Parasite and the Ideological Barriers to Emancipatory Politics

Abstract

In this essay, my contention is two-fold. One, Bong Joon-ho’s film Parasite (2019) is not simply about class inequality but more importantly addresses the question “what is (not) to be done?”. To appreciate this point, we have to investigate it alongside Bong’s previous films, especially Snowpiercer (2013) and Okja (2017). Although these three films possess vastly different storylines, they all wrestle with this burning political question from different angles: seizure of state power and revolution (Snowpiercer), “folk politics” (Okja), and neoliberal privatization of social problems (Parasite). They all implicitly demand for better or more concrete visions of systemic transformation. Two, class antagonism in Parasite appears more muted than in many anti-capitalist flicks. I claim that this helps to place in the foreground the ideological barriers to the development of the poor’s class consciousness and solidarity, thereby buttressing the status quo. Ideology not only fools us but also seduces us with enjoyment. As such, an intellectual critique of ideology is necessary but insufficient and must be supplemented by an affective one. On the one hand, from the perspective of critical theory, the underclass acts against its own self-interest because it is duped or distracted by bourgeois tolerance and neoliberal entrepreneurial culture. On the other hand, from the perspective of psychoanalytic theory, the more obstinate problem seems to be their (capitalist) modes of enjoyment. Parasite’s distinctive contribution is in highlighting “enjoyment as a political factor”; that is, how capitalism also produces enjoyment to sustain itself.