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?

  • grouchy [she/her]
    ·
    4 years ago

    I mean of course the murder itself isn't class solidarity, but it explains his motivation. In the heat of the moment, he wants revenge for his daughter and recognizes (again, too late) that her death is not solely at the hands of the guy wielding the knife, but because of the way society has pitted them against each other. It's not supposed to be some sort of uplifting or freeing act.

    I don't think the movie is perfect precisely because it's easy to misunderstand, but it really is very clear about what it wants to say.

    • Zuzak [fae/faer, she/her]
      hexagon
      ·
      4 years ago

      I don’t think the movie is perfect precisely because it’s easy to misunderstand, but it really is very clear about what it wants to say.

      Isn't that contradictory?

      • grouchy [she/her]
        ·
        4 years ago

        That gets into a discussion about authorial intent and passive vs. active media consumption that I don't feel like having rn. I probably didn't word that very well, but my point is that the movie is internally consistent. However, I don't think it was originally intended for international audiences, and imo it's set up in a way that is directly challenging a very culturally specific mindset. Considering the overall success of the movie it's obviously not impossible to approach it without those prerequisites, but because it's tailored to a specific audience it leaves a lot of gaps to be filled in without extra guidance. That's true of pretty much all movies though...

        • Zuzak [fae/faer, she/her]
          hexagon
          ·
          4 years ago

          I guess my perspective was that I was told to watch the movie because it would explain a concept to me, and people were saying that I didn't understand the concept because I hadn't seen the movie, and yeah I tried to put my expectations aside but I was still kinda expected that it would explain things more clearly and be more accessible. I tried to put all that aside but practically speaking it's hard to make sure that that doesn't influence it at all.