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For Seoul’s poor, class strife in ‘Parasite’ is daily reality

nytimes.com

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Re: For Seoul’s poor, class strife in ‘Parasite’ is daily reality

#51

Post by stebann »

httpz wrote: post #16

One unrealistic part about the poor family in the movie is that, there is no way a family of four healthy adults can be that poor in S.Korea (unless they have a large debt payment). If all four of them worked 40hrs/wk doing a minimum wage job ($7/hr in S.Korea), it puts them around $59k/yr, which is above the median household income.

If you can't get any job then you're done. Even if there're jobs but employers want the prices to fall for a specific occupation, then you're don too. This is not specific to South Korea though.

I believe that this situations could get better if HR companies weren't thriving everywhere just cutting down any opportunities for the people with stupid assessments, even universities graduates, and letting the experienced and trained personnel that belong to a business make their calls, but this depends on the business willingness.

Re: For Seoul’s poor, class strife in ‘Parasite’ is daily reality

#52

Post by anonsivalley652 »

I don't want to crap all over Koreans or Korean culture, but there's one element that profoundly bothers me: the abandonment and shunning of the elderly. Many are homeless or live lonely lives in destitution and having to rely on charity food. Also, certain bridges have become notorious for mostly all elderly people committing suicide because they can't take it anymore. Korea has a lot going for it, so I hope it gets better in this regard and inequality.

The US and many other countries also need to address inequality seriously too, if not for moral reasons then for selfish, long-term GDP and consumer purchasing power reasons.

Re: For Seoul’s poor, class strife in ‘Parasite’ is daily reality

#53

Post by remote_phone »

cycrutchfield wrote: post #11
remote_phone wrote: post #9

I didn’t get the sense it was class strife. The main family was a bunch of scumbags. They lied and cheated constantly. I didn’t get the sense that they represented the lower class because the others around them weren’t like that. It makes it harder to argue this represents class struggle when the main family is so deceitful and undeserving of benefits.

They lied and cheated constantly because they were forced to due their poverty. It is absolutely a movie about class inequality and resentment.

They weren’t scumbags because they were poor. They were poor because they were scumbags. That was what I saw. They were an entire family of cheaters and liars but none of the other characters in the same economic class were like that.

The rich people were never mean or overbearing to less well off people and treated their workers well. The workers were very loyal to them until the family lied and cheated their way into their jobs.

I enjoyed the movie but if the point was to show economic inequality I feel he missed the mark.

Re: For Seoul’s poor, class strife in ‘Parasite’ is daily reality

#54

Post by lurquer »

Parasite gives one the same degree of insight about Korean culture as Raising Arizona does about American culture.

WTF, HackerNews? All this pretentious pontificating about the deeper meaning of a dark comedy (which could be set in ANY culture or locale with very few changes...) Whats next? A thread about the subtleties of Korean culture revealed in Gangham Style?

Read a book.

Re: For Seoul’s poor, class strife in ‘Parasite’ is daily reality

#55

Post by akiselev »

madengr wrote: post #4
danans wrote: post #3

As much as it pointed out the serious inequality issues facing South Korea, the movie also highlighted the fact that the poor in South Korea have access to healthcare free at the point of service. It also depicted young people who, despite their poverty, had enough access to schooling that they could serve as English tutors to the wealthy (yes, I'm aware that SK's education system has other issues related to it being…

“ Mr. Kim owns his place in the building, bought for $30,000 after he sold his house in a better neighborhood 20 years ago to help pay for his late wife’s cancer bills.” How does that fit into universal health care?

Universal healthcare means that any required medical treatment is free at the point of use but it does not usually pay for every possible quality of life intervention like a part/full time caregiver. Given the side effects from cancer treatment, I wouldn't be surprised if Mr Kim had to go to work but didn't want to leave his wife at home, weak and helpless, for the duration of his absence. Even if universal healthcare paid for a part time caregiver, they likely would not have been there most of the day, requiring quite a bit of money to pay for a private provider.

Re: For Seoul’s poor, class strife in ‘Parasite’ is daily reality

#56

Post by fiblye »

totorovirus wrote: post #28

One of the most interesting culture in South korea is that under treated low class people (dirt-spoon class) don't really try disrupt current society model. To elaborate, people put poverty on their own responsibility rather than complaining about structural inequality. The rage towards class inequality is emitted at competition for higher ranked university and the reward of being in a prestigious college.

That dream get crushed when universities start increasingly accepting students through connections and children of graduates.

Getting major urban schools is much harder as a rural kid with a 4.0 GPA than a kid from nearby with the same GPA and parents who attended and donated to the school a few times.

I think Americans are more pissed off because there's been more to make people aware of the long term and growing unfairness.

Re: For Seoul’s poor, class strife in ‘Parasite’ is daily reality

#57

Post by sybarita »

2drew3 wrote: post #13

For those who watched the movie, I found the ending interesting. I won't spoil it for everyone else, but Bong Joon-ho made his perspective unambiguous: he's not a believer in social mobility in Korea. 6 of the top 10 Forbes list in Korea are self-made; the other 4 inherited their wealth. In contrast, 10 out of top 10 are self-made in the US. There are better metrics to compare social mobility (this one was convenient…

lol "self made billionaire"

Re: For Seoul’s poor, class strife in ‘Parasite’ is daily reality

#58

Post by Aunche »

Barrin92 wrote: post #42
Aunche wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They were absolutely terrible people. They weren't so poor that they had to trigger an old lady's dangerous allergy just to get the mother a job.

One of the key findings of research done by Robert Sapolsky is that poverty, on a biological level, increases the tendency to prioritize short-term thinking over long-term thinking. This is not surprising, because people in poverty need to be opportunistic to survive. Cutthroat behavior in poverty is not an example of bad moral character, it's a valid strategy to make it day to day. Being generous is something one ha…

>Cutthroat behavior in poverty is not an example of bad moral character

I can tell that Dick Cheney is a shitty person, even though he donated more money than I'll make in several lifetimes to charity. Likewise, I can tell that the Kim family had poor moral character, even though they were in poverty.

> it showcases how poverty itself forces people to engage in behaviour that makes others look down on them as undeserving

I'm sure that's true to some extent in real life, but I don't see how that is portrayed in the movie. The Kim family isn't "forced" to cheat except in the beginning when they had nothing.

Equally funny as the "Protestant folk morality" is the belief that poor people 100% a product of their environment.

Re: For Seoul’s poor, class strife in ‘Parasite’ is daily reality

#59

Post by anonsivalley652 »

danans wrote: post #3

As much as it pointed out the serious inequality issues facing South Korea, the movie also highlighted the fact that the poor in South Korea have access to healthcare free at the point of service. It also depicted young people who, despite their poverty, had enough access to schooling that they could serve as English tutors to the wealthy (yes, I'm aware that SK's education system has other issues related to it being…

Wow, that's cool. I wonder if vision, dental, medical, hospital, prescriptions and mental are all covered without fees?

The very poor in the US only get Medicaid (rarely Medicare, which requires paying into Social Security long enough).

Medicaid:

- It doesn't pay doctors, specialists and dentists enough, so they often treat patients poorly (spend less time, not thorough enough, don't order necessary tests).

- Medication is all paid-for with no co-pays (out-of-pocket expenses), but at a limited number of pharmacy brands and limited selection of medications (formulary).

- Emergency and necessary hospital care is completely paid-for.

- There is a limited selection of doctors and dentists available to choose from. Most, not all, are reviewed very poorly.

- Only one dentist cleaning visit a year is allowed even if the person needs it more frequently because they produce plaque faster.

- There are very few specialists who are assigned by the doctor, often with very, very long waiting lists. Furthermore, some specialties do away with waiting lists and make people call on a certain time at a certain day like animals for very few appointments. They make it a game to play with people's lives and waste their time.

- The choices of insurers who actually provide the Medicaid insurance is usually 1, 2 or maybe 3 in certain counties.

-----

Medicare (similar to typical US convoluted, private insurance):

- Has several confusing options, lots of rules and fine-print.

- Medication isn't covered, it needs Part D insurance or ExtraHelp.

- Hospital insurance requires enough taxes paid or paid Part A private insurance.

- Medical insurance requires enough taxes paid or paid Part B private insurance.

- Medigap private insurance can be needed to pay co-pays, deductibles, coinsurance but it doesn't cover long-term care (no LTC = $$$$), vision/eyeglasses, dental, hearing aids, or private-duty nursing.

----

It's possible to have both Medicare and Medicaid, which means good insurance but with some out-of-pocket expenses.

Maybe Medicare improved without costs, for all, would be far, far better than people dying from cancer having to go to bankruptcy court rather than finish their bucket list?

Re: For Seoul’s poor, class strife in ‘Parasite’ is daily reality

#60

Post by anonsivalley652 »

zpallin wrote: post #6
madengr wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“ Mr. Kim owns his place in the building, bought for $30,000 after he sold his house in a better neighborhood 20 years ago to help pay for his late wife’s cancer bills.” How does that fit into universal health care?

Universal healthcare does not mean "free healthcare". What it means is that all people have equal access to healthcare, the kind that would otherwise be provided by everyone having private healthcare insurance, such as what would need to happen in the US. The intent is that this would be more affordable for the average person than not having a universal healthcare system. Of course, affordability is not a guarantee f…

I'm sorry but that's wrong because that's trying to twist the meaning of words. No money, no healthcare isn't universal obviously. With no single-payer, government-funded, healthcare system, only doctors and patients who have to pay for everything themselves, that is in no way "universal healthcare."

The problem with charging poor people for healthcare is that they get sicker and sicker and then need emergency care, and that's more expensive than giving them free healthcare in the beginning.

It's unethical and classist to pick-and-choose who gets life-saving cancer treatment based on their income. Doctors with integrity would be abhorred at being presented with such a decision because it goes against the fundamental values of their profession.

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