitting outside of taco bells to have
Speaker 1: access to WiFi in order to free WiFi go to school, right,
Speaker 1: didn't to have a quiet room so that they can
Speaker 1: have classes live digitally to study WiFi access. Even the
Speaker 1: strength of your WiFi um not only the laptop and tablets,
Speaker 1: but the strength and then this other undergird of like
Speaker 1: where does all this e waste go? You know, like
Speaker 1: us having WiFi? Who does that hurt? In what country?
Speaker 1: All of that is is Actually Toby Miller is a
Speaker 1: really good scholar you guys can look into if you
Speaker 1: want to learn more about the waste and global inequality. Cool.
Speaker 1: Thanks for that. Well, does parasite pass the Bechtel test?
Speaker 1: That's the real question. That's the most important class commentary.
Speaker 1: Who cares? But Bachtel test? Uh? It does, it does,
Speaker 1: it does just barely. Yeah, there are some discussions where
Speaker 1: it's I mean, we can pick it apart all day.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's super relevant to this specific movie,
Speaker 1: but there are some conversations between women where a man
Speaker 1: isn't explicitly mentioned, but he is kind of like the
Speaker 1: underlying theme. Either way, it passes and even but like
Speaker 1: you know, it's like when it comes to that sex
Speaker 1: scene when he's like fingering her nipple and she's like,
Speaker 1: oh clockwise, I'm like, honestly, a guy fingering my nipple
Speaker 1: does nothing for me because you know, it's like I understand,
Speaker 1: I understand sexuality is complex, but come on, Mrs Park,
Speaker 1: like really, you know, like you want him down in
Speaker 1: between your legs, you know, in your bush, like his
Speaker 1: face in your bush, man, Like, don't lie. Stop lying
Speaker 1: to him that clockwise counter. It doesn't matter. It's ever
Speaker 1: been a directional nipple issue. Yeah, that was never the problem.
Speaker 1: It was just like stop it, you know, just like
Speaker 1: can be like yeah yeah yeah with that, like I
Speaker 1: was just just barely passes. It's like that doesn't know
Speaker 1: female sexuality. I don't know, right, I mean, and it
Speaker 1: would pass more handily if he had given more significant
Speaker 1: to the mother daughter relationship in the Kim family or
Speaker 1: in the Park family, which he really doesn't, and whether
Speaker 1: or not this is a deliberate decision made or whether
Speaker 1: he's just kind of not equipped as a writer to
Speaker 1: be able to write those relationships. It would have been
Speaker 1: nice to see a little more between, especially in the
Speaker 1: Kim family. Yeah, but like with all the women, they
Speaker 1: were all about like their men. You know, the housekeeper
Speaker 1: was everything was about like, you know, taking care of
Speaker 1: that husband in the basement with um, you know, the
Speaker 1: Mrs Park was all about taking care of her quote
Speaker 1: unquote six son, you know, and her and her husband,
Speaker 1: not her daughter, not her daughter. And with Ms Kim
Speaker 1: and Kei Jong, it was again it was about like
Speaker 1: he was planned. Yeah. So yeah, I think in that
Speaker 1: sense it's somewhat problematic, but yeah, it just barely passes.
Speaker 1: Yeah for sure. Well that brings us to our our
Speaker 1: nipple scale, the pectel Cast nipple scale, which is speaking
Speaker 1: of clockwise counterclockwise nipple today it's today it's clock clockwise
Speaker 1: nipple scale, yes, in which we rate the movie on
Speaker 1: a scale of zero to five nipples. Um, just examining
Speaker 1: it from an intersectional feminist lens. I don't and I
Speaker 1: don't know what to do with this movie really, because again,
Speaker 1: there wasn't much of a conversation to be had necessarily
Speaker 1: specific to gender. I mean, obviously the class component is
Speaker 1: the far bigger conversation surrounding this movie. UM So, I
Speaker 1: guess I would I would give it like a three
Speaker 1: or three and a half. Again, I think different female
Speaker 1: characters could have had more agency or could have been
Speaker 1: given more focus. I think that the relationship between Q
Speaker 1: and the young daughter was why is it They're not
Speaker 1: really sure what the function of that is, or there's
Speaker 1: like there was another way to make that point that
Speaker 1: was right. Yeah, so I guess I'll give it a three.
Speaker 1: As much as I love this movie and as much
Speaker 1: as like looking at it from a screenwriting point of view,
Speaker 1: I'm just like loss Chef's Kiss, and I think it
Speaker 1: is an effective class commentary that explores a lot of
Speaker 1: really interesting themes in a way that we haven't necessarily
Speaker 1: seen explored in that way before of a lot of
Speaker 1: class commentary movies. UM So, I appreciated that, but I
Speaker 1: guess from a more gender perspective, I'm like it could
Speaker 1: do better. So three nipples, um, three clockwise nipples, and
Speaker 1: I'll give one to each of the little dogs whose
Speaker 1: names I forget. I think one was like Foo food.
Speaker 1: One I don't remember, that was definitely j Yeah, so
Speaker 1: each dog, because I'll go for a three as well. Yeah. Again,
Speaker 1: it's like, in terms of how much I enjoy and
Speaker 1: appreciate this movie, it's a million nipples. In terms of
Speaker 1: class commentary, it's a million nipples. But yeah, from a
Speaker 1: from a gender perspective, Um, I'll also go at three.
Speaker 1: And I also think on top of what we're talking
Speaker 1: about in terms of the predatory relationship and how um,
Speaker 1: the Park's daughter is kind of sideline and ignored and
Speaker 1: mistreated in a way that you see but isn't really
Speaker 1: examined in any meaningful way. When I feel like there
Speaker 1: is space for that, and just as much as there
Speaker 1: was space for a relationship between the Kim women, like
Speaker 1: there there was space for that that would have uplifted
Speaker 1: the rest of the movie. And I also, uh, well,
Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe this is like but I was
Speaker 1: thinking a little bit. I'm like, I feel like it
Speaker 1: is so devastating to lose Key Jung at the end
Speaker 1: of this movie. Yes, yes, yeah, but I think that
Speaker 1: impact would have hit even harder if we had had
Speaker 1: more time with her, and if we had gotten to
Speaker 1: know her more outside of her relationship with her father
Speaker 1: and her brother, which is what we see more of
Speaker 1: and we don't I mean, but again, it's like that
Speaker 1: we we do know things about her. We know that
Speaker 1: she is very talented, we know that she's really smart,
Speaker 1: she's a queer icon now she gay men love her. Yeah,
Speaker 1: hell yeah, she's she's fucking awesome. But I do. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that if we had had more time with her,
Speaker 1: especially her and her mother. Yeah, I don't, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I I understand why. You know, our rich
Speaker 1: had to die a pole or had to die and
Speaker 1: the ending completely works and makes sense. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: was sorry to see her go to Yeah, of the
Speaker 1: of the four as well, it's like she had I
Speaker 1: don't know, she was just awesome. Yeah. Yeah, So I'll
Speaker 1: go with three for Parasite and let's see. I guess
Speaker 1: I will give two to Keijung rest in power, and
Speaker 1: I will give one to the housekeeper who didn't do
Speaker 1: anything wrong. I felt so bad for her. I know
Speaker 1: she's and that actress is amazing, She's so many things.
Speaker 1: Um yeah, I would give it a two out of
Speaker 1: five in terms of gender because again, like I saw
Speaker 1: like a lot of the focus was, you know, the
Speaker 1: women's focus was on men oftentimes more so than anything else.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I think you still can do a little
Speaker 1: bit more when it comes to exhibiting gender equality or
Speaker 1: giving women a little bit more substance in in his screenplays. Yeah,
Speaker 1: his first film Barking Dogs Never Bite with Pidna, Like,
Speaker 1: she has a very interesting role, Like she's very much
Speaker 1: a strong role in there, and I feel I would
Speaker 1: like to see him kind of go back to more
Speaker 1: of that. Yeah. Cool, I'll have to check that one
Speaker 1: out too. Yeah. Well, Grace, thank you so much for
Speaker 1: being here. This was incredible for having me. I hope
Speaker 1: that our Korean pronunciations did not uh ruined. You girls
Speaker 1: have to stop that like that put so much burden
Speaker 1: on us. We're just like we kind of don't care.
Speaker 1: It's like you guys care more than we do, and
Speaker 1: putting that on us is like it can get annoying sometimes.
Speaker 1: It's like within this frame, you did too much of that.
Speaker 1: It's like you could just start with it and then
Speaker 1: stop saying it for the rest of the things, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, I don't have to apologize every
Speaker 1: single time. You know, it's like it's it's fine. It's
Speaker 1: like I said, it's no big deal. Yeah cool. Yeah,
Speaker 1: thank you for saying that. That's a good learning moment
Speaker 1: for us, and I'm sure some of our listeners will
Speaker 1: find that helpful as well. And thank you so much
Speaker 1: for for joining us, for being here. Where can people
Speaker 1: check out your stuff, check out your writing? Follow you online? Yeah?
Speaker 1: So my handle is h J. It's a E C
Speaker 1: h J A y. You could find that on Instagram, Twitter, TikTok.
Speaker 1: It's also my website. Uh yeah, and you know I
Speaker 1: post show updates there. Um sometimes I do videos, but yeah,
Speaker 1: please follow me. I would really appreciate it. Thank you,
Speaker 1: This is really fun. Thank you come back anytime. I
Speaker 1: would love to come back. Thanks. Of course, we'll have
Speaker 1: you back soon, y um. And you can follow us
Speaker 1: on social media at becketel Cast. You can subscribe to
Speaker 1: our Patreon ak Matreon It's patreon dot com slash becktel
Speaker 1: cast yep uh and it gets you to bonus episodes
Speaker 1: every month, plus access to the entire back catalog. Just
Speaker 1: like it's like seventy eight episodes at this point, some
Speaker 1: seventy ish. Yeah, this show has been on for seventy
Speaker 1: five million year. Still going strong. It's still going just
Speaker 1: still so many movies left to cover. And then our
Speaker 1: t public store where you can get all of our
Speaker 1: merch t public dot com slash. The Bechtel Cast just
Speaker 1: had to end on a little bit of capitalism for
Speaker 1: you at the end of our parents that were like
Speaker 1: also by our merge, yeah, but by our stuff, give
Speaker 1: us money, subscribe to our Patreon. But yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: do what you can to help out your fellow human being.
Speaker 1: That's what will end on. Bye bye bye