The Forgotten Neoliberal Man of Parasite
March 6, 2020 2:32 PM   Subscribe

T.K. of Ask a Korean writes "Our failure to discuss Geun-sae is not because he is a spoiler; rather, Geun-sae had to be a spoiler because we are conditioned not to think about him."
Geun-sae is the most neoliberal man in Parasite, because he accepts and legitimizes the system that condemns him into the abyss. . . . The challenge of neoliberalism is to create a neoliberal man like Geun-sae. Without the millions of Geun-saes who buy into the system that crushes them, the capitalist structure cannot survive.
(Note: spoilers abound.)

Linked post also contains a translation of Bong Joon Ho's storyboard sketch of Geun-sae's study.

Further reading: For Seoul’s Poor, Class Strife in ‘Parasite’ Is Daily Reality (Choe Sang-Hun, New York Times) (archive)
posted by Not A Thing (23 comments total) 41 users marked this as a favorite
 
Note: I have sought, but have not found, any comparable analysis of the character Guk Mun-gwang (Geun-sae's wife).
posted by Not A Thing at 2:35 PM on March 6, 2020 [2 favorites]


Geun-sae virtually never makes any appearance in Parasite reviews because for those who care about inequality, the messages presented through Geun-sae is too horrible to contemplate: that class solidarity is impossible, that the rage of the lowest socioeconomic status is never directed to those at the top of the structure, that even after nihilistic destruction of lives, the machinery of capitalism continues to churn, imprisoning bodies and minds.

Very incisive piece, thank you for posting it.
posted by PMdixon at 2:54 PM on March 6, 2020 [7 favorites]


Yes, thank you, excellent stuff.
posted by mwhybark at 3:09 PM on March 6, 2020


Well, points to Mefi for spending some time talking about his significance on Fanfare, then...
posted by praemunire at 3:40 PM on March 6, 2020 [3 favorites]


This is a very, very interesting piece. My wife and I just saw Parasite for the first time this week, and were able to spend quite a bit of time digesting and discussing it afterwards. One of the things that we were struck by is how no one in the film seems to be authentically themselves, rather they're all slotting into roles that the system has dealt them.

The Parks obviously drew a great hand, but there's nothing to distinguish them or their desires or their lives from any other family. The Kims slot into the "servants" position, but are fundamentally interchangeable with the Ohs and all of the other servants they displaced. The brutality of that particular competition is an ever-present undercurrent in the film, even though the first half of the film presents it like a caper/heist.
posted by verb at 4:11 PM on March 6, 2020 [3 favorites]


I wish I could go back and watch Parasite for the first time, primarily through the lens of social commentary. I knew it did social commentary, but I thought it was also a horror movie, and that's how I was trying to watch it. What I experienced on my first watch was a poor-to-middling horror movie.

Oddly enough, I was watching it incorrectly at the exact time it was winning the Best Picture Oscar.
posted by gurple at 7:58 PM on March 6, 2020 [1 favorite]


Perhaps the most interesting take I've read on the movie.

I've been perplexed by the rather simplistic urge to paint the Kims as more sympathetic than they deserve (because they're poor and have to be shady, or something), and the Parks as less sympathetic (because they're rich, duh). The movie plainly isn't that simple. The Kims get as far as they do by stepping on and double crossing their equals at every chance. And they're quite good at doing that. This talent also makes it plain they're not the people you want to champion class solidarity. The movie depicts them pretty harshly because they are harsh and fundamentally crude people. I'm reminded of the adage, "You can take the boy out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the boy". They work to get ahead, but what comprises "getting ahead" sits about two inches in front of their faces. They get no edification or security from what little they gain because they seek no edification or security. Not only do they conspire to poison Moon-gwang and get her sacked, they show absolutely no mercy upon the reveal of Geun-sae's desperate and disturbing existence. Moon-gwang's and Geun-sae's lingering entanglement threatens the employment the Kims so cleverly schemed to get. The grift is something the Kims will not split, to tragic and ironic end.

In Parasite, class struggle is as much, if not more, among the classes, as between them.
posted by 2N2222 at 8:36 PM on March 6, 2020 [12 favorites]


Interesting... I left the cinema under the impression that the story was cyclical; that Geun-sae was probably hiding the basement after killing the previous occupant of the house (the architect who designed it, whose death left the basement a secret) in circumstances broadly similar to the events of the film. It was months ago, but I vaguely remember newspaper clippings on the wall about the architect's death, and Geun-sae apologising to a photo of the architect in the same way that Ki-taek later apologises to a photo of Dong-ik - with the implication that the cycle was likely to repeat with the new owners of the house. Did I imagine all of this?
posted by A Thousand Baited Hooks at 9:11 PM on March 6, 2020 [11 favorites]


Didn't the architect simply move to Paris?
posted by Coaticass at 10:32 PM on March 6, 2020


I've been perplexed by the rather simplistic urge to paint the Kims as more sympathetic than they deserve (because they're poor and have to be shady, or something), and the Parks as less sympathetic (because they're rich, duh). The movie plainly isn't that simple. The Kims get as far as they do by stepping on and double crossing their equals at every chance. And they're quite good at doing that. This talent also makes it plain they're not the people you want to champion class solidarity. The movie depicts them pretty harshly because they are harsh and fundamentally crude people. I'm reminded of the adage, "You can take the boy out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the boy".

What an odd statement, it certainly comes across like you've an agenda. The Kim's aren't perfect clearly, but the point isn't that they have to be saints to be the deserving poor or whatever bullshit you think.
posted by Carillon at 10:38 PM on March 6, 2020 [3 favorites]


Well we’ve generally been led to believe class warfare begets progress, which Parasite’s vision of class war complicates, certainly.
posted by notyou at 11:09 PM on March 6, 2020 [1 favorite]


I don’t think 2n2222’s statement comes off as odd, and I think suggesting a hidden agenda is unfair - these are working class people screwing over other working class people and certainly not heroes
posted by thedaniel at 12:27 AM on March 7, 2020 [5 favorites]


Isn't the point you're both trying to make that the system makes the oppressed fight each other instead of their oppressors?
posted by Captain Fetid at 1:15 AM on March 7, 2020 [11 favorites]


Yeah, I imagine everyone’s politics are roughly aligned, lefty crabs in a bucket
posted by thedaniel at 1:48 AM on March 7, 2020 [1 favorite]


I liked this analysis very much until the end:

for those who care about inequality, the messages presented through Geun-sae is too horrible to contemplate: that class solidarity is impossible, that the rage of the lowest socioeconomic status is never directed to those at the top of the structure, that even after nihilistic destruction of lives, the machinery of capitalism continues to churn, imprisoning bodies and minds.

Rich irony in a piece that supposedly critiques neoliberalism ending on a note that ... serves neoliberalism's goals. "Impossible"? "Never"? Don't struggle, don't bother, you'll only end up fighting someone just like yourself, and capitalism will win.

All over the world, people from all parts of the working class are becoming part of full-on communist organizations to read, to discuss, to get to know each other, and to fight for a better way of life. If that's too much for you at the moment, find some local folks doing permaculture and renewable energy for homes, and join a community that's going to be much better prepared for climate change than most. Then turn around and teach someone else about it and don't try to make it into a money-making proposition like so many do.

The future is NOT set. Join us.
posted by Sheydem-tants at 2:07 AM on March 7, 2020 [7 favorites]


You can also view it as a cautionary tale for rejecting class solidarity - things really go downhill for the Park family when they make the explicit decision to betray Geun-sae when he is discovered.
posted by chiquitita at 2:13 AM on March 7, 2020 [14 favorites]


What an odd statement, it certainly comes across like you've an agenda. The Kim's aren't perfect clearly, but the point isn't that they have to be saints to be the deserving poor or whatever bullshit you think.

What?? I've reread 2N222's a couple times and I'm struggling to find what your characterizing as BS. No where does the comment suggest the Kims don't deserve basic dignity or security, the comment points out that they don't seek security, which I believe is supported by the text.

I believe its actually completely uncontroversial to describe the Kims as complicated anti-heros. They lie, commit fraud, and then assault the economically vulnerable Moon-gwang. And it's not an agenda, concern trolling or tone policing to condemn committing fraud and assault against the economically vulnerable as antithetical to class solidarity.
posted by midmarch snowman at 8:02 AM on March 7, 2020 [6 favorites]


Neither the Kims nor the old servants are capable of class solidarity - c.f. the whole point about Geun-sae made here. I read the movie as primarily a systemic critique so focusing on who is individually sympathetic seems beside the point - they are all given a fairly balanced portrayal.
posted by atoxyl at 10:51 AM on March 7, 2020 [4 favorites]


because they're poor and have to be shady, or something

this is more or less spoken aloud in the movie - not that the words coming out of the characters' mouths are necessarily the message of the movie but the "I'd be nice too, if I was rich" part is something I think you have to discuss in comparing the Kims and the Parks

(my politics are very pro-class-struggle but I thought in artistic terms the movie weighted the scale just a little too heavily against the Parks at the moment where the husband starts talking really snobby about servants and people who take the subway)
posted by atoxyl at 11:07 AM on March 7, 2020


Had any of these analyses made the lumpenprole vs. proletariat distinction when discussing the Kims?
posted by Apocryphon at 12:05 PM on March 7, 2020 [1 favorite]


"... they don't seek security, which I believe is supported by the text."

How? Clearly the Kims don't have any security at any point in the movie, I would assume that's supposed to show us that seeking it might be a driving force for them.

Someone suggested that it was greedy to get the Mum too in on the grift when three family members were already involved, but the whole point is that even with three family members involved they couldn't afford to move out of that damn basement. And they couldn't afford to be terribly patient and just count on saving enough money in time, because the basement smell was already endangering their sweet gig/the basement situation was so precarious it was clear that it wouldn't be tenable much longer. And it very much wasn't! Something like that flood probably wasn't coming entirely out of left field.

And class solidarity is a nice idea, sure, but just taking the former housekeeper's bribe and commit to feeding her husband in the basement, would have come with enormous risks. Of course so does bringing someone else in such a desperate situation that they have nothing to lose, but during this first moment of hesitation Kim mom doesn't yet know that her own grift is about to be found out as well and that the situation will therefore escalate. A truly greedy person would have tried to wring all they could out of the blackmail potential, but Kim mom does not seem to be tempted by the bribe. When her first instinct is to call the police all she's thinking about is playing it safe. It's ugly, and it backfires, but I don't think it's hard to understand at all. A desperate need for cruelly elusive security rather than greed dooms our protagonists.
posted by sohalt at 1:06 PM on March 7, 2020 [1 favorite]


In fact, Geun-sae is the most neoliberal man in Parasite, because he accepts and legitimizes the system that condemns him into the abyss.

Arguably, they all do. Every character has their place in the economic and social relationships formed by capital, which guides and mostly decides their actions. Moreover, English, America, and American culture are overarching ideals for all characters, regardless of their place in the system. In a broad historical sense, (South) Korea is perhaps one of many capitalist products of a mostly victorious post-WWII America, or at least sculpted out of the post-war conflict of capital and communism. Characters may aspire to shuffle their place within this system, but the system itself persists, even after the final act.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 1:30 PM on March 7, 2020 [1 favorite]


The ambiguity of where parasitism enters into the film still puzzles me. Characters seem to be mainly in symbiotic relationships, if ones which are based on disdain and dishonesty.

I suspect capital is the real parasite here — it's an organism that has been growing since the 1600s, one which colonial-era America unleashed in full force on the world after WWII and the Korean War. In post-war Korea, this organism feeds off these people, bleeds them all dry of their humanity, discards them as news stories for others to consume and forget, and then it moves on. Another family enters the House to repeat the life cycle.

What's that phrase, repeated by every croupier since the dawn of casinos? The House always wins.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 3:18 PM on March 7, 2020 [7 favorites]


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