I think it would be great to see it acknowledged that Parasite won at Cannes, and that it won a phenomenal list of other awards from all over the world, even before its four Oscars.
I'm thrilled about its Oscars because now, all the people who participated in creating Parasite will probably make some serious money.
This movie has been on my list since I first read about it in this paper.
Your write up describes a real crabs-in-a-bucket phenomenon as well as the class discrepancies. It would seem to be a major theme as it happens more than once.
All this has been happening for most of our lives.
1
As usual, the comments are funnier than the film, or any article about it.
I've yet to see someone ask what the Parks actually did to be so rich. Astute they were not, and the way they were raising their son, indulging his most bizarre whims in the most ill-advised ways, was what led to the ultimate bloodbath.
What I liked most about the film is that the first act showed exactly how a person gets a job in a modern capitalist society. I thought it was a brilliant object lesson in contemporary branding and marketing, and undercutting the competition to be Number One.
I saw no reason to think that the Parks advanced by doing anything so very different from what the Kims did to obtain jobs with them, except stylistically.
1
Self awareness is lacking in the audience (and Ms Goldberg) - they are the rich Parks. In North America, no Kim saw this movie.
Much like the Democratic Party that has given up on the working class and is now focusing on over educated urban elites. Harvard lawyers and Billionaire hedge fund guys are their candidates, and are in existential fear of a Bernie, who can actually speak to the middle and lower class
7
I doubt I'll watch Parasite. Its Oscar is too smacks too much of tithes paid by our pampered radical chic elite to political correctness. The award[s) seem intended to expiate their privilege, wealth and brute good fortune.
For the same reason, I think, viewership for the Oscars was down this year. Who has the time or interest to watch dilettantes parading their wokeness?
Will it all end when all the Oscars are awarded based on quotas that ensure the awards look like America?
4
"Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez elicited spasms of outraged mockery ... when she called the idea of lifting oneself up by one’s bootstraps “a joke.”"
Well, a bartender precipitously graduating to Congresswoman and media darling surely qualifies as lifted by their bootstraps. If she had a sense of humor, she'd see that the joke was on her.
3
@Kai
She happens to have a cum laude degree from Boston University in international relations and economics and served as an intern to Ted Kennedy. And MIT named a small asteroid after her when she came in second in an international science fair while she was in high school. So yeah, just a bartender, not a "stable genius" like your president.
6
How many ordinary people will actually see this film? How many people will remember it five years from now? How many people will watch the film 20 years from now?
Frankly -- a film that wins Best Picture should be one that people will look at thirty, fifty years from now. The majority of films that have won in recent years won't be viewed two years from now let alone fifty.
4
@Amanda Bonner
Parasite stayed with me like no other film I've seen in years and years.
Oscar politics aside, films that win the Palme d'Or at Cannes do tend to become classics.
2
The most interesting thing to me was the unbelievable applause and jubilation shown by the members at the announcement of the winning picture. If ever there was a case of overblown and self serving rich it is the top drawer of earnings by these people who make their living by acting. Nothing wrong with that but their wealth makes them more Park family than anything else.
4
Michelle, get a grip. It's a movie.
I think it succeeds because it jumps from one genre to another to another in a surprising and entertaining way.
If it's a critique of society it's Korean society. There you might contemplate whether you'd rather live in the south or the north if you were born into the lower 99 percent. South Korea has come a very long way in a short time to vastly improve the economic well being of its citizens.
You could also cut the US some slack compared to the European countries in its ability to absorb waves of immigrants and avoid patently fascist government systems.
3
Reaganist wealth fetishists have turned extractive and exploitative capitalism into their religion. The silly cliche a rising tide lifts all boats doesn't seem to work for everyone who makes an honest boots on the ground living.
4
Golly, what a fun film!! and quite thoughtful. Interesting how people are turning it into a sociology class (whoops! there's that word again:). This year's crop was all good, and the list could have used some expanding. Having so said, Ho has a track record. His Snowpiercer is an incredible film, with great performances by Tilda Swinton and Ed Harris. He didn't just "pop out of the woodwork" so to speak. Those of us who still love film, and the Oscars as well as the less "glamorous" award productions, are delighted to keep on keepin' on.
Thank you, thank you, thank you Michelle. It’s been a mainstream media taboo to have a serious critique of
class and capitalism especially in relationship to the U.S..
This a society and culture which routinely demonizes anything approaching a Marxist analysis. It’s almost a crime to mention
the “M” and “F” words. That’s Marxism and Fascism.
Fascism is barely mentioned even though Trump is taking us
down that dark road.
3
The signs of fascism are appearing far more frequently in America. The lights are flashing red.
4
@Michael It is as you say. Today the ideas of Karl Marx are routinely taught in universities without acknowledgement of their source. Marx's enduring value to us is his astute analyst of capitalism's weaknesses. Marx, of course, was writing in Britain, an industrialized economy. The uses to which his writings were subsequently put by Lenin and the measures adopted by Lenin and Stalin to accelerate Russia's transformation from an agrarian to a industrial economy are different matter. Yet these are what Americans regard as marxism.
1
I think “Parasite” is a cruel mirror of the current social problems. It shows the "path" that a lot of people follow frustrated by the difficulties to go ahead with dignity in the own lives.
1
Good article! From my experience, I think that rich people who view this film will laugh at different things than the muggles will...
But, as a lifelong fan of international cinema, I am optimistic for the industry. American Cinema kicked up it's game in response to the avid popularity of films by Foreign directors like Bergman, Fellini, and Kirasawa in the middle of the last century.
Maybe the success of this Korean surprise will jog Hollywood into producing something beyond the box-check, blockbuster wannabes they have become known for in this last decade.
Another communist article. The American dream is alive and well. What other country are people streaming to for relief from their world. Our children think socialism is the answer, every one is equal, everyone gets a fair share. But as Napoleon said in Animal Farm, some people are more equal than others. The socialist utopia does not exist. It's fantasy dreamed up by people who want their things now and are willing to take it from others instead of working for them and earning them.
5
There's a problem for those who think Parasite is about the evils of Capitalism and hopelessness of the "have nots." The problem is the Kim family.
The Kim family living in squalor are like ticks waiting in the bushes for the next victim's blood. They have absolutely no drive or ambition on their own. They can't get their noses out of their phones. They can't even bother to fold a pizza box correctly for a few bucks. But once they latch onto the Parks you see how incredibly smart, capable, resourceful, manipulative, greedy and bloodthirsty they are.
There is no reason they should not have been successful in life without the Parks. They are not representative of have-nots. They are representative of spoiled brats who can't be bothered to make a life of their own and prefer to live off the rich.
Bong says that he did not set out to make a film about class and that seems clear to me by the portrayal of the Kim family as human parasites. That's why when the film does focus more on class issues it doesn't work for me.
The Parks are definitely the clueless hosts who aren't half as smart
7
AOC is absolutely right. pulling yourself up by your bootstraps is just another way for rich white men to demonize poor brown people. they want you to believe that people are poor because they don't work hard enough. and conversely that they are rich from working hard. they never admit that being born white (or orange) gave them all the advantages.
3
I've probably gone to the movies twice in the past 35 years. I haven't owned a TV for 30 years and haven't watched the Oscars in as many years. I just don't care and I'm tired of seeing photos and articles on celebrities (I don't know know any of them) on the front page of the NYT. The Times is turning into a tabloid. Put them in another section, not on the front page. I prefer the movies from the Golden Age of Hollywood, especially the movies from the thirties and forties.
2
LOL! Oh the humanity. Really the Academy does not like Capitalism and thinks it is in its death throes? I read about desperation; this country is so wealthy that the poorest of the poor here in the US lives better than 90% of the population in some developing countries (think Angola or that paradigm of socialism Cuba or Venezuela). Please spare us!
3
Saw the movie.
The shiftless father clearly has no chance of being anything but poor.
Poverty has little to do with money.
2
Bong Joon Ho’s critical eye is not only reserved for the rich. Don’t forget the scene where the Kims are relaxing while the Parks are on vacation. Enjoying the Park’s home, food, and liquor, almost ends the Kim’s charade and upgraded life by over-indulging. They are shown for being ill equipped to handle the lifestyle they so covet. It’s the turning point in the movie from a comedy into a horror story.
22
@Scott If that's your takeaway from the film, I'm afraid you're missing the forest from the trees. Your argument seems to imply that the Kims, and by extension, the broader working class, are innately unworthy of experiencing said lifestyle. Seems like you and Mr. Park have a lot in common.
7
@Ignacio G
Take away? Not at all. But the genius of the writer/director is all characters’ foibles are on full display.
7
@Scott that’s certainly true, but you seem to extrapolate the Kim’s shortcomings to be a broader commentary on the working class. I’m not so sure that was Ho’s point.
Systems function well until in time they become unstable until they fly apart. A new system emerges from the ensuing release of energy. This is how entropy works. What is happening in the US is pretty clear on a macro level. By any measure, What the founders created on July 4th 1776 has been fantastically successful. America's ability to harness energy and to produce creatively with that energy is unmatched. But over time, the system has gradually become unstable. For instance, The fact that California was 40 million people in the world six largest GDP has the same two senators as does Wyoming with seven thousand people and many cows. So too there is a big divide between Americans who can critically think and those who can't or won't. It isn't really resolvable except that the present system is going to have to spin apart and in time a new and hopefully better system will emerge. As Mae West once said, "whenever I'm faced with a choice between two evils I always choose the one I've never tried before."
The US, once the land of opportunity, now has more class stratification than many EU nations that once had explicit class levels. The GINI Index of economic equality ranks the US lower than many democracies, where HC for All is centrist.
We have different norms of 'center and left wing'. The GOP is more rw than conservative parties abroad. So the stakes are more dire if they win here.
Sanders/Warren, etc are democratic socialists, but painted as radical left wing in our distorted politics. The media doesn’t discuss the full range of views and examples.
Representation for Our Taxation is what our colonies demanded from King George in the revolution. Today we have to fight for just that. Our 21st C version of corporate aristocrats regulate the govt we elect, and take an excessive share of our national productivity. Sounds like colonialism from within.
EU elections may have lately gone more centrist, but all parties accept a higher degree of social democracy than US politics
Here, the GOP and many voters here think it's Ok that profits are made from sickness of citizens. That profits from our illnesses prove our 'freedom' from big govt. If more people die earlier, or go bankrupt, it's sad, but a worthwhile price to pay.
Let's ask---what are the stakes for us if 1 party or the other wins? The results are crucial for our lives and well-being.
Can elected govt regulate political influence of private wealth? Instead of the reverse?
It is no longer true that the GOP is farther right than right wing parties abroad. Most western democracies have their own protofascists to deal with these days, thanks to xenophobia, ethnic nationalism and Putin propaganda. In parliamentary democracies they are unlikely to achieve the level of absolute power and control that they have here in the US, however.
@Ben .....That's a point....the rw in other democracies has less power and control than here. That may keep their extremism within narrower bounds.
It's a stretch to say the rw here has 'absolute' power/control, but it's more than other democracies.
I thought "Parasite" was mean-spirited and nihilistic, full of ham-handed symbolism. The poor family showed themselves eager to ruin other poor people, simply because they had jobs that the poor family wanted. The rich family were clueless, but guilty mainly of being rich.
Otherwise, everyone is reading far too much into this Oscar win. The Oscars reflect the views of an obscure bunch of old-line Hollywood insiders. They reflect nothing else. That doesn't stop op-ed writers from going on endlessly about their supposed vast significance, or how oppressed that writer is because no film about his or her personal experience won Best Picture.
4
Parasite is a brilliant film because, in part, it defies the facile explanation that Ms. Goldberg has penned. Unmentioned by her, there is no moral compass to the movie. The "vision" of the film centers on the (very) real conflicts over power in an amoral universe. Part of its brilliance is the layering of these conflicts from the global (the teepee scenes) to the familial. While wealth is a sign of (and a weapon in) these conflicts, it certainly doesn't save the Parks from tragedy. And the final scene is not a comment on capitalism; instead, it demonstrates the futility of seeking to do the relatively moral or "right thing" -- free the son's father. In the end, the only thing that matters is the struggle itself.
If the vision of the film has relevance in today's politics, it is probably closer to a Trumpian world-view than any other. Political ideals -- "virtue" in the Founders' words -- are, at best, irrelevant and the fight to obtain and keep political power is the only worthy motivation. Let's hope that the struggle to inject these ideals back into our politics is not a futile one!
2
Our class war could easily escalate into actual “war” since the 2nd Amendment folks and the GOP are allies against the rest of us.
2
Nobody in America watched the movie and increasingly fewer are watching the Oscars.
2
@Mike I watched the movie and loved it. I didn't watch the Oscars.
2
I thought it was the sign of a good movie.
The movie is not fatalistic, it is an invitation to solidarity, love and meaningful action. The only way you see this as fatalistic is if you believe in capitalism more than life itself.
2
Quite right about the Oscars, Michelle, but you vere off course by implying that Bernie Sanders is a political manisfestation of that same fatalism. He is all about making the system work for ordinary people. A vote for Sanders or Warren is the opposite of despair. A vote for Trump is the true manifestation of that fatalism, and to a lesser degree so is a vote for the a centrist Democrat caught the pull of unregulated capitalism's black hole.
Yes, unfortunately,"moderates" and the "centrists" have kept us circling the event horizon of a big black hole even as its strength grows and ours weakens. Sometimes, as Bill Clinton did, they actually inch us closer to the point of no return. We now need a leader with the will to break free, not from capitalism, but from its current metastasis. We need a leader to protect and shore up the socialist modifications to capitalism we have already enacted in this country at great cost. How will that ever happen when most Democrats are afraid even to say the "s" word?
I will vote proudly and enthusiastically in the general election for any Democrat who wins the nomination. ANY ONE of them would be a vastly superior alternative to what we have now. But I will not commence with compromise. I will vote my vision of government by the people, not corporations, in the primary. If more of us in this country took back our real power, popular culture's nightmarish protrayals of a hopeless society would not have such resonance.
3
The statistics are clear that, if you get an education, hold off childbearing until marriage, and work hard, you can live very comfortably in America. It saddens me that political leaders like AOC and columnists like Ms. Goldberg advise people otherwise, even though they seem to be doing just fine for themselves. Why, against all evidence, do they believe others don't have the opportunities and can't achieve the success that they have enjoyed?
3
All evidence suggests that in the US, social class mobility lags behind developed nations with socialistic economic models. Even conservative economists acknowledge this. Our economy is strong because it exploits without fetters, not because of industrious “bootstrapping’” entrepreneurs.
4
@Joshua Doing all the things you name, do workers have pensions? Are their retirement savings safe from the casino games of Wall St? Will the Stock Market be favorable to retirement on their timetable? Do they enjoy financial security? Can they afford adequate health insurance? Are they still one health crisis away from financial ruin? A "no" answer to any one these questions (and more I could raise) does not define a "comfortable" life for most people.
3
No true re medical care snd debt and bankruptcy
1
Never even heard of this film until it won Best Picture, but it's obvious that the primarily rich folks at the Academy chose this obscure movie for politically correct reasons and not based on the merits. I can't speak for China, which is not a democratic or free country, but America continues to provide opportunities for any of it's citizens to move up the economic ladder, but that all begins with a family unit that nurtures children and makes the most of free education.
4
The movie is Korean, not Chinese.
4
Dear, Era, ok, you’ve drunk plenty of “America - We’re Number One” Kool-Aid. That’s ok, a debate for another day. But Parasite is not some obscure little indie film. It’s been in all the multiplexes for months. If you’ve never heard of it you haven’t been paying attention to the movies. That’s ok too, but don’t denigrate what you haven’t seen. By the way, it was made by Koreans, and set in South Korea, a capitalist country. Not China. Way different.
2
@NB Sorry about getting the country wrong, but just proves how obscure this movie was. Regardless, I doubt this award was based on the quality of the film as opposed to the editorial message.
Its only one movie.. not exactly a social movement.
1
Yet another "American Carnage" column from the Times. Is there ANYTHING you folks think is good about America?
6
Sorry, but aren't the people who choose the Oscar winners the very elite this film skewers?
Don't get me wrong, I love Bong Joon Ho and celebrate his triumph, but let's not pretend the film made history because the people of common America demanded it. The shiny elite figures of the film industry made the call.
If the film resonates, I suspect it's more with the already-rich than with Joe Sixpack the Plumber.
Inequality is a problem in America, but so is the fact that America's workers have unilaterally disarmed themselves in the class war they still don't realize they've been losing for decades now.
75
@Jeremy Is it inequality when Tiger Woods is a much better golfer than Joe Wannabegolfpro?
@Jeremy I'm not sure Goldberg ever implies that America's working class 'demanded' this film. What they are demanding are seats at the table from which they've been excused from for the last 50 or so years (as you noted). That desire for access to the levers of power can be demonstrated by the surging popularity of candidates like Sanders and Warren and their politics, which in my view stands in direct contrast to your assessment of the American worker's ignorance of their dire straits. I think what Goldberg is saying is that you can't view this film in a vacuum. The political discourse that has been consuming this country for the last 5 years very much plays into why this film resonated with the academy and plebeian moviegoers alike (165 mil at the box office, regular folk liked this movie too).
I'd also take issue with your indictment of the working class 'unilaterally disarming themselves'. Are you suggesting we blame the proletariat for neoliberal hegemony? What are Heritage and AEI then, chopped liver?
5
My favorite part of the Oscars was hearing the over privileged and incredibly wealthy Joaquin Phoenix lecture ordinary Americans about income inequality.
8
Inequality is indeed a massive problem. And I know statistically that the chances of faring better economically than one's parents is a long-shot. But it DOES most certainly exist! Sample of one: I was born to a truck driver and stay-at-home mom in 1976. I came of age in the 90s when the economic catastrophe of trickle-down became real. But, I put myself through NYU, "learned the mores" of the rich, work(ed) hard like a maniac and am now comfortably in the upper-middle-class. It was part luck (white, male but also gay from Texas) and many more parts ambition and grit. Don't tell me the American dream is dead because I'm living it.
5
If Republicans and the right did not continually benefit the rich via tax cuts and other benefits and helped people less well off with better health and child care it might be possible to lift yourself by your bootstraps.
the oscars are the new Iowa caucuses. movies might be valuable art forms and useful job drivers, but the "industry," the Academy and all things Hollywood are contemptible junk. There's only one class idea: Us versus Them. Everything else is plot line gimmickry.
3
In the same way that socialism has never been a real prospect in America, Americans are completely unaware of the role class plays in our "democratic" society. Parasites brilliantly shows that both poor and rich in this society are parasites: the rich can do nothing for themselves; the poor must live off the rich. Hegel called it the Master/Slave dialectic; one can't exist without the other. Marx saw that capitalism was totally dependent on the cheap labor of the masses and the mystification that kept them from seeing their true condition.
1
Labor is cheap because it is ubiquitous. Virtually every living human, with very rare exception, can perform some sort of task. From counting passing cars to stuffing envelopes, from pouring concrete or nailing down a roof, from rocket science to brain surgery, there is something each of us can productively perform. But only a very few have the capital to invest in Silicon Valley unicorns or to underwrite huge projects.
1
Thank you Michelle - at another awards show, Bong said he didn't set out to make a film about class, but it became one.
We barely acknowledge class in the US, like it couldn't happen here. Many of us hide the class we were born into, as we slip up the rungs. Access to healthcare is an important demarcation in the US - perhaps the reason gold plated vape pens were given to people who can certainly afford care.
15
If I understand Marx right, one of the intrinsic characteristics of capitalism is that just as it advances its dominion over more and more people, it also unintentionally creates more sites for the expression of solidarity against it. That Parasite won some awards at an event where rich guests leave glutted with even more meaningless bling, also means that working class American viewers are more likely to watch the film and maybe even more likely to foment a stronger international bond between ourselves and the kinds of people depicted in it. I hope this is what happens anyway.
1
No mention of how the Parks accumulated their wealth. Perhaps they earned it. Not that it's anyone's business.
5
@Timothy: What matters, in moral terms, is what they do with their wealth, wouldn’t you agree?
3
Aristotle's vision of the redemptive power of art comes at the cost of its political power. Art for him is cathartic, like a release on a pressure valve that regulates society. In his view, we watch "Parasite" and we're unburdened of some of our own class frustrations, and go back to work the next day better workers. Plato, on the other hand, nearly wrote off art entirely because he thought it was too dangerous. While I love art, I prefer Plato's more anxious view of it. If art is powerful, it can change things. And if Parasite means something to you, I hope you're voting for Bernie Sanders, the only candidate in this election who even comes close to voicing the political concerns of "Parasite."
1
I don't know if this film' winning the Oscar was a case of class warfare - it's simply an excellent film - but the fact that it resonated with so many people here in America should tell us that our society is in real trouble.
5
Hey Michelle, how's your bubble? Transferring a fictional class conflict from South Korea to the US in a violent and nihilistic film in which the rich are more moral than the poor hardly seems accurate. Here the bad guys are always either rich, or terrorists, so the movie is unabashedly unAmerican. There are billions of problems with capitalism, and human culture in general. The problem is not purely "the system," the problem is the values and more importantly actions of the people in it. Human nature has given us unfairness and conflict for 50K+ years, that's why we continually try and create a more just framework for society. Sometimes we rip it up, usually, and often with better results, we change it without capsizing our collective lifeboat first. The latter is what happened in Parasite. The movie does suit the current dark global zeitgeist. It's not our purely our systems that are at the root of climate change, but our overpopulation and overconsumption. These are universal human desires, and that is our collective dilemma.
2
@Mark Perhaps Michelle is referring to the way that global capitalism has brought us closer together in economic understanding. The fate of the working class and poor Korean is more like the working class and poor American now than before capitalism's global turn, that's for sure isn't it? At its logical core, your argument goes like this: humans have always had problems, therefore the problem we are facing now don't really need addressing. We've always been capable of drowning, but that's no reason not to fashion a life raft, is it?
2
It really bothers me that the Oscar attendees got a quarter-of-a-million dollar goody bags each while there were homeless people sleeping in the pouring rain of Los Angeles while the Oscars were going on. They probably wished for a hot meal and a warm, dry night.
Most of the junk in the quarter-of-a-million dollar goody bags, like the gold-plated vapor pen, will end up in a junk drawer.
10
I agree that inequality is destroying our world. I would also say that much of it is our own fault. In sales, we practice our "2 minute elevator pitch" because that's how much time you could hold a potential customer's attention. In today's world, you get a 30 second ad. Look at how Bloomberg is rising in the polls. I'll vote blue no matter who but I think Bernie "gets it" and always has.
2
The entire capitalist system is corrupt and corrupting - transforms the survival instinct into a parasitic drive that infects everyone regardless of social position. The creators of Parasite understand this systemic form of totalitarianism beyond the level of comprehension that we in the belly of the beast are able to grasp.
Yes, Parasite was actually about all those people at the Oscars, the ones who most likely didn't see the film. Now it's hard not to see Bong Joon Ho and his "crew" as the new Parks, as well.
It was the only best film nominee I saw (only other nominated film was Midsommer), and it's great.
Gold-plated vape pens? Really?
2
Parasite is pretty much the same movie as Joker.
Except the murderous intent of the downtrodden anti-hero(s) is reviled and locked away in Joker and cheered, begrudgingly, in Parasite. At the end of the film neither characters have grown or truly changed their station in a meaningful way.
When you've eaten all the rich, you will only starve in luxury until the next poor eats you.
3
Sorry, but for a son of an immigrant who landed on these shores in 1958 with an 8th grade education, the American dream is as real as it ever has been. My parents busted their butts, became home owners, helped put three children through college. Their children all would be considered upper middle class. Just how has this country failed us......if you work like a demon, live with a purpose and push the ball forward everyday, social mobility is still a possibility in this country.
52
@Frank Studies show that class mobility is higher in European nations favoring socialism than it is here. That is a fact that even conservatives don't generally refute. Time goes by and it's been a long time since 1958. Wealth at the top has been consolidated to a startling degree. Of course it is "possible" to achieve social mobility, but it is less and less likely. It's not because people don't work hard, it's because the money has literally been consolidated. Do you really think that given these circumstances, it's appropriate to associate the US with the idea of economic mobility?
54
@Frank
We should never give up on the American dream. But we need to recognize that it's no longer 1958. Things have changed dramatically. There are structural realities that make your family's success less and less likely in the US which may not have been there at the time.
44
@Frank - Frank, where were your parents from? What job did your father have? I'm assuming that he worked in a factory if he didn't have an education. In 1958 factory workers were unionized, they had good pay, health care, and a pension. Today, those jobs are gone, do you really think that someone in 2020 with only an 8th grade education will become middle class by just getting a job and working hard?
68
A survey of Korean New Wave cinema, including Lee Chang Dong's "Burning" shows films like Parasite populated by people with middle class aspirations whose ambitions have been crushed. They are victimized by a string of predatory money lenders guarding the escape routes out of capitalist destitution. US cinema tends to turn this dynamic into escapist fantasies like Pretty Woman. However, recent films like Hell or High Water set in post 2008 Texas show that the worm may be turning. Hail to Bong Joon-Ho and AOC for peeling the orange.
1
Wouldn't be the first time.
A picture telling the story of a large, loving family, seen through the eyes of its young son. He sees the men broken and even killed by their work in the mines, or driven to emigration to better their lot. His sister destroys her own happiness to marry a rich man and escape working poverty, and he himself goes down into the mines, not even as tall as the trolleys he pushes, to earn money for the family.
People seem to think that John Ford's "How Green Was My Valley" won the best picture Oscar as a rebuke to Orson Welles. It might have just as easily been because it told a story of the lives of working folk, driven to the wall--an echo of "The Grapes of Wrath", Ford's picture from the year before. While "Citizen Kane", shorn of its technical brilliance, is a poor-little-rich-boy story in comparison.
3
Unchecked Capitalism fosters life nasty, brutish, and short.
Compassionate Democracy encourages Life worth living.
At some point '5th Avenue' (or Main Street) may just fire back.
2
It's ironic that the Academy voters would select this movie for Best Picture which seems to implicate them in the perpetration of the rich versus poor social divide. Just look at the Oscars telecast with its over the top goodie bags, designer dresses, and well off presenters mouthing liberal progressive positions. Very easy when you don't have to work two and three jobs. This is the kind of unawareness that repelled voters from Hillary and towards the man who became the worst President the US has ever had, the morally corrupt Trump. Many voters fell for Trumps fake populism, not knowing or not caring about his horrible treatment of working class people involved in his real estate business's. The Hollywood elite need to have more affinity for the working class who contribute to their elitism by buying tickets.
1
@Paul Richardson:
Paul, not all of those well-off presenters started out that way. Many of them come from modest family backgrounds and remember what it was like to work several jobs at one time. People don't necessarily lose their empathy once they're no longer struggling financially.
4
Crisis of faith in capitalism? Capitalism not working in America? Better forms of capitalism elsewhere?
Well, then answer this: Why so many people hurl to America, I mean from Europe? How any Europeans work here, and how many Americans work there?
Same holds for East Asian countries, Japan and Korea.
I will now even mention the low paying jobs, folks from wherever in the world desperately try to enter USA to be subjected to the pains of capitalism here.
I do not have any love or sympathy for capitalism, but it is just unfair and apparently not very smart to bash Americans and their understanding of 'business' when they themselves professed many times that they are good with it.
1
Parasite is a darkly comedic farce much like most of Ms. Goldberg’s columns including this one. The film is reflective of the current Korean political climate, but not necessarily an indictment of capitalism. Korean society is historically Confucian based, therefore highly stratified despite more recent capitalism supplanting earlier Japanese occupation. Confucian class divisions remain in present day Korea despite being greatly muted and less visible.
One suspects, now that Elizabeth Warren’s campaign is on life-support, Michelle Goldberg has punched her ticket and leaped aboard the Politburo Express ready for Comrade Bernie to command his Marxist hordes to the ballot box in November. Talk about class distinction and decay; try living outside the Party apparatus in the former Soviet Union. That is Bernie’s regressive vision.
3
Fascinating Op-Ed that raises some of the key issues in the wonderfully complex “Parasite.” I have three disagreements:
First, one of the most vexing and cruel part of class dynamics in advanced countries is mobility up and mobility down. The poor families were not always poor as Goldberg thinks. Bong embeds a whole set of clues to show that the poor families were middle class at one point but fell into poverty and debt (this where the failed Taiwanese cake shop unite both poor families). The books and magazines that both families own show that they are educated.
Second, the reason why the Park’s are sympathetic and even admirable (the man in the sub basement yells “Respect!” when mentioning him) has to do with Mr. Park being a self-made man. He is a meritorious rich who earned his way and is not a scion of a rich Korean industrial family. This reality of mobility for some and not for others is a vexing conundrum for class politics today as witnessed by a big swatch of the white working class voting for Trump despite their class interest.
Third, “Parasite” excels in showing the dramatic decrease in social and cultural gap between the rich and the poor today. Just couple of decades ago, the ability to speak English was a near iron-clad marker of class difference in Korea. Now, that and a host of other forms of cultural capital no longer divides the classes. With the leveling of culture, class conflict has become more intimate and intense.
What a fantastic movie!
2
It is because of this that the forces moving against the Republican party (the Dirty Party) and the center-right are tidal in nature, and irregardless of whether Trump sneaks into a second term, these forces will overwhelm the Dirty Ol' Party in the coming decades, because the economy will not save them, it will not save anyone without major changes.
1
Population of the Scandinavian countries:
Sweden 10.1 million
Denmark 5.8 million
Norway 5.4 million
Finland 5.5 million
Iceland 350,000
Population of the US: 329.4 million.
Enough said.
1
@Conrad, and your point?
2
US defense, often wasteful, outspends US education 6 to 1. US priorities are selling wars always advancing the military industrial complex while de-funding schools. By design, a rigged system. 100 senators and a few thousand lobbyists have gamed the system for their own special donors, their re-elections and corporate profits.
2
In public schools we studied laissez-faire capitalism that used to be the norm in this country. How when the robber barons ran the country we had child labor, no weekend, long working days, unsafe factories, rampant pollution. Then the rise of the labor movement led to abolishing child labor, reasonable working hours, OSHA and eventually the EPA. Did everyone forget our history? I thought the debate over unfettered capitalism was settled. It’s not capitalism per se that’s bad, but completely unregulated capitalism. You can argue about how much regulation but it’s clear some regulation is required to check the excesses of some.
And for those of you so excited by the stock market, even if you’re in the minority that has benefitted, even the experts are worried about its future. Reminds me of 2007 when all the people who were warning of a housing market collapse were blown off as doomsday party-poopers. Only recently have I understood why Cassandra’s ability to speak the truth but never be heeded was a curse.
1
Michelle, you forgot Hell or High Water, nominated a few years back for Best Picture but largely ignored by the Academy. Two brothers about to lose the family ranch to voracious bankers pull off an ingenious plan using their wits and brute violence. in the end, the audience is rooting for the "bad guys" because they are clearly the victims of a capitalistic system that cares nothing about the little guy. Masterful.
3
To engage in free trade, the trading partners must share basic values. One way or another, you trade in all things--air quality, labor standards, physical security.
I believe in free markets and capitalism. Which is why I felt that PNTR and unfettered trade with China would come at a terrible long-term cost. That genie is now way out of the bottle, and American middle class standards--through the leveling magic of markets--are converging on world living standards. It seem our politics has too...
4
This is America in 2020, in which a billionaire can buy anything he wants. One could buy the democratic nomination. One has already bought the presidency. The extreme concentration of wealth has become the biggest threat to capitalism.
3
Goldberg touches upon but does not critically examine why a family with the smarts and education of the Kims is living in the surroundings portrayed in the film. Without question, in either S.K or U.S. the could deploy two in salaried positions to support the other two in some small service business, etc.
It would be better polemicists like Goldberg would drop the buzz word "inequality" in decrying the to-large gap between entry level wages and overpaid CEO compensation or what she obviously believes, against the weight of evidence, is that it is more difficult to day for Americans to move up in family income, etc.
Instead of erroneously concluding that "inequality" is turning modern capitalism into a nightmare, Goldberg might want to turn her critical eye on the overregulation from the Federal government and increasingly from Leftist State governments like California and Leftist local governments such as Seattle and Los Angeles that fail smart, energetic, hard-working people who desire to lift themselves by imposing excessive costs and fees upon new and small businesses and neglect their basic function and responsibility of providing a safe clean place for people to live and work . Just one example: as has been documented and pointed out by experts, more than two-thirds of the homeless badly need mental health assessment and care but State laws and attitudes prevent even responsible Mayors from demanding the homeless submit to such as a condition of housing, etc.
Most homeless people are neither mentally ill or drug addicted. They need housing they can afford. But, even if that were true, decades of neglect by the right wing - from Reagan to Trump - have left our social services utterly devastated. Now though they're expected to save us from the problems created by social conservative-driven wealth concentration. There is no social service treatment system large enough to take on the task you're suggesting.
1
Yeah, liberal California is clearly a failed state with its economy that’s 8th in the world. No rich people there. Too bad about all those taxes and regulations holding people down.
2
How so many who call themselves 'Christian' can continue to embrace the personal greed factor of modern capitalism seems to define the word hypocrite. Many have no idea what the term 'critical thinking' means. They give credence to the saying ' a little bit of knowledge is(can be?) a dangerous thing.'
3
If God made Jeff Bezos the world’s richest while at the same time allowing 10,000 homeless in California, who are we to attempt to change that?
1
So, if Bong Jun-Ho were a director of North Korea, the movie would have portrayed a class paradise? How do you think that once one of the poorest countries in the world came along this far? Do you think Bong Jun-Ho alone made this possible? Have you ever heard K-pop and K-drama? The infrastructure underlying the success of K-pop, K-drama and Bong Jun-Ho's success is mainly capitalistic. An empty criticism of capitalism without any alternative is boring. Instead of appealing to ideology, please give us more concrete solutions based on concrete policies. Just because there was no ideology war occurred on the soil of the U.S., it does not follow that the rest of the world should go through ideology wars all over again.
3
Go watch American Factory, another Oscar winner, available on Netflix. This documentary is interesting in many ways but it also shows that the only mobility for many Americans today is a downward one.
3
$225,000 gift bags for nominees is obscene!! There are homeless people begging in our streets, sick people who can't afford their medications, young students who can't afford college, and money is wasted on those who could well afford to buy their own ludicrous luxuries??? How ironic that Parasite won in this atmosphere.
3
Just as an aside, one of my fraternity brothers in college, a person of color, was the first person in his family to graduate from high school. He graduated from college and was accepted into 13 of the 14 med schools he applied to. He made it through med school as well. Basically, he had a dream and he achieved it. Lifting oneself up by the bootstraps is very possible, despite what AOC says. Sometimes, you have to want it.
3
So many posters are anti-capitalist. I realize this is the fashion but I wonder what they believe would be better? Marxism?
Many might agree that European Socialism is superior but that system is based squarely on the wealth generated by robust capitalist free markets. The EU is all about enhanced trade and capital investment. So perhaps what people are really saying is that American capitalism is bad because our government is not as generous to its people as other capitalist nations are to their people. That to me is the rational argument. Arguing against Capitalism per se is counter-productive, especially given the robust economy we are enjoying in the US.
3
I found Parasite wildly uneven. It was a clever comedy of manners for the first half and the second half seemed to have been written by Quentin Tarantino where subtlety and wit was replaced with bluntness and blood.
But the issues it raises about rich and poor are quite relevant. As we veer towards dictatorship where human rights, basic decency, democracy and truth are considered a waste of time, one hopes its message will resonate.
I was born in Maryland the year the Soviet Union collapsed, and grew up with capitalism treated like a natural phenomenon, like weather. My lifespan tracks a period of turbocharged capitalism that has cooked the planet and inspired a worldwide mushrooming of right wing authoritarianism.
It's no wonder that people, especially under 40, are increasingly against capitalism as the primary economic system. Medical, housing, and education costs have galloped away from wage growth. A million species face extinction from habitat destruction and climate change, which are justified by world leaders in the name of economic growth. Economic growth almost entirely goes to the richest of the rich. The future looks hot, crowded, and devoid of wildlife.
This country is at a critical juncture now. Republicans are offering a fast track toward right wing dictatorship. Meanwhile, Democrats have the choice of people-powered social democracy which might just guarantee a livable future, or caving for a nominally liberal plutocracy under a president Bloomberg. Choose wisely, please!
2
It's funny that "Us", an American horror film by Jordan Peele, basically tells the same story in a different genre but it was completely overlooked. This is possibly because it was considerably more difficult to understand what it was really about. Lupita Nyong'o's failure to get an Oscar nomination is a travesty, however. She was infinitely better than Zellweger in "Judy". Ugh. In "Us" the Kims and the Parks are the same family and that gives even greater weight to the scene in "Parasite" where Mr. Park says that Mrs. Kim is nice even though she's rich and his wife replies "She's nice BECAUSE she's rich". Being nice and having a soul are possible with privilege. Both movies shook me to my core and left me with not much hope for what's coming.
@Jonny Walker Got the Parks and Kims backward. Oops.
“ American viewers might get the impression that South Korea is an extremely stratified society, and while they’d be right, it’s by some measures less unequal than our own.“
The socialist paradise North Korea is extremely stratified. The “capitalist hellhole” South Korea is a beacon of opportunity in comparison.
5
Just watched it yesterday. Disjointed and disappointing. The messaging is shoved down your throat. My take away? Good movie. My bigger take away? Every one who rec'd a gft bag of swag should put it on the front seat of car, and drive thru skid row in LA....then think about the public health crisis and public safety crisis in your midst. If there was every a group of conspicuous consumers it's Hollywood types with their cars and houses and alcohol and drugs and yoga and pilates and kombucha and residential rehab and veganism, keto dieting...and their MeToo Movement social justice warrior rhetoric to get gender neutral pay....as in...He get's 10 mIlion, so should I ...for 6 months work, memorizing lines, eating catered food, sitting in an a/c trailer waiting for some minimum wage stooge to come get them for a close up...ridiculous hypocrites.
3
or, maybe it was just a really good movie.
2
Amazes me how profoundly loopy the reading of the film has been. Yes, there is the rigidity of the class structure and the vast difference in living between the wealthy and the poor family, there is also the horrific inhumanity as the poor family step by step advances their positions in the house by pushing out their equally poor and desperate fellow poor. One feels the final meanness of this when the audience moans at the sight of the original, decent house keeper walking down the road after being fired, through the deceit of the expanding family. Then there is their refusal, while she begs them, to come to a deal where the hidden husband can continue to live in the basement. And then of course, she is also finally murdered by them and the husband, already demented is driven into psychopathic rage which culminates in the slaughter. So, perhaps this is as much about intra-class hatred and violence as it is about the familiar class disparities.
Other points bear mentioning: Their 'smell', which some see metaphorically is actually set up clearly in the beginning when the family huddles under the fumes of the fumigation in the street. What's smart about this is that it's really the smell of their poverty, not an invention of class snobbery.
Also, he's a high-tech entrepreneur, but is the work something that benefits humanity, or something that destroys? Doesn't this make a difference about how we feel about their wealth?
Or does this muddle the correct way we should feel.
1
Doesn’t muddle it at all. The intra-class warfare is a result of the poverty. Just listened to a Holocaust describes walking past other victims on her escape because she was too broken to help her fellow sufferers. Desperation leads many into cruelties we’d rather not acknowledge. Does it matter whether the rich man’s contribution is positive if his compensation is so a vastly differential that many others are forced into inhumane actions? I’m sure there were Nazis who did not hate Jews and who had pure thoughts. Are they excused from propping up a murderous regime?
". . . crisis of faith in capitalism. . ." Present day capitalism-- unfettered, unshackled, rampant--threatens to kill not only capitalism, but democracy.
Aside from this movie clearly being the politically correct pick for Best Picture - I don't think its that good, and is terribly ham handed and caricatured in how it depicts the poor and rich in such black and white terms. Plus it goes Tarantino unnecessarily violent with the ending. Depressing, heavy handed all the way through, and with an ending that can only be described as a bloody cartoon in a very Monty Python way without well, it being obviously silly and cartoon.
The Academy did nothing revolutionary in picking the film, it was the best thing available this year to give awards to so the Academy doesn't appear to be a bunch of white old men with conventional tastes to white movies. We hated it, were we not in a packed screening we would have left that last half hour. It sucked.
This movie was this years equiv of Chariots of Fire - 2+ hours of boredom - or a better analogy is its a Outlet Mall designer clothing store sale item. Its not your color, size or style, but because say, its Dior, you buy it. You take it home and find out after three wearings you hate it and toss it in the donation bag.
I think we can all agree inequality is a bad thing and capitalism has many structural problems, but the 'conventional' Joker movie did a much better job depicting that ... the problem was Joaquin Phoenix's acting was so good he outshone the movie and everyone else in it.
I want that 2 1/2 hours of my life back. *Awful* stupid movie.
2
Parasite was not just a movie about class war. Every character in the film is a parasite. It's a complicated film with so many levels of comment on how little reflection and empathy there may be in each of us ...from how the Parks isolate themselves from others who "cross the line" and the Kims...the father who uses his children (he has no plans). The obliviousness of the characters is only exploded when the result is tragedy for both families. Of course, I doubt very much that Mr. Parks ever gets beyond his "crossing the line" way of viewing the world.
This is the best discussion and analysis of this movie’s phenomenal success I have read. The “movie critics” seem to miss at worst, gloss over at best, the troubling, strange and heartbreaking allure that Michelle describes so eloquently.
Parasite shows us Americans the awful truth we can’t accept at home: desperation makes people do terrible things. We can like the Kims in a fictional story in a far away land whereas we would have little to no sympathy if we met them on our block. And we do. Every day.
153
@Abby
You're right. Americans can't stand comparaison. They think that they are superior for any good reason, even if they don't find any.
7
@Abby Good thing nobody every becomes desperate in a socialist or communist country, as they are a superior system.
2
@Carlos R. Rivera The greater availability of social safety nets in places like Canada does support that view.
8
Most Americans have absolutely no idea that social mobility in the US is far worse than it is in Europe or Canada. They still believe in the nationalist fantasy that the US is "the greatest country in the world" despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. But if you are ignorant of reality, I suppose you can't plot against it, and most Americans remain willfully ignorant. Capitalism, especially American-style capitalism, has failed catastrophically. The idea can be reformed and saved, but it will require a great deal of reform and a much greater amount of government intervention and regulation of the economy and distribution of social and economic goods. Since this is exactly what "conservatives" have been fighting against for decades, it is unlikely to happen soon. In the meantime, American capitalism will continue its destructive march across the world.
237
@Shaun Narine I do not doubt your observation but if it is true why would so many people be trying to find refuge in the US? Does that not mean the situation is worse elsewhere?
12
@bellicose people around the world like the "idea" of the American Dream (which is a myth). There are a lot of people who are seeking refuge in Europe for many of the same reasons, i.e. stable governments, a modicum of wealth and safety. The U.S. isn't the only "nice" place in the world.
And let me just say, it wasn't so long ago that Americans loved to talk about how everyone can become American. Now, there's an outright civil war in which everyone wants to define what a "real" American is. Even native-born Americans are under attack by the white nationalism sweeping the country.
36
@bellicose The people trying to get into the US are coming from Central America and other places that are much worse. You don't see Canadians and European moving there now.
55
All of these defenses of capitalism by readers. Folks, you live in a period of late capitalism and the United States is not a capitalist society, it is an oligarchy with an oligarch for president who is enriching himself and his cronies while in office so much so that he can't be removed from office and is completely above the law. In this way, we have already become countries like Russia and the former soviet republics.
75
Class war is not something new to the Oscars -- it's only that until now, with the success of "Parasite," do Americans get to see it from the POV of the underclass. Hollywood, home of conspicuous consumption and ostentatious display, is usually on the side of the oblivious rich -- even if only to show how much more desirable the "lifestyles of the rich and famous" are. Unfortunately, the POV of the wealthy 1% have held sway for so long now that the reckoning with the underclass is likely to be ugly -- as in "Parasite." What the 1% never seem to understand is that they're massively outnumbered.
158
@ando arike How about Scenes from the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills and numerous other movies? There are plenty about the American underclass. Maybe not lately.
1
@ando arike Hollywood for decades has told the story of the underdog winning despite great adversity.
That said, I do view Hollywood more as Ricky Gervais does.
Yes, the underclass has the numbers. What it doesn’t have is tools or weapons, except for the ultimate weapon, deployed by the underclass in Parasite. That weapon is armed revolt, and murder.
3
Here's how capitalism "works" in one segment of one of my professions, horticulture. A giant horticultural conglomerate introduces a new plant variety that is likely not worth the soil it's planted in. But the artificially enhanced pictures are nice. The conglomerate gives the variety an invalid nonsensical botanical name, because it actually doesn't want anyone to use that name. It wants to obligate people into use the equally invalid trademark name that it also has given the plant, so that the conglomerate can keep the exclusive rights to market the plant after the patent on the invalid botanical name has expired. If a small nursery has the temerity to use the trademark name as the botanical name (which it effectively IS because the patented botanical name -- the name by which the plant is supposed to be known under the rules of botanical nomenclature -- is deliberately nonsensical and invalid), the conglomerate's lawyers descend to financially obliterate the small nursery.
Bulletin: this is not the "invisible hand of the marketplace" at work. This is an plutocratic fist smashing anything that smacks of actual upstart innovation. This is "capitalism" in many sectors of American business today.
324
@Russell
Another horticulture example: Go to a big box store to buy fertilizer or potting soil. Lots of luck if you want something besides the numerous varieties of Miracle Grow, brought to you by Monsanto.
32
@Russell Akin Bang on. This is exactly how the game is played. It is not a functional market that rewards innovation and creates jobs; it’s all cost cutting, shakedowns, billable hours and shareholders. It’s a legislatively-protected monopoly racket. Just watching end stage capitalism last week as The Senate became The Sopranos.
50
@Russell
What is the botanical name, and the trademark name?
Inquiring minds want to know.
11
The two best movies of the last year were Parasite and Joker. Both address what is obvious to everyone living in America today (and indeed the whole world): a vast chasm between the haves and the have-nots. Millions are struggling and most of the rich in this country simply do not care. I loved both because they are anti-Hollywood, really: they are completely authentic. Very few movies coming out of Hollywood are real, they barely even try to be real. It's gotten so bad that the unreality seems to reach new heights - look at all the superhero and sci-fi movies that employ dazzling computer-generated effects that are completely artificial. Given the true reality of what life is becoming for many who struggle, it is not surprising that Hollywood blockblusters are becoming even more and more fantastical. So Parasite and Joker are nice surprises - and confirm that you can run but you cannot hide from reality. If it's true, as Tom Steyer said in New Hampshire the other night, that narrative drives policy then the obsession we have with fantasy in this country is not particularly reassuring.
Maybe it explains the president's push for a new space force. I hope movies like Parasite and Joker lead Americans to start dealing seriously with the painful realities they depict.
92
@Joe Trump's space force is about putting money in pockets of whoever will produce the necessary materials and equipment. That and ego.
16
@Joe Actually, i wasn't that impressed with Joker for 2 main reasons. 1. Joaquin Phoenix's character is portrayed as a middle aged man. Bruce Wayne is shown as a young boy. Batman is still 20 years in the future. By then Phoenix's character would be in his mid 60's No match for Batman. 2. He's shown to be of below average intelligence which contradicts the comic also. Because of the film's connection to the larger Batman mythos, it didn't work for me. If it had been a standalone film with no connection to Batman it would have worked better. Just my 2 cents. But i agree with you about Parasite.
2
@Joe Ironically, Japanese film industry became lame
as the society has inclined toward socialism ideology and chasm between haves and not-haves has become narrower. Movies have become smaller scale to depict everyday life of ordinary people -less human drama.
This is what one of veteran actors with a long and successful carrier said one time.
I know this is not politically and socially correct comment, but he made me think about the movie making and the society.
I believe art and political correctness are not always compatible.
Haven’t seen the film, and after reading Ms. Goldberg’s piece will consider it. Hollywood has always glamorized the lives of the rich, look back to the films of the 20’s, 30’s, 40’s, etc., etc. The characters are always wealthy, or trying to be wealthy. Sending the message to Americans and the world, that you are valuable only if you have power and wealth. The average American family, according to government statistics in 2016, was $59,039, for a family of four! Hardly, even close to Middle Class.
Wealth is capitalism’s scorecard for anything else is subjective.
1
The irony of a movie about capitalism and class being celebrated by those who benefit from it so significantly, then used as an opportunity to condescend towards "lower classes" of the masses who don't agree or don't care about the film's existence.
I haven't seen the movie. It may be great. But its function within our culture reinforces that system.
4
The big draw back with this film is that if you watch it as entertainment it is pretty boring and not very entertaining. While I appreciate it's attraction as a political statement it's just not a very good movie to watch.
3
Americans will speak about 'race' from dusk til dawn , but when 'class' is broached- they clam up. We should discuss it more; unlike race, class is largely shaped by societal choices that can be altered.
4
For many years in the United States the chances of a child of poor parents has less of a chance of becoming middle or upper class than a child of most other modern countries. Is this the new "American exceptionalism?
5
But why the blood-thirsty massacre if this film is about class struggle? Why not join a revolutionary party instead? That would be more productive. Conclusion: the film projects no hope and is pessimistic.
2
"...in which a failed attempt to stop global warming has turned the planet into a frozen wasteland." Touché.
Where have you been? Marx's and Engel's "Communist Manifesto" of 1848 was a warning and a call to action. Most of it is as equally true today as it was then.
4
People love to live in their fantasies. But, of course, that is what movies are all about.
1
I can't understand why Queen & Slim wasn't even mentioned, it was a shocker to me.
I think it deserves all the praise.
"This movie feels like something new, and also as if it’s been around forever, waiting for its moment"
Oscars just missed another moment...
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/26/movies/queen-and-slim-review.html
https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/queen-and-slim-movie-review-2019
2
Michelle Goldberg is right about the state of capitalism in America, and in South Korea. She even mentions Bernie as the candidate who most directly addresses the problem.
This is a welcome relief from the fear-mongering around having a "socialist" candidate, and the frightened clutching at "moderate" candidates that have characterized NY Times Op-Ed columns this election season. Dems would do well to follow this thread and nominate Bernie.
And give a rest to the constant woke attacks on white men and white culture, which have been the endless pablum of liberal opinion, and have alienated half the Republic. America accepts all kinds of cultures, including South Korean as well as black, gay, feminist, etc. Our real and common problem is income inequality.
5
We believe in social mobility so much because our media tells repeated anecdotal stories of people who rise so far above their economy of birth. We worship the rich and believe that we could be like them if we just work hard, because that's what the media tell us over and over again. If you dig a bit deeper into the fortunes of the new rich -- Gates, Bezos, Zuckerberg, Winfrey -- we will see how it was a hand up from someone that led to their success; they didn't do it alone. They worked hard, yes, but they didn't do it alone. The fairy tales of the self made ignore the help that was given, presenting everything as hard work and drive. That is what is false. Then again, who wants a true story when since we were babies we were told fairy tales?
3
True, but this isn’t new. Look at the films of the 30’s, 40’s and so on, most of the characters living the posh lives of the rich....not reality.
What Michelle Goldberg doesn't know about capitalism could fill a year's worth of columns.
The reason there are poor, working class people is because of capitalism. You see, Ms. Goldberg, the source of profit is surplus value. Surplus value is the social form that surplus labor takes within capitalist social relations. Capitalists appropriate the surplus value in the form of profit. Let's be clear about this. Capitalists appropriate profit not because they work hard, not because they take risks, not because they're job creators and certainly not because they are better people than everyone else They appropriate surplus value in the form of profit because they privately own the means of production. That is, they live off the unpaid labor of the working class. This is, by definition, exploitation. Thus, capitalism is an inherently exploitative economic system.
Yes, Ms. Goldberg, hard cheese to swallow I know. But, that's the way it it. The sooner you and most of society disabuse yourselves of any misconceptions about capitalism, the better off we'll all be!
6
I watched the first hour last night, and so far, it is predictable and contrived. A contrived scene is where an unlikely situation overwhelms my willingness to suspend disbelief. The Kim's ability to fake competence in various careers is an insult to people who learn it through study, hard work and competence. The inability of the Parks to see through this ruse is flat out unbelievable.
It makes a social statement, but that doesn't make it great. Creating VR aps or glasses is more lucrative than assembling pizza boxes. So what. Designing castle walls used to be more lucrative than growing barley. Capitalism has its problems, but making great movies isn't one of them.
Maybe the next hour or so will be better. I'll watch it tonight. But so far, I'm reminded that "Talk to the Animals" from Dr. Dolittle aced out "Mrs. Robinson" from The Graduate for best song. I know it was on a technicality but still.
This movie is not the year's best.
1
Let's get something straight: the US has a mixed economy. Do we get everything right, no? But the US does not get everything wrong either. The issue is with the lies of politicians that seek to steal votes through wedge issues like abortion. Then, politicians destroy the very people they pledge to protect. This creates a problem in our mixed economy. If we look at the perversion of the ACA, that is not a failure of capitalism, but the destruction of the measure through red-state governments.
3
Parasite depicts through symbolism, absurdist comedy, and dark drama the absolute indifference with with the Park family viewed the Kim's. In many ways the Kim's were able to "trick" the Parks because they didn't really see them as anything other than servants fulfilling their expected roles. It also cleverly depicts the tension that exists within Mr. Kim, who admires the Park's wealth while at the same time resenting it.
3
Other than perhaps the most poverty-stricken of Americans, most live better lives and are better off than billions of others around the world. Yet, they're so busy complaining about being victimized by this or held back by that, they can't even take one second to understand how truly fortunate they are.
To use one (admittedly extreme) scenario, imagine a young woman being held as a sex slave or a mother trying to protect her kids from famine or war reading about the (wealthy, lucky-to-be-working-in-the-movie business) movie director and all who support her claims of victimhood, complaining she didn't get nominated for an award, and using the wholly unsupported argument it is because she is a woman.
I can't imagine there are too many around the world who have much sympathy.
3
@Rich
I'm not understanding your hypothetical. Are the young woman or the mother filmmakers who have worked for decades to hone their craft? If they are, then the bleakness of their artistic vision, in some people's eyes, certainly should not exclude them from the recognition they earned.
"But maybe “Parasite” has struck such a chord because for too many people inequality is turning modern capitalism into not just a joke but a nightmare."
Strikes a cord with whom?
This opinion piece places waaaaaay too much significance on the voters of the Academy of Motion Pictures.
Winning an Oscar says little, if anything, about the public sentiment. Look at the declining viewership. Most people are smart enough to know all those back-patting awards shows are drivel. The best we can get out of them are good music or funny lines by a host ... when there is one.
6
The only class conflict represented at the Oscars is people who make tens of millions of dollars to play act, who consume more natural resources than a medium-sized African city and whose jet-a-day lifestyle damages the planet more than any thousand working-class people in West Virginia spewing sickening sanctimony in telling the rest of us how we should live.
The Oscars telecast draws fewer viewers every year. I assume those who do watch are doing it to laugh at the smug self-righteousness.
6
This article, leaves one thinking what's next with the economic disparities that exists in our nation? Many are simply turning a blind eye or pretend to be oblivious to the stark realities. Bernie Sanders and his followers are not an anomaly. The rise of Trump and his economic policies are exacerbating this class divide. Not sure how much Bernie Sanders would get done should he become the Democratic nominee. What is true, however, is that one can count on him to stay true to his core of being a true liberal reformer and that is not the case one might think with Elizabeth Warren or any other Democratic candidates. Still remains to be seen.
1
The rich love Socialism. They loved the 12 trillion they got to bail them out then restock their vaults with tax payer cash. Big oil loves getting billions in tax breaks and incentives to explore our public lands for oil and gas that they get to sell back to us.
Big Pharma loves Socialism when our taxes pay for 99% of the research for new drugs and we dont get a penny back.
The end of this madness is coming. The middle class has had the wealth accumulated after WW2 extracted from them. Millennials have very little wealth. They are massively in dept . Cant afford to buy a home or have kids. The end is coming.
1
"The triumph of “Parasite” is a sign of a crisis of faith in capitalism."
No it's not. First, Hollywood picking a best picture is more a sign of where that weird world is at - has little to do with reality. And Bernie's popularity is the end result of a couple of decades of entitlement culture reaching a climax. Tell a college student you are just going to give them free college, and of course you are going to be popular.
And among the intelligentsia - academics, journalists, talking heads - capitalism is always in a "crisis. Has been since Marx and Engels.
So you have capitalism's critics, and then you have the people that will actually start the 700K - 800K new businesses that will be created in just the first quarter of 2020. The will create new products and services, and new jobs.
Who could America more easily live without?
6
@JRC
College used to be nearly free. So, what happened?
PARASITES does indeed express something like a "failure of faith in capitalism," But that’s a pretty broad credo. More interestingly, it focuses on detailed class relations viewed critically from the Left. This provides a nearly abandoned perspective amidst this era of Left-of-center concentration on the inequities of race and gender. Of course great, if now beleaguered, progress has been made on the front. Still, a post-1970 return to a second Gilded Age -- increased inequality among wage and salary earners and between them and capital owners --has coincided with the war against racial and gender inequities that has dominated Left-of -center rhetoric and action for three-score years. How curious that Academy voters, with their lavish rewarding of PARASITES, have just highlight the sheer importance of class while Oscar night’s two overtly political celebrity voices -- Brad Pitt and Joaquin Phoenix -- said nothing about class per se. How telling that the Academy’s turn to critical class analysis comes displaced to East Asia. John Steinbeck and Arthur Miller where are you?
3
In all these discussions of Bong's current masterpiece, its' worth recalling an earlier line from a song in the classic (though underloved) American musical, Finian's Rainbow (1947): "When the idle poor become the idle rich, you'll never know just who is who or who is which."
The play is a nowadays very leftist critique of capitalist fantasy worlds, similar to Parasite's, for ultimately indistinguishable parasites like the Kims and the Parks are the inevitable products of this kind of society.
1
'Parasite' was a interesting and very well made film, worthy of an Oscar -- but its a shame that the Academy couldn't even nominate Lulu Wang's 'Farewell' staring Awkwafina. It was a authentic -- based on a true "lie" -- about a Chinese-American immigrant family. It was widely praised and did well commercially -- yet come the Oscars... nothing.
As a millennial -- and even has a white male -- I could connect far more with the struggling protagonist and her family in 'The Farewell' then the down-an-out family of con-artists in 'Parasite'. Talking about class -- 'Parasite' is how many in Hollywood see the less-well off, a nation of hustlers. Perhaps that says more about them, then about us.
1
The left wing media, Goldberg and AOC will fantasize about the benefits of socialism until they have to live under it---their tune will change very quickly after they see it doesn't work very well. I look forward to the day I don't have to pay for my NY Times subscription---under socialism.
6
@Oracle at Delphi
I'm sure our embattled soybean farmers would disagree with you, have benefited from billions in cash thanks to Trump 'socialism'
$225,000.00 gift bags for the nominees! How many nominees are there? Do the math. Take the money and make homeless shelters in California...or affordable housing. Gold vape pens?! Were they embossed with the word 'Trump?' Suck the poison, people!!
Thanks for this. I enjoyed the show, having been once again entertained into non-awareness. Oh, well, there's still Joachim's acceptance speech and the fact that Parasite, a perfect parable of our time, was appreciated. (Favorite moment: the girl having a cigarette during the flood. Priceless!)
The 2019 American movie that “Parasite” most resembles is “Us,” a far more complex and intriguing film that does, indeed, challenge these notions of class behavior and getting ahead that Goldberg writes about. The film’s complexity (and the fact that it was released early in the year) no doubt hurt its chances for an Oscar; it didn’t receive even one nomination. Another problem, perhaps, is revealed in the title itself. American audiences are much more comfortable casting a critical eye at “them.”
1
I read the piece about trump's recent rally in NH right before reading this..... interesting juxtaposition. trump voters love the illusion he creates that he is helping them and that they have a chance in hell of sustaining their current status or recovering what they have lost,. as I looked at the faces in the crowd they were almost entirely white, middle aged or elderly and I thought.... how many are suffering in some way from the rampant drug addiction in NH? like the Kims these people are desperate but unlike the Kims they lack any true perspective about what is happening to them and how it came to pass.
3
Of course, we are talking about a movie, however true it may be it's based on reality. So, we thought we could escape our daily routine, and it's inherent chronic unrelieved anxiety, instead of escaping into drugs and alcohol...or worse (suicide). I guess that 'capitalism', that capital faithfully always trumps labor, may be in an accelerating spiral to add another nail to it's casket....unless it re-discovers ethics and works on cutting down it's odious inequality.
1
My partner was raised in a radically different socioeconomic family which she escaped because of phenomenal intelligence. She is the smartest person I have ever met and is a self-taught software engineer. Through her, I inherited stepchildren from her previous marriage, as well as a gaggle of relatives who represent generations of uneducated poor where one of the grandchildren graduating high school was the first in over 3 generations. (Two GED’s, my partner being one.)
Contrastingly, I was raised in a highly-educated, upper-middle class family with 3 of my 4 grandparents having masters degrees. Work ethic was drilled into us from an early age. My partner and I have been together for over 20-years and her family of origin has given me unprecedented insight into the barriers of socioeconomic class.
They tell their young children that yes, school sucks, but you have to do it. (The quality of the schools and teachers in their poor neighborhoods is abysmal.) Their attitudes towards work is entirely negative and short-sighted. Language, from vocabulary to racism to profanity to off-color “jokes.” Every apartment rented they leave in shambles not paying the last months rent, leaving their security deposit for it. Scams, theft and other illegal activity. Addiction peppers generations of this family. Credit score?!
The idea of any of them escaping their situation through upward mobility is a fantasy (outside of an improbably high IQ such as my partner).
.
2
Your third paragraph exonerates society from responsibility for their self-induced plight and rightly upends the author’s far left position
@From Where I Sit /thankfully, my empathy has allowed me to help my partner's family as much as we can in as many ways as we can.
Plus, the schools in these neighborhoods, funded through local property taxes, hamstrings them from a very early age.
"Exonerates" suggests that there is an excuse not to help those in need. I don't want an excuse not to help. If I was in their shoes, I would want someone to help. They are fellow humans after all, fellow Americans as well.
.
Capitalism is the greatest system ever devised, perhaps except for slavery, at producing wealth. But it is also the worst, except for slavery, at equitably distributing the wealth it creates. Democrats seek to lessen the pain by taxing the capitalists and providing affordable health care, education, child care, and other social benefits to all citizens. These are worthy objectives. The rich should pay more so that more citizens can live productive lives, with less stress. But at the end of the day, even these policies do not get at the fundamental problem driving people to despair - the fact that they are living in a capitalist system and trying to survive without owning any capital! The good news is that there are policies that, if expanded to cover ALL citizens could lessen the wealth disparities. 401ks are just one example, but over half the citizens lack access, so when American capitalism creates tremendous wealth, they are left on the outside, looking in. In a capitalist system the primary benefits go to the owners of capital. Unless and until the vast majority of citizens become owners, so that their real stake in this system grows over time, the fundamental problems created by capitalism will not be solved.
2
The textbook definition of capitalism is the long winded “an economic and political system...” The short version is that capitalism is the ardent refusal of all that is communism. Period. Capitalists cannot grant labor value and do not allow it to have the same weight as capital. It doesn’t get a seat at the table and capitalists share the proceeds at their own peril. Look only at Ford at River Rouge and Carnegie at Homestead to find glaring examples of the dangers inherent in labor.
1
I love how a piece about class war at the Oscars leaves out the documentary American Factory whose maker called for the workers of the world to unite.
It shows the degree to which even those who talk about class war want it only to happen on a metaphorical level.
2
Glad to see Michelle writing about movies instead of politics. She obviously knows movies well and I enjoyed the article very much.
However, the idea that capitalism has left far too many people behind is one of the oldest and most common themes in movie history and in literature (at least since the French Revolution.)
Having enjoyed "The Host" before, where I believe he used many of the same actors that were in "Parasite," I will look for "Snowpiercer!"
In the not too distant past in the Mid West the Land Grant universities and excellent public grade and high schools were the path to upward mobility for many young people of middle class means.
But there is something in the Republican party that hates education.
In the eight years of Republican controlled governor's office and state legislature funding for schools from grade school to the university level was cut and the teachers' union destroyed.
The pathway to a better life than one's parents was made much steeper and filled with obstacles. Yet the Republican mantra of god's, guns gays and now immigrants still causes parents and grand parents to vote against their children's' best interests.
It is very depressing.
5
Education is vital, to the extent that it goes to those who need/use it. Doctors, lawyers, accountants and others certainly should be highly educated. But to expend precious tax dollars on college degrees for baristas and insurance salesmen or high school diplomas for retail and menial workers is obscenely wasteful.
1
Let's remember that Academy voters are far from representing typical Americans. It's a sign of how the Hollywood elite is choosing to portray itself this year. Reading anything more into that is a stretch.
3
AOC was actually and factually right about the bootstraps cliche. It was originally intended as a joke. Only in the US of A could it be twisted into a moral imperative.
4
Parasite's big wins also signals the passing of the baton from the US to Asia as a source for great entertainment. We are no longer THE source, the voice, and that's a good thing.
2
Some people overthink the meaning of certain films. What does a film mean to me? Do I enjoy the movie? Does it give me a break from the workaday world? Is it interesting, engrossing, is anticipation of the next frame high? Or am I waiting for the end of the movie so I can leave? Woke? A word that is over used, and for the most part, just a catch phrase. No, I'm not woke, I am fully participating/anticipating in this great American Society. I don't have time to overanalyze the meanings of a movie.
1
Brilliant piece. I'm hoping that Goldberg's connection between the popularity/acclaim of this brilliant movie and Sander's campaign is accurate. Everyday on the news or in this opinion section I see and read that Sanders has no chance. It's the kind of self-fulling, media-driven prophesy that causes voters to question their convictions at the polling place, instead pulling the lever for someone popular consensus says can win. I'm hoping the same force, the same sense of a fleeting American Dream, is powerful enough to overcome the negative force of the professionals and armatures who daily predict Sanders' fall without the least bit of evidence.
1
Thank you, Michelle, for explaining two things to this old boomer who doesn't watch movies: Hollywood and why Bernie Sanders is catching fire. To mix metaphors, it's like living through a monster storm is devastating your environment: it is awful to go through, you may not survive, it doesn't seem right or fair, but you understand the conditions that breed it.
As for the bootstraps, it isn't just that one doesn't have boots or straps, they have a broken arm for which they can't afford to get it fixed, and can't pull in the first place.
6
Just a tangential thought to share: I have not seen "Parasite," so my comment is an observation on the plot description in this opinion piece. It seems to me that the plot device could work only in a country that is racially homogenous, as is South Korea. In the US, where domestic servants are expected to come from not only a "lower" class but also from a non-white race, or at least from a first generation immigrant group, and where tutors and therapists are middle class and would be unacceptable to many affluent families if they were people of color, the deceit might not work. I am guessing that in Korea, if you change your clothes and manage to use language properly, it is hard to distinguish class. I will have to run this idea by some Korean friends.
2
Friends with Money-2006
1
Blue Jasmine-2013
1
"there’s clearly something resonant about its bleak social vision, so different from anything coming out of Hollywood."
uhh.... bleak social visions have been a staple of the film industry with the notable Metropolis in the 1920s. Perhaps Ms. Goldberg didn't see Joker - probably because she believed the hype that it was a celebtration of incels, or white supremacy, or a call to shot audiences (none were true).
2019's Richard Jewell also takes aim at the media industry contribution to cancel culture - something Ms. Goldberg tries herself on occasion.
Living in a bubble....
6
I fear that at heart the unintended -- or is it intended? -- message of some of these films (Parasite, Snowpiercer, as well as Get Out, Us, etc) is more about what will happen after the movie is over. That is, once the murders are committed, once the class system fails are noted -- the autocrats and dictators will be "solving" our problems with their own unchecked power.
The 'masses' will not revolt successfully, but will -- at least in the U.S. -- be transformed into a raucous rally for the ruler, with the resistance variously shut up, caged up, clamped down, and put out of view.
All democracies tilt toward fascism, and have to fight against it. We're losing, thanks to a variety of factors: unchecked capitalism, trumpist mania, and a host of other variables. The movies are good entertainment -- until they're 'Barred' from freedom of expression.
3
The message of Parasite is not what we need right now, so I don't understand why it won. The message only serves to divide us more, not bring us together or teach apathy, kindness or any other loving gesture. Haven't we had enough of violence, anger, revenge, name calling, disdain, resentment and the rest? I want to see movies that show our better side, give us hope and lift us up. Hollywood, and foreign film makers, as long as you keep making movies that reflect our worst selves instead of inspiring us, you won't get my money or my thanks.
3
Please spare me the social analysis nonsense. The Kims are nothing but scammers who seize the opportunity to take advantage of a wealthy family. I do not defend the economic divide between the Kims and the Parks, but the title of the movie should clue us in to what’s going on.
7
I think the class war might be between the people who read a summary of Parasite and think, "that's a movie worth seeing!" followed by the Best Picture Award.
And those like me, who read about it and say, "no thanks."
6
This film grossed $35 million in the US - not unlike a mid-level and forgettable rom-com - so no - not very many Americans thought about it in any meaningful fashion at all.
4
This article has the air of being revelatory, but class distinction in the US is similarly pronounced as in the film, with 35 million living below the poverty line, a minimum wage of $7.50, the top 1% with an income surpassing that of the bottom 50%.
US filmmakers are out to distract, not bother with the truth.
The names change, the places change, the times change, yet the story stays the same. The control we always seek to achieve is always less than a breath away, yet we never get there. Sure, that's life. Sure, that's entertainment. It's simply a parasitic relationship. Nothing more, nothing less. Enjoy the buttery popcorn.
1
Let's not forget that it's a darned good movie. It's irresistible because the characters are so real, their stories so powerful, and the plot is so elegantly executed.
I saw it early in the run in New York and I was blown away. First I saw a story. Next I saw the references to great filmmakers of the past (oh, that Kurasawa rain!). And I finally came to see the class structure underlying every moment. If I had seen these aspects in the opposite order, I probably would not be thinking about two months later. Great art is like that--it won't let you go.
4
Sorry Michelle but your proving your point with this film about the "crisis in capitalism" is a bit of a leap. Just look at incomes and wealth of the South Koreans compared to let's say North Korea. Is there a crisis in Totalitarianism too? Those folks in the North are living like dogs. I don't see a huge move for the Souths people to flee to China to smuggle themselves into the North! This was simply about people, and people, and their lives both good and bad. Nothing More! How about a movie about Chinese Uighur's and the "Crisis in Communism" or "Coronavirus, Crisis in Communism"? It is a movie Michelle. Just enjoy it.
5
The low wage economy really does look like all those dystopian near future movies where everyone is an urban migrant. Where the entire background is blinking bright Times Square above and mole like groveling humanoids below.
1
The $225,000 gift bags to nominees is truly obscene. Enough to buy a dream home they will never possess for the majority of Americans. If that doesn't make the case for progressives and sway some moderates towards opening their minds to a little socialism would be beneficial for the well being of the majority of citizens I don't know what will. Unfortunately I must wait for Parasite to stream due to economics.
1
Our society is Parasitic. We could be properly named the Parasitic States of America.
Yes, a very CRUEL nightmare.
Capitalism is a disease. The film's title is apt.
1
The US will never be a Socialist country. This movie did not advocate Socialism. The writer of this article did.
1
What Parasite did that American movies don't do is explore social class, unflinchingly, no air brushing. All the chracters are real people, no one's a complete villain, no one's a saint. We are confronted with our own humanity when we're confronted with humans in our movies and other art.
102
Brilliant review, Michelle!
1
The triumph of Parasite is women in the academy voting for one of the few nominated movies that wasn’t a brodeo.
Yes things are difficult. But maybe if families made sure their children had a place to sleep, study and do their homework, and the tv and/or computer games were not on 24/7 the next generation would stand a chance. Also, for most of the well to do and even some of the very rich, their advantage does not seem to go past the second or third generation.
1
Hollywood's acknowledgment of Bong Joon Ho and "Parasite" is a vote for excellence and not necessarily a vote for diversity.
The Hollywood elite has always been class conscious, unlike the corporate elite.
Last year, it was Alfonso Cuarón's "Roma," which focused on the life of a female Mexican domestic worker in a middle-class physician's household.
"Parasite" is on a par with Zhang Yimou's "Red Sorghum" and "Raise the Red Lantern" and Chen Kaige's "Farewell My Concubine," all of which have as their donnée the class divide.
Bong Joon Ho comes across as a very affable, cosmopolitan individual.
Congratulations.
2
I wish I could just "like" an article on the New York Times. This article would get a great big like.
I'll be interested to see the viewership data in the US. I doubt many people will sit through a sub titled film.
1
"Its reception is evidence of the same crisis of faith in capitalism that’s making Bernie Sanders into a front-runner for the Democratic nomination."
Thank you for being one of the only journalists I've seen to make this canny observation.
Instead of repeating centrist Dem party dogma about the "unelectability" of Sanders I wish the Times would start covering the reasons why--despite every effort to bury him--he keeps winning polls and gaining supporters.
The fact that he takes no corporate money and is thriving is unfathomable. What's happening with him and his campaign and how it's seemingly resonating across the country is noteworthy and news, actual news.
There's a message and a BIG story there and I'm thankful that at least one NYT reporter has noticed.
1
A movie about grotesquerie with murderous violence, infamy and grief.
I watched this movie. I was not entertained and don’t recommend this movie as a choice of best anything.
Although a vest farce comes to mind.
1
Parasite wasn't such a great movie. It didn't really even have any likable characters. I suspect the Academy thought it might anger Trump if they honored it because he's such a super capitalist. If they really wanted to make a point about how harmful capitalism is they would have voted for The Florida Project as best movie two years ago. That was a better movie, and more relatable to Americans, and it made more clear points about poverty and the damage it does to people's souls.
3
I hav not seen Parasite and am looking forward to doing so. From my view, the greatest thing is that it is a foreign film. There ar so many great films made by directors (and writers) from Asian and other countries. Far, far superior to mst of the stuff (my polite word) which comes out of American studios. Maybe this will encourage domestic audiences to expand their horizons, so to speak.
1
Look for the words "capitalism" or "free market" in the US Constitution. You won't find them. Look for the words "regulate commerce" and, surprise!, there they are (Article 1, Section 8).
Go figure.
And as a kicker, look at the preamble and you'll find, "promote the general Welfare".
Imagine that.
3
"first foreign-language film to win the Oscar for best picture"
As if this means something ---other than remind us of the many great foreign films that have been previously ignored.
Think of the great foreign directors who have influenced the world of film making, then think of "Parasite."
It's almost insulting.
This socialism vs. capitalism argument is senseless. Bernie is no socialist, even if he once claimed he was. He is not calling for nationalizing the banks or taking over the means of production. Why he chose to muddy the argument about the safety net and hand the Republicans campaign ammunition is beyond me. Seems like a foolish thing to me and makes me less inclined to trust his judgement.
1
Capitalism has failed in the US because the wealthy want more and more and more. They want it all. They refuse to invest any of it back into the country and spend their time corrupting our politics so they can pay less with zero civic responsibility. Travel anywhere in the world and you will see that they have spent the last fifty years investing in infrastructure and education. Come back here and just try to drive from New Jersey to Long Island.
. You can get ahead. You have to be very disciplined, don’t get pregnant or sick or in an accident, have goals, pursue them doggedly in the most affordable way possible. You can claw your way to the middle class...it’s just getting harder to stay there when greedy American companies continue their layoffs in spite of great profits and zero taxes.
2
Capitalism is the worst system there is, except for all the others.
2
The lemming like rush toward diversity continues!
No way Parasite should have won both best foreign film and best film. It was undoubtedly the former. But in almost any given year, the best foreign film is better than the best American film. Keep them in their categories!
Gayle King the intellectual genius, says she almost didn’t see the film because she doesn’t like movies with subtitles, but “it was so good you forget what you’re reading”
1
I'm a 72 year old retiree who's been on a road trip along the Gulf coast for the past 5 weeks. I was recently walking the beach on Galveston Island in front of mile upon mile of multimillion dollar McMansions which stood 2 or 3 deep. The interesting thing was that at least 90% of them were unoccupied, their hurricane shutters drawn over the windows. They were obviously second or third or fourth homes of the super rich. Previously I'd gone through many neighborhoods in Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana where it was obvious people were barely getting by, eking out a meager living at best. The only thing in common in these 2 very different worlds was the abundance of Trump flags and signs. Go figure.
3
Many comments seem to take the position that Bong did the poor a disservice by painting them as people lacking in virtue. I didn’t come away with that impression. It’s clear that the Kims were desperate people at the end of their rope. Being honest hadn’t produced income, so why should they be? As Bernie Sanders has said so many times, the system is rigged. I believe that Capitalism is still the best system, but it has created some ugliness that we haven’t been able to rein in. The Kims were simply tired of playing in a rigged system.
Just look at “billionaires” like Trump who steal money from veteran charities and do crazy things like paying people to bid on portraits of themselves, and rarely do they get caught. White collar crime is rampant and real estate fraud is rampant, and it’s not people like the Kims who are committing these crimes. It’s people like Trump. It’s why he hates the FBI.
I literally almost threw up in my mouth when I saw a clip today of people chanting “46” at Don Jr. The same people who are being hurt by this income inequality are chanting for a mini fraudster. Ignorance! They’re also the same ones who will scoff at the idea of watching a film that has subtitles. Bong, you don’t have to worry about Trump seeing your film because it requires reading, so when he inevitably gripes about a foreign language film with subtitles winning, rest assured he didn’t actually watch it. Our biggest current need? Figuring out how to combat this systemic ignorance.
3
Comparing again the giant, diverse economy of the USA, with the idiosyncratic and corrupt reality in Venezuela has become the most twisted socialist attack- meme of them all, ad nauseam.
Venezuela, with less than 30 million people, the majority of whom are dirt poor, about the size of a big Texas, never diversified it's economy, produces almost nothing but petroleum and now is left sick and hungry, hanging in the wind because...
because Maduro quite likely rigged some elections and Trump et al consider him to be a socialist tyrant and a dictator, fit only to suffer sanctions that only further deprive the people there and cause more suffering and death than any brutal over-reaction to the protests in the street.
But Trump is in love with a Korean tyrant, the Russian oligarchs, the murderous Saudi royalty, and his GOP cult and nazgul McConnell, have no problem with using every unconstitutional dirty trick in the book to keep him in office and to rig the votes here in our paradise of plutocratic Capitalist inequality.
At first, things changed for the better in Venezuela, but it didn't take much to help run the train off of the rails, where it still sits, in despair.
Before Chavez- before the revolutionary reaction against the plutocratic abuses there- they had Ali Primera, a great artist who's songs really make valid comparisons with the homeless here today;
"Que triste se oye la lluvia
en las casas de carton,
que lejos pasa la esperansa
en los techos de carton."
Great piece. Great movie, it deserved every honor it got (though I was pulling for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood). Every sap in Congress should have to watch it about 400 times and take a test with a passing grade of 80% to get their check. Could you see a goober like Gym Jordan attempting to read the sub titles? Any way, congrats to the cast and crew. You won and you deserved to win. Can't say that about much going on here.
Per Ms. Goldberg's paragraph, the joke of "lifting oneself up by one’s bootstraps " was obvious long before Ms. Ocasio-Cortez mentioned it. There is a great deal of luck involved--long obvious to anyone willing to see it on either end of the political spectrum: https://www.epi.org/blog/whats-luck-got-to-do-with-it-when-it-comes-to-money-quite-a-bit/ AND https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/09/sometimes-theres-upward-mobility-but-usually-in-history-there-isnt/426297/ .
I found the movie nihilistic and terribly violent, and I still wonder what made it so popular among the critics. It is, indeed, full of apparent ironies: the rich are more sympathetic than the poor, but the poor are smarter than the rich, but the poor cannot seem to move up, and the poor murder each other, but the rich end up also murdered through no fault of their own, etc. In the end, it does seem to justify violence as a response to real or perceived discrimination or oppression. But the violence only leads to destruction and suffering.
In the past, left-leaning films justified violence as a path to revolution. Now, we´re just fine with exacting mindless revenge. It's the same message as The Joker, another violent and nihilistic film that also left the critics in awe. Why wealthy, educated people will find these films worthy of praise eludes me, since they seem to target them indiscriminately. On the other hand, if the poor get inspired by them, get ready for a bumpy ride, with no happy ending. We need different movies, and Hollywood should realize this and stop playing the clever cultural "disruptor".
69
@Diego
I agree. Watching an actor turn himself inside out doesn't entertain or enlighten me.
The Joker is a cartoon figure and the film didn't make him human in any respect.
In contrast, I saw a French film, Les Miserables, that worked on every level.
Hollywood does little more than rule and entertain.
7
@Diego How about "We're In the Money" from 1933
I think.
2
@Diego While both "Joker" and "Parasite" are nihilistic, so is the society they represent. We seem to have two choices; either believe some superhero is going to save the day for us or admit that money (greed) now runs the world.
Neither choice is realistic. There are no superheros and jumping into the upper classes is getting tougher than nails. If the rich are so smart, why haven't they seen that the expanding income gap is likely to be just as harmful for them in the long run as it is for those at the bottom of the heap.
And although both movies are violent, fighting the system just to subsist each day is its own form of violence. And I don't think those that face this dilemma will be quite so deferential to the rich forever.
I'd say both movies were the equivalent of an ice cold shower and slap in the face, both of which this country needs.
21
Haven't yet seen the film, but as one who spent a career spanning the decades from the seventies through the aughts, my view is that while it's still possible to achieve a better life in the US, it's more difficult than it once was. And I see a decrease in what I'll call enlightened self-interest, born of indifference, on the part of too many of us who by luck and/or ability have reached at least the middle class. While the American pie is growing, the portion going to the masses is not. And through neglect, whether benign or intentional, we have fostered a seemingly permanent and growing underculture from which escape is now virtually impossible regardless of ability. If we are truly enlightened, and truly honest, to say nothing of truly caring, we know that social stability is increasingly at risk unless we do what we need to do. Capitalism works, but unbridled capitalism ultimately destroys. Right now, we're mostly in denial, merely watching as it destroys us.
3
Question: If everyone on the planet moves into the middle class (and everyone deserves to) won't earth's systems completely shut down under the weight of all that carbon-fueled consumption? As we work for economic policies that create the conditions where everyone can have the material goods one expects to have when in the middle class, shouldn't we be making consumption less destructive to the climate, and therefore us?
2
Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez-Cortez is right but not for the reason many thing. The original use of the phrase “pulling oneself up by the bootstraps” was originally coined to represent an impossibility. Not sure when it morphed into an aspirational metaphor.
117
That is correct. It was meant to be an example of an impossibility. But Americans, with their fanatical worship of rugged individualism, sees it as an aspiration.
24
@Clio And ironically enough, AOCs own life story is PROOF that she is wrong about her statement regarding social mobility being a myth.
No way a poor Puerto Rican waitress becomes a US Congresswoman without a capitalist society.
8
Of course. There are those very few who benefit from gerrymandering.
4
It is but a selection, by market fragmentation, toward the I-Alone, I-Capital fix. A breaking of ties among the commoners to side with the interests of Big. A breaking of ties with the commons, looking away from our combined footprints. With diminished means to address this, due to the capture of democratic institutions by the big levers of big capital. Only joined by a quest to have our own smiling faces posted in cyber-central, mimicing the 'all-is-good' ads to the big way of living. To celebrate, that with the touch of technology, we too can live as richly as the rich while the world fragments around us. Momentarily deluded that we are somehow exempted from the rush toward the dreaded gauntlet by our faith in technological man-strong.
Terrific film. But if we have a crisis of faith in capitalism, I’d like to see a little more evidence than the sentiments of the diamond-studded revolutionaries in Hollywood.
1
Using the judgement of Hollywood for a lesson in societal values seems beyond absurd. Not only is the film industry unrepresentative of the country at large, it is perhaps the most hypocritical place in the US (outside of Washington DC). What's more, the industry has spun itself up into a paroxysm of guilt over the Oscars and its own wokeness. There is a reason fewer and fewer people watch the Academy Awards (or whatever they will be called next year). It's become an echo chamber of political correctness and is arguably less about the art of film making than making a point. Michelle Goldberg is young enough that she probably does not understand that in the late 60's many in this country thought the world was coming to an end (it certainly felt that way) and liberals were sure we were doomed. The current time is unusual and difficult, but we will ultimately right the ship and life will go on and we will get better.
6
Isn’t it ironic that some on the Left use the tools invented by capitalism (radio, television, computers, digital cameras, cell phones, e-mail, the internet, and of course, motion pictures) to decry capitalism?
4
A lot of the things you mentioned were either the direct result of government programs or would not have been possible without government funding and support. So isn’t it ironic that you are using them to diminish government’s part in successful capitalism?
7
One could argue this is the beginning. The canary in the cave, as it were. The first glance in the mirror. But as the fantasy starts to become more and more real, the question to be answered is "What do we do about it?" The Republicans mantra is that common jingle "Don't worry, be happy". And the Democrats is "The sky is going to fall". Like the coronavirus, the problem of inequality won't go away by wearing a a mask of denial. And there isn't a little bottle of liquid you can hang from your belt that you can use to wash the invisible scourge of inequality from your hands. Like a virus, greed and inequality are much better at what they do than we seem to be to stop them. And like the coronavirus, those problems will only be stopped from spreading by taking drastic measures. Even then, we always have to be on the lookout for them. The drastic measures are often so onerous we wished we had taken preventative measures in the first place.
1
Good column. As other posters indicated American novels and literature and some movies in the Gilded Era of the early 1900s and then in the 1930s of Great Depression also portrayed class struggle particularly John Steinbeck and Sinclair Lewis and Jack London, many of whom were socialist or communist in their world view. Charlie Chaplin was an avowed communist who hated the capitalist world of his era. Maybe now American film makers can turn to our American class struggle and give hope and inspiration to us as well. We have nothing to lose but our chains.
5
I used to consider Jack London to be in the same company until I found about his virulent racism. Read what he wrote about the first black boxer, Jack Johnson, as a contemporary. It’s disgusting. He is definitely no Steinbeck.
1
When did capitalism and socialism become either-or? Europe has a workable mixture. We need the profit motive and we need to nourish our innate need to share. Capitalism needs strong regulations because of greed and socialism needs strong safeguards against the concentration of power. The movie? It is sub-titled so Americans won't watch it anyway.
5
I just watched this film last night. It is sophisticated, clever and well-made. It is not a great movie. It will not keep me thinking for time afterwards. I did not see every film nominated, but I think sometimes we get hypnotized by a clever very different approach. I liked the film, but looking for great ideas ??? I will search elsewhere.
2
Since when are Oscar winners great movies with great ideas? Parasite deserved all its accolades. Maybe it was only arithmetically rather than exponentially better than its rivals, but still a viable contender.
An excellent synopsis and commentary. The film makes the Park's sympathetic characters. They are not bad people, but theirs is an easy virtue in a world far beyond subsistence. The rest are fighting for survival. They cut corners. They can be cruel. They cannot succeed without doing so.
This is not a film about capitalism per se, but on the tendency of all unchecked systems, from feudalism onwards, to centralize power and wealth. We don't know by what means the Parks came by their money. It doesn't matter. This is the way of the world through history. It does not suggest that capitalism is holding back the Kims of this world. They might struggle anyway. The film offers no way forward other than the aspiration of the Kim's son to gain enough wealth to rescue his father. It is the dystopian quality which helps the film transcend the didactic preachiness so common in Hollywood movies.
1
Michelle's good - as usual - column and the comments have a fundamental flaw. Our system is not capitalism. It is something quite different. Capitalism has self-regulating mechanisms that have been eviscerated. Supply and demand are not particularly relevant in our system and the flow of capital is not directed to manufacturing infrastructure or distribution capacity. The flow of capital is into market speculation and into maximizing earnings on piles of cash that are invested for executive and major shareholder benefit. Decisions are made to elevate share value, not to improve production or quality. The "long term" is only the next quarterly report.
"Branding" matters more than product. And most of all, we are primarily a transactional economy, not a productive one. FIRE (Finance, Insurance and Real Estate) has doubled in recent decades. Most of the richest Americans make nothing. They manipulate financial transactions, skimming America's wealth from the top and helping to create the enormous wealth gap we see now.
Think of our country as one giant car lot, where the deals are crooked, we're all sold rust proofing, and the finance department is charging you thousands, hidden in fine print, and you're happy because you have fake leather seats. That's 2020 America.
9
Two things to observe:
1) HOLLYWOOD AS THE "JUDGE" OF ANYTHING: the fact that Hollywood gives an award of any kind to any movie or performer is not indicative of what's happening in general. Many movies that have been lauded by the general public (as evidenced by their willingness to buy tickets to see these movies) have not seen any awards. And vice versa.
2) CAPITALISM JUDGED BY ITS ACTUAL PERFORMANCE: Venezuela is but the latest example, in historical terms, of what happens under Socialism. It simply does not work, in the long-term. Yes, short-term it does - sort of. Simply because, for a brief period, it can scavenge the wealth built up under a freer capitalistic economy. Then, it starts to implode. Reality meets theory.
The title "Parasite" is an apt one - indicating the philosophy of Hollywood.
4
@Sunny 4 Life, it’s odd to see you opine, safely ensconced in the Canadian healthcare system, that socialism is a dead end. And that you refer us to Venezuela as an example of what happens in “socialist” societies.
You should know that Canada, with its “socialist” healthcare system, is often held up as a cautionary tale for Americans daring to consider a more decent society. “Do you really want to be like Canada?” they say... Or Germany, or Denmark, or Norway? Hellholes, apparently.
One wonders why Venezuela is always brought up as the slam dunk argument. I think you will find, if you look a bit deeper, that universal healthcare and trying to provide a decent life for all citizens is not what brought Venezuela down. If it was, the far more socialist countries of Europe, as well as your own, would be far worse than Venezuela. Are they?
Would you like to emigrate to America’s capitalist paradise?
There’s still no wall at the northern border and I hear that there are plenty of jobs available for people willing to work for 7.25 an hour, unencumbered by the tyranny of healthcare.
Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Iceland--- most successful countries of our era. socialist.
1
Gold-plated vape pens in Academy award gift bags? Perhaps to bring the message of Parasite home, these gift bags should have included partially smoked cigarettes found in the gutter; discarded boots; used hypodermic needles; small blue plastic vials of saline solution; a solitary shoelace for use as a tourniquet: things you find on urban streets visited by the homeless. Then turn the situation around: distribute the $225,000-valued little sacks with their designer vape items to the lines of folks standing behind charity busses offering free hamburger soup—merely a materialistic upgrade, but of equal value, replacing physical homelessness with homelessness of the soul. That is where we are in an economy built upon a trillion dollar debt, where Hollywood desperately tries to survive by offering films empty of everything but the pretense of glitter.
11
@Charles Kaufmann Thank you, Charles.
“Parasite” isn't exactly original.
The film "depicts a world where a chasm divides the rich, who live in airy minimalist splendor, and the poor, who exist — to a degree that becomes increasingly macabre as the film progresses" could easily describe George A. Romero's "Land of the Dead" from 2005.
"Dead" was a truly awful film. However, all the essential themes were already in place. The film is a Bernie Sanders progenitor placed in a zombie landscape. Romero was talking almost exclusively about class the entire film. This years before the Great Recession.
3
Capitalism is broken but not dead. The average CEO now makes 250 times the average employee. That wasn't always the case. Not that long ago a CEO lived near the workers and made maybe 5-10 times the average employee. Why are the wealthy so greedy? That's the question to be answered...
8
Let’s not overstate the case. A motion picture with a liberal point of view was voted Best Picture by members of the Academy. This happens about as often as the sun rises in the East.
9
There is plenty capitalism in social democracies, it's just that those structures value the "social" first.
5
I’d prefer the democracy part first, please.
1
So “democracy” is second? Think a little deeper.
1
Yang’s proposal, dismissed and soon to be discarded, is as radical as it gets. If it were to be enacted it would be the final nail in the capitalist coffin, one that would fulfill the fantasies of the most ardent Leninist. Once millions of disenfranchised people are allowed to minimally exist while the beast is bled, the only result can be a bloody revolution once the tap runs dry. Then the cycle begins all over again. Bernie’s plans are unrealistic as well. He might not care. Making changes requires a certain long term commitment that can blur the ethics, or lack thereof, employed to get the final result. Bloomberg, perhaps our version of Marcus Aurelius, can at best provide a temporary Golden Age before the inevitable collapse. The interval between Caligula and Marcus Aurelius amounted to about 120 years. It’s exciting to live in our accelerated timescape where it’s possible to imagine witnessing not just the end of an empire but the end of life as we know it due to climate change.
2
Capitalism only works with a fully functioning democracy. every capitalist goal is to become a monopoly let’s call it what it is a business is an economic organism moving towards profit and away from loss. Keep this in mind and it’s easy to predict their actions.
All that being said with a democracy and the rule of law that exists for the greater good of all citizens not just a select minority, a society is able to harness the really good aspects of capitalism while keeping the less so impulses at bay. This is a struggle that has been fought for hundreds of years with success at times and steps backwards at others.
4
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. warned about the enduring inherent danger to preserving, protecting and defending the constitution of our republic from the inextricable intersection of capitalism, militarism and racism that has made America first in money, arms and prisoners.
10
The problem with the notion that people can economically lift themselves by their bootstraps has always been that it’s an anecdotal truth. Back before nouns and pronouns became such vexatious things, it was common to say, “In America, a man can make anything of himself.” That’s crucially different from holding out reasonable hope that men — people — generally can make anything of themselves. We see individual success stories and fail to consider that they’re bound to be the tips of mentally buried pyramids.
It’s unfortunate that discussion of economic inequality often turns on the word “rigged”, which implies nothing more or less than conscious manipulation. In fact, any socioeconomic arrangement must be one in which some people will thrive more than others. Individuals differ. If all are born into the same game, even in a vacuum free of pre-existing inequality, prejudice, and conscious manipulation, some should win while others lose. Recognizing the essential unfairness of life is the first step to recognizing the rightness of systematic measures to distribute well-being. Then, more of us will be prepared for the second step: recognizing how unlike a benign vacuum our world is.
7
I wouldn’t say it’s anecdotal. It is some kind of logical fallacy though. I’m sure it has a name, probably in Latin. Lots of people have talent. Lots of of people have intelligence. Lots of people of ambition. Lots of people have drive. Plenty of poor people have a good amount of all of those qualities. But only a few get lucky, and those lucky few assume it was because they were talented, and/or smart, and/or ambitious, and/or driven. So their success proves why their method of achieving success was correct. But luck is something many of them won’t admit to having. That would destroy the idea that people just need to be talented, and/or smart, and/or ambitious, and/or driven in order to pull themselves up from the bootstraps from poverty to wealth.
8
I think my readings of Wittgenstein and desire to follow formal logic made that post unnecessarily complicated. The point: You have to get lucky to go from being poor to rich in our system, even if you have all of the qualities necessary to achieve success in those born to be more fortunate.
8
@Ben
Thanks for both your replies. The fickle factor of luck is undoubtedly a major ingredient of success, and the reluctance to acknowledge it is a persistent element of the political problem.
Until we succeed in digging up the appropriate Latin word, we may as well call it vanity.
4
Capitalism—and markets— only work when people actually pay for what they get. The problem we have is that inheritance absolutely destroys the fundamental requirement for markets: being born rich is a anathema to capitalism and markets.
Probably the fairest solution would be to tax any wealth transfer above, say, 10x median income at 95% and use that money to fund absolutely equal primary education for all kids, with the leftover, if any, going to a UBI safety net.
Markets work because physics works. What we are experiencing is completely predictable to anyone who understands that if you do not pay for what you get, someone else is paying for you.
8
@J c
It is a fallacy that most wealthy Americans have inherited their wealth. In fact, about 68% of the very wealthy would be considered SELF-MADE by any reasonable standard, while only about 8% of the very wealthy can be attributed directly to inheritance. The balance, about 24% inherited some wealth, but then turned that into greater wealth over time.
The future doesn’t look bright and I hope our children have a plan because we did nothing to prevent this from happening.
6
We are victims of our limited imaginations. The stars preening on the red carpet, to many Americans, seem like the very apex of material success, but they are just shiny distractions, their influence minuscule compared to the true oligarchs in this society, whose names you will never know. Our stars lead charmed lives but they don't call the shots; don't own kennels of congressmen; and don't dictate legislation that benefits them and them alone. For every Bezos or Bloomberg, there are a dozen dark entities who tower above us like Olympians, moving us around like chess pieces.
6
California has been on the cutting edge for most of the last century, and now Silicon Valley is the knife point slashing into the future. I know recent graduates of San Jose State who proudly paraded across the stage at the head of their engineering classes but who are now driving Ubers. They're not unemployed, but unable to get real jobs at the places they dreamed of, like NASA and Google. Many of their passengers are here with H1B visas, or are self-employed entrepreneurs living off of borrowed money while they dream of starting up the next AirBnB. Today in Silicon Valley, young Americans, college-graduate engineers, can't get jobs in their field on the merits of their formal education. Cutting edge indeed.
9
The Stoics of antiquity gave a prescient account of all the things under human control but they also concluded that wealth and poverty stood on the outside of human choice. Choices and opinions are within our domain.... NOT externals like ones eventual demise or other people’s opinions.
As for bootstrapping... that is entirely possible for one to engage in but poverty, (or wealth) sickness, and markets are out of one’s control and one should value these accordingly.
Inequality is baked in, so my question is why bother focusing on external realities that are out of our control and are forever in flux?
1
Denmark, Netherlands Scandinavia Iceland.
People become accustomed to prison life and cannot live in a free society.
They may be found by the millions right here in the US, the land of the free and the hkme of the dismayed.
1
Brains, brawn, and bootstraps are certainly a joke, but capitalism (and implicitly the right) isn’t the only one telling it. I’ve just had to change career after being discriminatorily locked out of academia entirely. Why? Because the piety that any woman is better than any man now overrides even the most basic criteria of ability, accomplishment, and excellence. Because identitarian criteria have replaced brains and bootstraps, and done it under the virtuous cants of rebalancing (even though my field is majority female); of historical justice (jobs for women now - to make up for the jobs vastly more qualified and capable women were denied in the past); and simple minded female chauvinism (the perpetrators, as with male chauvinism, by no means all women). If you deplore the injustice and caprice of late capitalism, you should deplore the injustice and caprice of this.
Cue the chauvinist response that I’m making it up, or can’t add, or it’s all for a virtuous cause. But it’s as clear as day and openly - even enthusiastically - discussed.
Every dystopia is someone else’s utopia. In my experience, there’s plenty of dystopia to go around. Left and right alike don’t want a fair and just world. They just want to win.
7
@Mike We are all fighting for a piece of an ever-shrinking pie.
A LOT of lazy, uneducated (by choice), and unmotivated people think they deserve the same financial benefits and rewards as those who have put in the work to pursue and gain useful skills and knowledge.
The fact is, you CAN improve your financial situation in this country, through hard WORK, and a willingness to go where the work is.
In NW North Dakota, right across the border from us in the Bakken oil field, there are hundreds of unfilled, and really good paying, jobs. This has been the case for years.
Some of the jobs require little skill, but most involve skills that can be learned on the job. Some require a college degree. They all require WORK, something that many city dwellers can't even comprehend these days.
As far as "class" is concerned, I don't place any value on wealth. I do refer to upper, middle, and lower INCOMES.
Some of the lowest class individuals I have ever met, were rich. Some of the best, were low to middle income, and they worked hard (teachers, for instance).
11
And I'll continue to communicate that "capitalism" isn't a thing, that "capitalism" is really a term without foundation, that it arose simply from the delusion of Marx that the political is subservient to the economic, that liberal democracy is just a con, that the holders of capital actually have all the power in such a polity.
Its use in the US is just a sign that what Marx regarded as a criticism, influential members of the American economic elite in reaction accepted as a virtue. They've tried very hard to make the US just as Marx imagined liberal democracy to be - with bipartisan support: a plutocracy with popular elections just for show.
Meanwhile - elsewhere - the virtues of liberal democracy over dictatorship are taken seriously, private enterprise exists and thrives only in a context where citizens are also regarded as such - as human beings of equal, inherent, inalienable worth with rights and obligations courtesy of and to their country, not simply as buyers and sellers in a market.
It's worth recalling that Marx felt that people being both citizens and private individuals was an abomination - he felt they should always just be citizens, ever devoting themselves to collective aims. Powerful American believers in "capitalism" evidently think the opposite, that people should just be "workers" and "consumers". But the opposite of an error isn't necessarily true.
The US won the Cold War, but at great cost to its moral and intellectual well-being. And South Korea's?
1
But maybe it's just a really funny, well made, well acted movie.
Hollywood by comparison struggles with comedies. I figure they generally work on the weird basis that comedies shouldn't be funny.
4
When 40% of a country's wealth is held by 1% of its people, the economic and political systems that enabled this development need to be examined. And I'm not talking about South Korea--I'm talking about the U.S.
Somehow I wonder if the motion picture industry, where a few mega star actors, producers and directors make fortunes and the rest fight for table scraps, is the right bunch of revolutionaries to be making this case. In fact, I believe "Parasite" never would have won any awards if it had been an American movie. The fact that it was foreign allowed the Academy to look at it with a detached coolness, given that it was commenting, ostensibly, only on South Korea. If the Park family looked more like the Kardashians or the Trumps, and the Kims more closely resembled a poor, under-educated white family living in a trailer park in rural Alabama, I think everybody would have been too offended, politically, to accept the message.
46
@Jack Sonville
Brilliant observation. American remake, anyone?
While we're at it, kudos to Netflix for bringing an international roster of movies, TV, documentaries to the American public (in the past a select few of these movies were only shown in "art houses"). Perhaps that laid the groundwork for the successful distribution of "Parasite."
2
Other than perhaps the most poverty-stricken of Americans, most live better lives and are better off than billions of others around the world. Yet, they're so busy complaining about being victimized by this or held back by that, they can't even take one second to understand how truly fortunate they are.
To use one (admittedly extreme) example, imagine a young woman being held as a sex slave or a mother trying to protect her kids from famine or war reading about the poor, (wealthy, lucky-to-be-working-in-the-movie business) movie director and all who support her claims of victimhood complaining she didn't get nominated for an award, and using the wholly unsupported argument it is because she is a woman.
I cam't imagine there are too many around the world who have much sympathy.
5
Class warfare is the recent Republican tax cut for the wealthiest Americans. Or gutting the social safety net. Our endless wars are class warfare, where arms makers and investors grow fat on the golf course while kids from poorer families, many of them people of color, deploy. But the fox has so corrupted our discourse that simply pointing out wealth inequality is now considered unacceptable class warfare. Angels and ministers of grace defend us.
16
Classism is real. Misogyny too. Born into a working class family, I was raised to believe that only boys were worthy. My parents told me when I was 7, in 2nd grade, that should I wish to attend college, I had to find/fund my own path.
I did. I left home just 2 weeks after I turned 17. Won a full STEM scholarship—but the strong male bias led me to change majors. I became an economist. Lived and taught overseas. First in my family (dating to the American Revolution) to finish college. I later earned an MBA, MEd, PhD—not one penny of debt. Plus I carried a full-time college schedule for while working 2-3 sketchy part-time jobs.
Occasionally I worked playing poker, in private games, expecting that the 95% of players who are men would underestimate me. They did. (Still do. Just finished in the money at a tournament in Vegas—as usual the “last woman standing”).
Lived and worked in Princeton and Manhattan post-PhD for decades. And you know what? All the grit and drive and hustle and DAR cred—and 5th SD above average tested IQ—didn’t matter, really. My working class roots and state university education marked me as “lower class.” The poker games were a true meritocracy actually.
The Wall Street bank gigs—poker by another name some might say—might have bolstered my bank account. But the classist warfare and sneering judgment wasn’t worth it.
Decades later Americans still don’t want to face to the truth: we’re not a meritocracy and never were.
18
So, Ms Goldberg, your diagnosis is correct. Now overcome your fears and your dreads and help do the only thing that can turn this around: Vote for Bernie Sanders.
9
"Class War at the Oscars" -
The right loves the phrase "class war", meaning any attempt to push boot off of neck and gasp for breath. Struggle to fight back, and that's ugly, uncalled-for "class war" - unlike the status-quo boot itself: institutional, natural, and taken for granted.
The left uses the phrase "class struggle", meaning a concerted, common effort to survive, gain a foothold, and, yes, perhaps eventually gain some power.
5
Depression era average US resident facing penury still preferring “we’re in the money “ Hollywood escapism, while post WW 2 sophisticated but broken Europeans appreciating neo realism especially arguably greatest ever film, “Bicycle Thieves “.
4
We've perhaps dulled the brutal edge of capitalism too much and yet so many complain about the pampered highly regulated version we have now as if office work was coal mining or digging out the Panama Canal and inequality of income akin to slavery. We can safely give awards to social satirists because their work poses no danger to the status quo. Or to the size of the gift bags.
2
This was a good year for movies, and even better year for whining.
6
When my aunt and uncle adopted their Korean daughter in the 1960’s, the girl was found in a garbage can outside the orphanage and her arms were too thin to accept immunization injections. Since the 1960s capitalism has vaulted South Korea to one of the world’s top ranking economies with high employment and per capital GDP. For convenience, you can compare S Korea to its northern neighbor or myriad other nations that have either embraced socialism or been stunted by over-controlling central governments. While Parasites is highly entertaining and, in some ways, flashes a mirror back at us (with the wealthy class looking a lot like the Oscar live audience), exploiting the film to grade capitalism is a disservice, a distortion and yet another misguided attempt to destroy what makes our economy—and South Korea’s—engines for actual progress.
9
@Alberto Abrizzi...
All I know is that my Norwegian relatives love their Democratic Socialism where everyone in the society is provided for.
It gives them peace of mind.
They elect their leaders and politicians they same way we do... and they can go to absolutely any Church that they care to...which they do.
And their economy isn't shabby either.
Scandinavia's mix of Democratic Socialism and Democratic Capitalism has been quite consistently successful for quite a while now.
Enough with the horror stories.
2
There has always been class warfare. This movie has so much more going for it. It's like an Acid Trip. How the plot gets more elaborate & complicated seemly every couple minutes. The crazy ending. The meticulous planning & conniving. The trust and gullibility of the rich cause they can afford it. Yes the whole smell thing. The smoke signals, the flood. The girl in love with the tutor whose friend wants to marry the girl. He gave him the job to begin the whole thing because he trusted him. ...sorry but Ms Goldberg you started it ... I am going to have to see it again.
3
I must have missed the stories about Russia/China/Vietnam where all people were equal and there were no rich people.
Newsflash -- capitalism is the worst form of economic system in the world -- EXCEPT for all the others.
The goal of govt regulated economy is to provide a floor -- not to make everyone "equal"
By the way, AOC is wrong. If pulling yourself up was a myth, then there's no way a poor Puerto Rican working as a waitress would end up as a United States Congresswoman. She's living proof of the capitalist ideal.
13
I am in the minority but I had no sympathies for the poor family depicted in the movie. They were con artists who got their jobs by unscrupulously getting others fired and then they got even crazier and greedier. Like when they all got themselves paying jobs, why did they not go back to their own home at the end of the day instead of partying it up at their employer's house on that fateful night?
I didn't see the movie as a "failure of social mobility", rather as an example of "crime does not pay". Now, you can say that the family had no better choice, they were trapped etc. etc but had the movie shown them to be a bit more honest and ethical, it would have aligned more with the claim that it was about the nightmare of capitalism.
9
I love Ms. Goldberg's perspective most of the time, but the cherry-picking here is worrisome. I'm a liberal but a confirmed capitalist, and every time we get this perspective, it seems we hear about only one side of the capitalist coin It has produced staggering inequality that must be addressed, but it has also reduced world-wide poverty rates and illiteracy to rates never seen. Perhaps a socialist experiment will do us some good, but we must also be prepared to have all boats lowered if we make the move, including those struggling now. Yes Sanders' message is resonating with the young, but I don't see that position being adopted nearly as universally as those, apparently like Goldberg, who believe that Twitter is representative of the the masses. I also reject the idea that Hollywood doesn't depict class struggles. It always has and always will (Did you actually see Joker??). I suspect you're referring to your particular critique of capitalism, not inequality more generally.
7
Warren wants to transform predatory capitalism into a capitalist system that works for all while mitigating and adapting to the climate crisis. She wants to restore the social mobility that has been lost, and then some.
Can she do it? She has plans. And that's better than making things worse by tearing into the social safety net and pretending that the climate crisis doesn't exist.
She's as middle-of-the-road and moderate as we can afford.
16
Parasite reminded me a lot of Dickens' novels, the Kims' family: crafty, manipulative -- the daughter, a techno version of Bill Sykes -- the son, perhaps a milder version of Pip. At least the Kims had passion, unlike the Parks, who were filthy rich, a flattened tribe. There has always been horrendous class differentiation, in any country, only now with Trump, it's gotten worse for us. I own a small farm in Arkansas, a wealthy farmer from Argentina and a lawyer bought out the small farms beside me, and the lawyer insist that part of my small parcel belongs to him. This is what capitalism has become: it's never enough for the rich and never enough for the poor. I loved the film and didn't watch the Oscars.
28
Rhetorical posturing about inequality will definitely win an artist praise amongst the intellectual class in “capitalist” countries.
Unfortunately, movies like “Parasite” rarely offer genuine insight about the specific causes of inequality. That would require critical thought, and it pays more to spin a provocative tales of helpless workers and predatory capitalists.
6
But that’s the state of our union, predatory capitalists snd then us.
Parasite is not a stand alone, it is a trend. The theme of the powerless and the hopeless is all over Hollywood - from Adam Sandler's portrayal of a compulsive gambler to Joaquim Phoenix' serial killer.
3
Give it a rest, Michelle. It is an artistic,interesting and entertaining movie made by a Marxist. It does not make a persuasive case against capitalism per se or anything else. In fact,the rich family depicted is at least as sympathetic as -no worse than - the two poor families. In my mind, the movie's chief defect is that is that it assumes more than it demonstrates. But again it is thankfully more art than polemic.
6
You know I think there's plenty of people that still might want to see this movie for the first time. And Ms Michelle as well as several other comments over the last day have given away the whole movie. I think that is selfish ..
4
I believe many of us know people who have raised their station in life with hard work and smart decisions. While difficult, it is possible and I have to feel that some of this is a political narrative that there is no hope but to tear down the system of the wealthy.
Even here recently here in the Times, I recall an article showing the disappearance of Chinese restaurants as the children have achieved a good measure of success and the backbreaking restaurant work that was a necessity is no longer necessary.
While more opportunity is always welcome, stating that opportunities don't exist is simply false and discourages many from trying - easier to give up when you've been taught you have no chance.
14
I wondered if “Parasite” succeeded as spectacularly as it did not because it acknowledged the plight of the underclass, but because it understood the paranoia of the wealthy.
29
The Oscars are not worldwide awards, they are American Awards, and best Foreign Film is the worldwide category, but I'm sure it only applies to foreign films shown here. The intrusion of politics is a sign of the devaluation of art, education, training, expertise, and talent in the world today. The immediacy of the internet is spoiling everything cultural.
4
Parasite appeals to the snobby and upscale folks who like to read movie dialogue. The real blockbuster about class and eccentricity in South Korea, with an audience in the billions, is Gangnam Style.
2
When I was born, Isaac Asimov wrote a dirty limerick celebrating my birth which referenced my parents having sex. My parents told me about it when I was young, proud of it, but they didn’t let me read it until I was older. My dad knew a lot of famous writers. I’ve met a few myself. The reason I bring this up is because Asimov, who was born in Russia but moved to the US as a child, was very concerned with what he called “the anti-intellectual streak of the American character.” I fear that if reading has become elitist we have realized his fears. And I love Gangnam Style as much as anyone.
5
You have to be snobby and rich in order to enjoy reading. That is the essence of American anti-intellectualism, as described by Asimov, and the reason we are saddled with Trump in the White House.
This was the best film about class warI've seen in my life. And I'm 65 and see a LOT of films.
7
Why is no one talking about lies and deceits of the Kim family? Capitalism isn't a level field and many (not most) rich got their wealth by shady deals, But, should we ignore lack of morality or idleness among poor?
I wish liberals who complain too much about capitalism had lived some time in any communist or a socialist country for sometime as normal people. That was much less fun than they imagine. The lady thou doth protest too much.
7
Jack the Kim family is just lifting themselves up by their bootstraps the best way they know how in a capitalist society.
3
@Martin Lennon This sounds like the excuses Trump supporters use to defend him.
1
PARASITES is indeed does at least express a "failure of faith in capitalism," though a failure of faith in unmoderated capitalism" might be a more accurate way to put it. It also present a focus on problems of capitalist class relations as such, as opposed to the focus on racial, ethnic and gender relation within capitalism that has dominated criticism of U.S. society over therefore years of increased in inequality among wage and salary earners and between them and capital owners unprecedented since the years of industrialization preceding the Great Depression. How odd that this return to a second Gilded Age should coincide with the considerable equalization of racial and gender relations --especially gender ones. How puzzling that Academy voters seem, with their lavish rewarding of PARASITES, to highlight the sheer importance of class with an Easy Asian case and the evening's few overtly political voices -- Brad Pitt and Joaquin Pheonix -- say nothing about class per se.
3
There is no such thing as capitalism or socialism anymore. Raw capitalism died in the 1930s, raw socialism died in the late 1980s. Today virtually all systems are some sort of hybrid with both market and redistributive mechanisms operating interchangeably. Regulated capitalism of some sort is used by 95% of the world today. The only difference is the degree to which our economies are regulated (China a lot, US not very much). The word "capitalism" is just a trope for modern, alienated life. As a differentiator from something else, it is meaningless.
9
Bong Joon-ho is a brilliant director, and America is in denial about class and Capitalism, yet Hollywood is hypocritical as it's the ultimate bastion of the upper-class.
Those of us highly sympathetic to Socialist ideals know that Socialist movements often allow powerful people running the movements to gain far greater power while not solving inequality.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was vilified for rightly pointing to the lie "Parasite" addresses. The problem is her own story is a Hollywood fabrication, a tearjerker of how a broke 29 year old waitress with nothing but a heart of gold and her Twitter account took down the Queens Democratic Party.
That script was a fiction created by a wealthy powerful white man. Ocasio-Cortez only succeeded because she was handpicked and backed by Corbin Trent to take on a vulnerable Democratic incumbent in a district with a huge Democratic lean. It meant if The Squad won low turnout primaries, general election wins were assured.
Trent is the Koch Brothers of the new-left. He lifted Ocasio-Cortez from total obscurity, planned and financed her campaign with his national list of "small donors", and a super PAC he didn't have to disclose anything about thanks to Citizens United.
You're correct: America functions the way "Parasite" says. However, it means Ocasio-Cortez shouldn't be a Congresswomen despite how smart she is. She only won because she was cast by a powerful white man to play a part in a movement which is his, not hers, (or ours).
8
@Robert B Your story about AOC is wrong. If social class was set in stone with no mobility whatsoever then Corbin Trent would have picked some wealthy socialite to take AOC's place, not some poor unknown Puerto Rican with zero clout or political experience.
1
Dear, the Class War is over. They WON.
Seriously.
7
I've been watching foreign-language movies for the last 50-odd years and am somewhat aghast over the Academy members' evident conviction that Mr. Joon Ho was paving new ground here. The absence of social mobility was a hallmark of post-WWII Italian cinema as it was to a slightly lesser extent in France, Japan, Poland and the former Czechoslovakia. British directors like Ken Loach, Mike Leigh and the late Lindsay Anderson have been dramatizing this phenomenon for decades. And, then again, there was the great Spanish filmmaker Luis Bunuel whose synthesis of sardonic wit and social commentary pretty much set the precedent for what Mr. Joon Ho is doing now. Here in the U.S., the major film studios prefer to serve up the illusion that class distinctions either don't matter or don't exist, notwithstanding a few isolated anomalies like George Stevens' adaptation of Dreiser's "An American Tragedy," retitled "A Place in the Sun." It's a pity that so few Oscar voters seem to have so little knowledge of the history of the art form in which they're employed. Were this not the case, they'd regard "Parasite" as little more than a reasonably well-executed investigation of themes that have been examined to more devastating effect elsewhere.
13
@stu freeman
Thank you for bringing center stage all the great movies, directors, and their dedication to creating great art. Art is a twin to humanism.
No great art can emerge out of fascist or totalitarian dictates: recall the officially sanctioned art under Hitler & Stalin, mere mediocrity.
The Hollywood version of such ideological mediocrity would celebrate war or weave subliminal racist, mysoginistic, jingoistic messages.
The Oscars are nothing more than the industry acknowledging themselves. There is no social message or divine inspiration just entertainment and in some instances questionable at that. Leaving Las Vegas earned Nicolas Cage an Oscar, yet the story line was violent and deplorable. The red carpet is a vanity show of haves vs have nots and who can out shine the other. Be assured actors don’t spend tine worrying about you, yet you are enamored with them and their life styles.
Ones time would be better spent with family or reading a good book.
12
Reasonably-regulated capitalism is fine. We had that for a long time. Reagen killed it. 40 years later we are back in the Age of the Robber Barons.
39
I wish someone would explain why the Academy is giving its highest award to a film that to my knowledge did not employ any American actors, directors, designers, technicians, etc. I have no problem with its winning in the foreign film category, but I don’t understand why it would give this honor that doesn’t advance American motion picture arts and sciences.
While I agree that Greenbook was not a great film, it’s leads were great (Mahershala Ali won, and the ever-overlooked Viggo Mortensen arguably deserved to win, too.)
Parasite was good, but also far from what I expect of a Best Picture.
4
The Academy aims to give its highest award to the year’s Best Picture, not the Best American Picture. This year, it did just that.
6
Hollywood films seem *completely* out of touch with our present, our ever-present dread and despair. Films like The Irishman, 1917, etc, could have been made 20 or 30 years ago.
2
I'd like to hear more about the $225,000 gift bags (AKA swag) given to Oscar nominees. Seems scandalous and worthy of much widespread attention!
34
Those gift bags are usually not totally paid for by the organization handing them out. A lot of the items in there are donated by companies hoping to popularize their products. If the donee is a charitable organization, so much the better as the donor can take a tax write-off.
1
Americanism and inequality go hand and hand, and I don’t mean it in a bad way. Americans who work harder, take more risks, strive to be better than others around them are mostly rewarded by being wealthier. So I say our inequality is our virtue. If we were all truly equal in capability and up world mobility, life would be so boring.
5
oh gosh yes, those trump kids sure have worked hard. to say nothing of the generation 3 of the Walton's! oh and Caroline Kennedy. youza.
Brains and gumption still work. To be more accurate brains, skills, and ambition. A goal helps as well. The thing is opportunity rarely presents itself unsought and you need a healthy dose of more than one of the above, preferably all of them. The masses are never going to make it to the top, or very rarely will anyhow, but a comfortable life is still possible.
5
M Too many are burdened with all sorts of debt and are not really free. It’s equivalent to indentured servitude.
@Tullymd
There is no requirement to have debt. Yiu can get ahead without it.
A LOT of lazy, uneducated (by choice), and unmotivated people think they deserve the same financial benefits and rewards as those who have put in the work to pursue and gain useful skills and knowledge.
The fact is, you CAN improve your financial situation in this country, through hard WORK, and a willingness to go where the work is.
I don't place any value on wealth, as far as determining a person's "class". I do refer to upper, middle, and lower INCOMES.
Some of the lowest class individuals I have ever met, were rich. Some of the best, were low to middle income, and they worked hard (teachers, for instance).
9
Anybody who talks about wealth and conflates it with income doesn’t know what they are talking about. Rich people earn money, wealthy people making money from assets. Wealth is entrenched, but income alone is at most one generation and at its least can be taken away by being fired, injured etc.
The people you see on the field or the court are rich. The people who own the teams are wealthy.
3
@Hunter S.
"Wealthy" and "rich" are synonyms.
It is proper to say that Tom Brady is wealthy.
I don't know of ANY wealthy (i.e., rich) people that don't also have a healthy income, from investment or savings.
I think your definitions are your own.
2
Synonyms don’t mean that they have the exact same meaning. For example, Webster states:
RICH implies having more than enough to gratify normal needs or desires.... WEALTHY stresses the possession of property and intrinsically valuable things.
You also seem confused when you conflate income from work to income from investments. One requires an active effort and literally dies with you, whereas the other is what creates generational wealth and gets passed down.
So, to take the concept further. Who is likely to have more money, the grandson of a superstar football player or the grandson of an old money family with “income” from property or investments?
1
While I agree with Goldberg's praise and analysis of the film, I don't agree with her dismissive comment that "Parasite" was "so different from anything coming out of Hollywood." Jordan Peele's "Us" grappled with class (and race) similar ways, and tellingly, also drawing on the genre of horror and the uncanny. It's not that "Hollywood" largely ignores these grim dynamics of class, while South Korean cinema does - it's that the vast majority of films (in Hollywood, or South Korea, or Europe) don't grapple with it in the same way, and it is the rare film that dares to.
3
Shoulda put a warning for spoilers if you're gonna give away the ending like that, come on.
7
@hanne
Ms. Goldberg did just that.
(Beware, spoilers are coming.)
Please pay attention in class.
7
@hanne *** I agree and wrote a comment about that I hope they print
Well the South Korean film industry seems to still believe in capitalism.
See the following on the three major Korean cinema chains raising ticket prices (in a monopolistic fashion):
https://celluloidjunkie.com/2017/04/16/koreans-reach-cinema-price-increases/
By US standards not a lot of money, but by Korean standards apparently this was very upsetting.
That first price rise was in 2017.
A year later prices went up again:
https://hapskorea.com/cgv-raising-movie-ticket-prices-this-wednesday/
Yes, capitalism and inequality is alive and well in the film industry in South Korea.
3
Exactly. If you enjoyed the class-conscious black comedy Parasite (which I did tremendously), then I cannot imagine why you would not be open to endorsing Senator Sanders for president.
Go Bernie!
7
@Zareen How can Bernie be class-conscious when he has more wealth than every member of his campaign staff combined?
4
Michelle,
I'm begging you to find a synonym for "woke".
https://www.npr.org/2018/12/30/680899262/opinion-its-time-to-put-woke-to-sleep
Please. It's enough already.
10
The people commenting on this article manage to turn their commentary into condemnation of Senator Sanders, as if agreeing with the message about the brutality of capitalism in this movie is an obvious invitation to castigate Sanders. If you would take the time to read some of this columnist's other pieces, you would see that she--as is true of the NYT as a whole--is certainly no friend of Bernie Sanders.
1
“Call it democracy, or call it democratic socialism, but there must be a better distribution of wealth within this country for all God’s children.” — Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
94
@Zareen
"Democratic Capitalism" would be a better term, since one of the definitions of "Socialism" has extremely negative connotations for many people.
@Zareen
Without economic democracy, there is no democracy---only its illusion.
Pretty much all 19th and early 20th century literature is about class struggle, from Zola to Dickens to Flaubert to Dreiser. Too bad we don't read anymore.
240
@Clarice - Likewise read histories of the Gilded Age and Progressive era. At the time, they called TR a socialist for wanting the government to inspect food and drugs. Sound familiar?
38
The rift between the haves and have-nots in Parasite is the essence of the United States of America. What is mind-boggling is the fact that millions of poor and working class people lionize a filthy rich huckster posing as president who cares not one iota about them or their plight.
217
@nzierler Yes the United States is so awful we literally have people crawling on their hands and knees from entire continents to get here.
2
@nzierler That's the insanity of it all. Trump cares not one iota about his base except when they're cheering him on at his rallies.
2
@Diana "Yes the United States is so awful we literally have people crawling on their hands and knees from entire continents to get here."
Your irony seems misplaced. After all, the Statue of Liberty says "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free". So it is stands to reason that people from poor countries want to come build their own American Dream. Those from social democratic countries like Canada, France, Germany, et. al. on the other hand aren't exactly in a rush to give up the comfort that the social net in their respective countries provides so that they can live in "the greatest country on Earth".
8
To the commenters who think Goldberg is living in a naive socialist fantasyland: Are any of you among the roughly 50% of Americans who would be unable to come up with $400 to cover an emergency bill? No? Then, who is the naive one?
33
A movie is a great excuse...Let the whining begin
2
Sigh. We complain about Fake news and yet the NYT columnist relies on cinematic hyperbole to denounce the workings of “capitalism”. Perhaps a Korean director will next explore equality in North Korea...
6
Well Michelle, you did it again. In your haste to try to use this film to make it relevant to the politics in this country, you went and spoiled it for anyone that hasn't yet seen the movie. I know things are not playing out as you would like them, but you should've had a spoiler alert before your column.
4
@biglatka
Ms. Goldberg forewarned you, but you slept-walked through the column.
"(Beware, spoilers are coming.)" ....in the middle of the 4th paragraph.
Your bad.
15
Capitalism with guard rails. To prevent us from driving into the ditch (credit default swaps and bank bailouts anyone?). That’s what we need, and that’s what Bernie’s taking about. Oscar has it right.
9
To paraphrase: Capitalism is a terrible system, but it is superior to all of the alternatives.
We like to think we can transcend human nature. We can’t.
Socialism represents dependence on the state. I don’t trust “the state.” Do you?
6
@T Smith Oversimplification. The choice is not binary between two extremes. And we already have strains of socialism in our country today. It's all in the balance.
15
@T Smith
Why do you make it an 'either or' proposition ?
We can have capitalism AND socialism mixed together, which in fact is what we have had for some time and is what has thrived in Canada and Northern Europe for quite some time.
Capitalism needs regulation like most things; without it, the Robber Barons and Reverse Robins get a little too greedy and reckless and start purchasing the government.
Time for a little course correction after forty years of getting trickled on.
12
@T Smith Let’s see: the “state” defends us from foreign enemies, negotiates with the international community, educates the vast majority of our children, builds and maintains everything from airports to small cul-de-sacs, oversees safe food production, approves new drugs and medical procedures, maintains order, prohibits exploitation of children within the country, and manages a basic income and health care for seniors.
The “state” is not perfect (show me any human institution that is) but most of us would prefer to live in the US or other developed countries that provide the aforementioned services while also regulating the worst excesses of capitalism.
So the short answer to your question is yes.
4
I watched Parasite and was bored. Michelle Goldberg may help me understand what other people saw in this movie. Apparently it had a POLITICAL message.
It was a political message with which I disagree, so of course I saw Parasite as a mediocre film, certainly less worthy than many magnificent foreign language films the Academy has chosen to ignore in the past.
The notion that "capitalism is evil" seems foreign to me. It's like saying that agriculture is evil or science is evil. Capitalism is merely a way of distributing resources. There are many problems it doesn't address, such as the inconvenient truth that resources are limited.
That message goes back to the end of the hunter-gatherer stages, when Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden of Eden. According to Genesis 2:17:
"but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die."
Some would say this refers to sex, but no, it refers to sex without birth control. Adam had two sons, Cain and Abel, and Cain killed Abel. Ever since, population growth has condemned us to constant battles over resources.
The distribution system (capitalism) isn't at fault, it's the more than two children per family that produces poverty.
And it is the cause of global warming which will ultimately "make us surely die."
As the world warms, carrying capacity of planet earth will decrease, making resource wars that much more deadly, until finally we are extinct.
Parasite is not only a brilliant film, but a wake up call, and not just a wake up call for Americans, but a wake up call to the world. The movie's consequences of the Parks' turning a blind eye to or, more accurately, lacking any consciousness of or empathy for the plight of those -- so many -- less fortunate than they, are extreme. But the question is, if allowed to fester any longer, will the extreme income and opportunity inequality in the US and around the world result in some similarly extreme consequences? Desperate times call for desperate measures.
16
"But maybe “Parasite” has struck such a chord because for too many people inequality is turning modern capitalism into not just a joke but a nightmare."
Haven't seen "Parasite" but I can't help reflecting that for all those who voted for this film, capitalism has been anything but a nightmare. In fact the institution of the Oscar's undercuts the message of the film since the Oscar's is a celebration of opulent living.
1
"The triumph of “Parasite” is a sign of a crisis of faith in capitalism."
I liked Parasite as a movie, but let's not overdo with its impact.
5
Why do the uneducated and gullible vote for the GOP, totally against their own self-interests ?
They truly believe they’re only one Lottery Ticket away from
“ Rich “, and want to retain the advantages and privileges.
Seriously.
38
Trump and GOP take advantage of the people who are too stupid to know they’re being exploited. Education is the only way out of that state, but that path is blocked for most people by the deliberately high cost of education in this society.
9
The members of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences are no doubt the best qualified to take the pulse of the American society because, as everybody knows, all Americans live in Hollywood.
So no doubt that “Parasite”, a South-Korean movie, winning the Oscar for Best Film is absolute evidence of America’s loss of faith in capitalism. Revolution to follow immediately. Bernie, you were so right.
But wait a minute, maybe the country where all this is happening is actually Lalaland ?
3
a great move, it was.
Pretending it echoes your mind, is delusion.
what we wish to see, we see. In all things.
Michelle, it is a movie. Looking for confirmation of your bias against capitalism in a movie says a lot about your need for support. Ok. capitalism ain't perfect. now, let it go.
9
Capitalism is perfectly predatory.
Well said, Michelle. In a few days I will be seeing Parasite. However, I will most likely find it neither shocking nor a fantasy. Maybe about 4 or 5 years ago, I would have walked away naively from this movie with a smug and complacent feeling while thinking, That will never happen to me or here in America. But if there is anything at my older age that I have learned by not only witnessing but also barely enduring this Trumpian Era, it is that we the everyday, challenged Americans are both bothersome and anathema by our "ruling elite," the oligarchs, the corruptly greedy, the amoral. This thing called capitalism in itself should not be a threat. There was a time years ago, maybe when I was growing up, that it seemed to be a worthy aspiration, a way to house, to feed, to clothe, to educate through college our families. I had a conversation just today with a disheartened Republican businessman. He asserted that he will NOT vote for Trump, recognizing that this man in the Oval Office is both corrupt and absent of a moral compass. I put forth to him a question: "If Bernie Sanders is our nominee, will you vote for him?" He replied that he will neither vote for Trump nor the "Medicare-for-All" Sanders. That may just be the question for many in but a few months. Do we want to see our democracy go down the tubes with four more years of DJT, or do we want to trust a man who has our best interest in his heart and soul?
14
Everyone, no matter their station in life, is aspirational. We all want a better life, a nicer place to live, better stuff, more time off, more options, etc. This cuts across all ideologies and cultures. Between Capitalism and Communism, only Capitalism allows an individual the opportunity to better his or her lot. Yes, Capitalism needs fixing and regulating, but it's the best there is so far. As Winston Churchill said "capitalism is the worst economic system, except for all the others."
The thing that struck me about Parasite is this: The lower class characters were painted as cheats, liars, and ultimately murderers; they were the Parasites feeding off the wealthy. I know everyone is reading into this social satire the idea that the rich are bad and the oppressed and virtuous poor get their just revenge on the rich, but my takeaway was different. The poor were neither virtuous and not very sympathetic, and the wealthy were actually pretty viruous.
82
You might want to watch the movie again. Your take seems more like wishful thinking than an interpretation.
37
@Andio Ryan
Russian communism and American capitalism were doomed to fail. The Russians just got there first.
20
@Andio Ryan
What movie did you see? Apparently, not the one I saw.
21
"The triumph of “Parasite” is not a sign of a crisis of faith in capitalism
It is a sign of the failure of the political elite to fix the in increase in inequality that followed globalization.
The elites profited from it (cheaper clothes!) , but the lower class suddenly found itself in competition with Bangladeshian wages.
The remedy would be to tax the winners , and transfer their gains down, as the Nordic countries do.
The US is not yet there - but Mr. Sanders is a sign that the US may move towards a more equal society.
6
Yes "Parasite" is a sign of a crisis of faith. However, it's a sign witnessed only by the left. The Oscars had the lowest ratings ever, because half the country that used to watch it, doesn't anymore.
That half is conservatives, who now regard Hollywood as a total liberal echo chamber, except for Eastwood's movies. The fact that this movie is foreign-made is further confirmation to conservatives, perhaps the ultimate and final confirmation.
The Academy Awards is yet another symbol of 2 sides of the USA pulling away from each other.
131
@Murray Bolesta some of us didn't watch the Oscars because we don't own televisions (especially millenials) nor do we want to watch awards shows that slight women and minorities. So, please don't attribute the drop in ratings to conservative outrage. There is a lot more going on with that drop in ratings, including being generally bored with white supremacy and sexism, even among so called "Hollywood liberals."
44
@Murray Bolesta
"Yes 'Parasite' is a sign of a crisis of faith. However, it's a sign witnessed only by the left."
How parochial! It's a Korean film - international. Even if half of America doesn't watch such things, or doesn't get it when they do (which I seriously doubt), there's a WORLD outside the US.
It's not even a film made primarily for Americans.
YAAWB - Yet another American wearing blinders...
(Oh, and Winston Churchill was a wealthy, imperialistic, reactionary aristocrat. Hardly someone to look to for lessons about economic systems and opportunities for bettering one's life.)
13
Why would the simple fact that is foreign made mean anything? What a silly sentence to write. The idea that something is intrinsically more valuable because it is American is so self-evidently absurd on its face.
16
Capitalism works when we make it work for us, not against us. We are used to receiving less each year, with some pathetic excuse about why there is less coverage, less care, less stability. Capitalism doesn’t work because we have left the pigs at the trough and let them make all the rules.
292
@Suzanne
As recently as September 2019 major news outlets like NBC news and CNN ran stories that debunked the "fall" of capitalism and the lack of prospects to create significant personal wealth.
According to the study, among the very wealthy, 67.7% were SELF-MADE, while 23.7% had a combination of inherited and self-created wealth. Only 8.5% of global high-net-worth individuals were categorized as having completely inherited their wealth.
This is the epitome of juxtaposing facts against hyperbole.
1
@John
First, why do you accept the study?
Second, what does "self made" imply? What did they actually do? What counted as work?
Are the heads of Facebook, Amazon, or Black Rock pediatric neurosurgeons? Did any of them win a Nobel Prize in medicine, or a Fields medal?
1
Capitalism works when the people join in using political institutions--government--to restrain and regulate it so that it serves the public interest. We're forty years into an experiment whose premise is that government is fundamentally bad--"The nine most frightening words in the English language," as our dotty Uncle Ronnie said, "are 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'" We've been letting the capitalists run capitalism, and, just as happened in the 19th-century before the people woke up and started forcing it to serve their interests, the capitalists are running it into the ground, and creating revolutionary conditions--a class of people who have nothing to lose but their misery.
542
@TMSquared I am with Ronnie on this one.
6
@T Smith
Good thing there weren't any meddling gov't bureacrats trying to stop honest businessmen from making a buck in 2008, eh?
62
@TMSquared
Ironically, now that the government has been largely captured by 'the monied interests' it IS becoming scary to have to deal with it.
18
The fault isn't capitalism per se, but the perversion of capitalism.
For most of our history, particularly in the aftermath of WWII, capitalism (aka, free enterprise) fueled our way of life, rebuilding an economy devasted by wartime production. Capitalism was seen as egalitarian--anyone with a good idea and sufficient backers, could become successful.
Today we have the perversion of capitalism whereby big money buys politicians who keep the decks rigged against the middle class. Rising inequality is the result, not the cause, of too much money in politics.
It seems to me the answer isn't embracing radical political ideology to counter runaway capitalism but to reverse Citizens United that corrupted our politicians.
Easier said than done, I know--but even a movie can't change that.
317
Anyone? Really? What about people of color who were disenfranchised?
23
@Zareen: this election isn't about changing 250 years of free enterprise in this country or having a revolution. it's about booting out of office a racial bigot and white nationalist who plans to become dictator for life if Democrats are foolhardy enough to nominate the one candidate Trump most wants to run against.
38
@ChristineMcM
It's not clear who is "the one candidate Trump most wants to run against."
What is clear is that prognostications about electability have a self-fulfilling quality about them, and an easy answer: Democrats far outnumber Republicans, and all they need to do for the general election is get behind whomever they nominate. Fight fiercely now, but then come together. It's that simple.
31
There is no crisis of capitalism. We have instead a crisis of democracy.
The wealthy donor class, with the exception of a very few like Soros, Steyer, and Buffet are moving the country toward an authoritarian plutocracy. The Republicans support this and the Freedom Caucus/Tea Party are fanatical about this.
Our economic system is becoming increasingly extractive. IN some schools like the University of Michigan's Engineering College, students are being overworked to perform in colleges to prepare them for employers who will demand the same of them. Lack of antitrust law enforcement has given the country a more monopolistic industrial structure. Those tax cuts for the rich allow them to bid up land prices, setting us up to become a nation of renters.
Sooner or later, the business elite will need an authoritarian system to be able to squeeze more. The rest of us will become disempowered helots.
3
We have a crisis of capitalism AND of democracy. That is what’s so frightening.
4
It’s difficult to imagine anything less relevant to a serious discussion than The Oscars, regardless of one’s politics or preferred economic system.
20
@JFB And you would be wrong. Storytelling is so primordial, it is the very reason you are reading this paper today. Movies, books, Facebook, Dem Pres candidates, Fox News, Trump Rallies...it’s all storytelling. The Oscars as an elite sorting of the stories we tell about ourselves, is nothing short of a cultural x-ray.
With Regards to Sanders "Socialism" that freaks people out
This is what Sanders has said
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: Well, first of all, let me be very clear. Anybody who does what Maduro does is a vicious tyrant. What we need now is international and regional cooperation for free elections in Venezuela so that the people of that country can make — can create their own future.
In terms of democratic socialism, to equate what goes on in Venezuela with what I believe is extremely unfair. I’ll tell you what I believe in terms of democratic socialism. I agree with what goes on in Canada and in Scandinavia: guaranteeing healthcare to all people as a human right. I believe that the United States should not be the only major country on Earth not to provide paid family and medical leave. I believe that every worker in this country deserves a living wage and that we expand the trade union movement.
I happen to believe also that what, to me, democratic socialism means is we deal with an issue we do not discuss enough, Jorge, not in the media and not in Congress. You’ve got three people in America owning more wealth than the bottom half of this country. You’ve got a handful of billionaires controlling what goes on in Wall Street, the insurance companies and in the media. Maybe, just maybe, what we should be doing is creating —
Enough with the "sky is falling" narrative--there's tons of information on what Sanders stands for --It's 2020 not 1950--
172
@That's What She Said unfortunately that's way to subtle for most addled American brains. I also think Sanders made a major branding mistake calling himself a "democratic socialist" rather than a "social democrat" which is what the Europeans call themselves.
14
@JP So True--Shouldn't someone nudge him a little to re-brand
6
@JP Agree. Sanders needs to alter his language, attitude and delivery (the raising of the voice is too much for me). He totally turns off people like myself who are all for social democracy. If only Elizabeth could move ahead...
1
To paraphrase Winston Churchill, democracy, fueled by capitalism, is the worst form of government except for all the rest.
Michelle, I normally really enjoy your columns, but today's fell flat.
Oh how I wish you could have written about what a triumph of the underdog it was to see the entire cast, producers, and director ascend the stage to wild applause. Instead you take what should have been a bright stop in an otherwise dismal news run and turn it into political messaging.
Please give us this respite and moment of sheer joy at seeing an exquisitely idealized and executed cinematic vision, delivered to us by a brilliant and self-effacing individual, receive the recognition and accolades its deserved.
Smile and enjoy the movie, Michelle.
17
@SBF Are you serious? Did you actually see the movie and consider what it was all about? The whole point of it was social criticism. It wasn't about pure entertainment which is what you must assume is the duty of cinema. If you want a respite from reality go to a Trump rally.
20
@zarathrustra. I did see the movie, months ago in fact. I know exactly what it is about and its important social commentary. You talking down to me is exactly what is wrong these days and why divisiveness and assumptions like yours will lead to disappointing election results for many. Stop with the purity tests on everything, including who is smart enough to have watched a movie. When you assume...
1
Yes, obviously a class conscience theme but not at all the intent of the art, or the satisfaction of the viewing. Not mean, not picking sides, even the bloody ending is cartoonish. Plenty of twists and deepening outlandishness. Can't we see it as an excellent and enjoyable movie, with an altogether fresh and cosmopolitan perspective. Could that explain it's success with critics?
6
Equality is an important value. But if equality is the only value you’re after, there is more of it in North Korea than in South Korea. In the North, almost everyone goes hungry, except for a few generals and party officials.
13
@CitizenJ - North Korea would not, then, be an example of a more equal society. It would be an example of an even more unequal society, where all the wealth is concentrated among even fewer people than in our society. That would be an obscenely unequal society. Not a more equal one!
29
The author doesn’t understand economics but is a superb writer. She doesn’t understand economic history or why capitalism is superior to any alternative.
She doesn’t seem to realize how Bernie’s admiration of Soviet Russia is truly disturbing. She doesn’t understand or acknowledge that Bernie was a vocal supporter of Hugo Chavez’ disastrous policies in Venezuela for many years.
The author doesn’t understand statistics or economics thus has no ability to discern what is happening in the economy.
Persuasive writing is no substitute for wisdom and knowledge.
37
@Joe G
What did Churchill say about capitalism? "The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries."
12
@J Darby
What did John Maynard Keynes say about capitalism? "Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men for the nastiest of motives will somehow work for the benefit of all."
100
@Joe G
This is not an argument; it is tautology.
7
Or, it’s a great movie
Michele, whatever you need to tell yourself in the echo chamber.
Capitalism is working and it’s not perfect, but it’s way better than any alternative. How are Bernie’s policies working in Venezuela?
41
@Run From Nothing Why on earth would you look to Venezuela for an example of an economy working better than ours for its populace in general when there is Scandinavia? Now that's a place where capitalism mixed with socialism really works.
76
Too bad that the social contract has to be fulfilled by the very few for the very many.
4
@Oscar
I am getting tired of saying this, it is like spitting into the wind, but Bernie is not a socialist, even though he calls himself one. Everything he stand for comes out as social democracy. In 2015 he stated that he is not for nationalizing the means of production. That's socialism- democratic or otherwise. He extols the virtues of the Scandinavian systems- they call themselves social democracies. FDR has been credited, with good reason, for saving capitalism. In the 1970s he spoke out for actual socialism. But in the 2016 primaries he called for support to small and medium size businesses. Medicare for All is not socialism, unless you think that all economically advanced countries (except ours) are socialist. Supporting unions, the poor and social security doesn't make you a socialist. His policies don't meaningfully differ from those of Elizabeth Warren. He just seems to be so attached to his old label that he can't let it go.
I voted for Bernie in 2016 and probably will again. But I fear that while his policies and values won't defeat him, his self-inflicted label might.
31