[In-Depth Look] Viruses and Parasites

In February 2020, we are experiencing how complex and multilayered society is through two major issues. While the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19), which has unsettled the entire country, continues, the news of the film Parasite winning four Academy Awards arrived. It felt like watching a tragicomedy unfold on a grand stage.

COVID-19, which began last December in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China, seems to have entered a lull domestically due to appropriate responses from health authorities and citizens’ thorough hygiene management and adherence to preventive measures. The condition of patients receiving treatment is generally stable, allowing for a sigh of relief for now.

However, the economic impact of COVID-19 is expected to be unimaginably severe. When SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) raged worldwide in 2003, it caused economic damage exceeding $40 billion in Asia alone. The economic damage from COVID-19, which has resulted in a cumulative 70,000 cases in China alone, is expected to far surpass that of SARS. While the extent of the slowdown in China’s economic growth rate will be a determining factor, some estimates suggest that damage in Asia alone could reach $160 billion.

Due to the impact of COVID-19, concerns are growing that the South Korean economy will experience negative growth in the first quarter of this year as industrial activity and private consumption contract. Everyone is struggling, but small business owners, self-employed workers, daily wage laborers, and the unemployed with nowhere to turn are facing even more severe situations due to this sudden adverse event. These are the people symbolized by the semi-basement homes and underground bunkers in director Bong Joon-ho’s film Parasite.

Parasite swept four categories at the 92nd Academy Awards held on the 10th at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles, winning the highest honor, Best Picture, as well as Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best International Feature Film. This is a valuable achievement, the first in the 101-year history of Korean cinema. Previously, the film won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in May last year and has received over 200 prestigious awards worldwide, including the Golden Globes, which are considered a precursor to the Oscars. The reason Parasite is loved by film fans around the world is multifaceted, but especially because its theme of inequality and wealth disparity resonates globally.

The stairs in the film symbolize social class. The structure of the house connected by stairs visualizes a class society. The second-floor space where CEO Park lives, the semi-basement where the Ki-taek family, who fell from middle class to extreme poverty due to successive business failures, lives, and the underground bunker where Geun-se, who has disappeared from the world, hides. The Ki-taek family, who briefly play the upper class in the mansion while the owner is away, discover the underground bunker during a heavy rainstorm and suddenly flee from the returning owner’s house, returning to a chaotic reality. While the semi-basement floods with backflow from the sewer, even the Indian tent set up in the yard of the second-floor house remains safe. Ki-taek commits a sudden act and walks into the underground bunker himself. The underground bunker is like poverty that one cannot escape no matter how hard one tries.

Although the film is set in Korean society, it deals with the universal issue of polarization occurring worldwide under neoliberal capitalism. Director Bong Joon-ho vividly portrays this with his characteristic meticulous language. Furthermore, without distinguishing which side is justice and which is evil, it shows the cruel reality of living parasitically off each other. Despite cultural differences, the extreme inequality embedded in Parasite is something anyone can immediately empathize with.

Art holds social significance and exerts great power when it points out the problems of the times and probes conflict factors. Now, as COVID-19 rages, what will the success story of Parasite bring us? It is time for policymakers and politicians to provide answers.

Polarization in Korean society is deepening. The relative deprivation of those who have nothing grows, and conflicts between classes deepen the sense of alienation. Instead of social integration, a vicious cycle of disconnection and hostility continues. Rather than superficial ideas such as building a memorial hall or turning filming locations into tourist attractions in celebration of Parasite’s triumph, serious discussions and realistic measures on inequality and polarization must be prepared. Please keep your eyes wide open and pay attention to the Morse code sent from the underground bunker.

Ham Hyeri Journalist/Cultural Critic