I got in trouble because someone posted a thread telling everyone to watch Parasite because it explains how reactionary chuds are actually good people deep down and they're just the beleagured working class and shit, and I responded to that talking about how in my own lived experience, people at the bottom are actually pretty chill and the working class chud thing is kinda exaggerrated and the reality is that a lot of chuds are middle class Boomer Karen small buisiness tyrants who love to throw their weight around. Everyone jumped down my throat and started putting words in my mouth and it became a minor struggle session. However, some other people were more chill and I tried my best to put it aside and evaluate the movie on it's own merits, thinking maybe those losers had just missed the point and it was actually good but in a different way than they interpred it. Here is my review:
The first half was slow. It was basically just the plot of The Music Man but edgier and more repetitive. I didn't feel invested in the characters and I felt like their definining chracteristics were that they were poor and also jerks. Yeah yeah I know the entire internet is screaming at me that the whole point is that capitalism forces them to be jerks, but like, does it though, in the movie? They didn't have to turn against other workers to get the first two hired, and it wasn't clear (at least to me) that that income wasn't enough to get by.
Then we have the bit with the guy in the basement. They could've absolutely just let him chill down there, but they didn't, because they were jerks. And because they're jerks and the relationship becomes antagonistic, it causes them all sorts of problems. It seemed to me like their jerkishness was more of a liability than an asset.
The climax didn't make any sense and wasn't believable. Like, the father secured this gullible rich fuck through whom he was able to secure a livlihood for himself and his family, and he randomly decides to throw it all away because the rich fucker said he smelled bad? And before everyone jumps down my throat for defending the rich guy, I'm not, fuck him, I'm just talking about the father's motivations.
The resolution was the worst part by far. Is there any sort of messaging about banding together with your fellow worker? Absolutely not. The son just fucking decides he wants to get rich enough to buy the house and that works, because the system is fair and anyone can get rich if they just try hard enough. What the actual fuck. Why didn't he just decide to get rich before any of this happened and save me two hours?
This is basically no different from people upholding The Joker as a socialist film. Socialism isn't just random acts of violence against rich people. Hating rich people, especially hating particular rich people, doesn't automatically make you a socialist. The movie doesn't make any sort of statement on where the Park's wealth came from which leaves the audience to figure out whether it's earned or unearned, and if you didn't already have socialist values then you could easily come away siding with the Parks. So why does everyone act like this is some great socialist masterpiece?
All that video is telling me is "The rich people had rich people things and the poor people had poor people things." Like obviously class is a theme but it doesn't really talk about where the divide comes from or what should be done about it or anything like that.
That's why it's a movie and not a lecture. Most profound movies don't answer any questions, they merely pose them. That's why art is such a subjective experience. There is no middle class (in the movie and in real life), yet the main family doesn't see themselves as being part of the same class as the cellar people. Even though they very obviously are. That's what's keeping many from gaining class conciousness. There is no answers given, except the ones in our heads, which have been expressed here before. Why don't they let them chill? Why did they go through such length to swindel the workers out the house? They could cooperate, yet they choose not to. Doesn't that reminde you of liberals who have gained a tiny bit of haram parra.
But again, art is about the subjective experience. If you didn't enjoy the movie, thats totally ok.
I have to admit that my expectations were set by comments like:
So I tried to give the movie a fair chance but I definitely went in expecting it to explain things and provide answers, like in a way that would be easier to understand than someone just fucking explaining the concepts they were talking about. Seems like everyone was being intellectually lazy with the tactic of "Just watch this movie and you'll see why I'm right." Maybe someday I can rewatch the movie without the expectation of it explaining things and maybe then I could appreciate it more.
Thanks.