Parasite

About

Parasite, also known as Gisaengchung (기생충), is a 2019 dark comedy thriller film directed by Bong Joon-ho. The film, following the poor but street-smart Kim family as their lives intersect with the wealthy Park family as they plot to become employed by the latter in their decadent house, received near-universal praise upon release, culminating in its winning of four Oscars, including "Best Picture." It was the first non-English language film to win the award in Oscars history.

History

Parasite was directed by South Korean filmmaker Bong Joon-ho, who directed other films such as Mother, Okja, and Snowpiercer, an adaptation of the 1982 graphic novel Le Transperceneige and Bong's first English language film. The film made its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival on May 21st, 2019, where it won the festival's highest award, the Palme d'Or.^[1] The film would make its South Korean debut in theaters a few weeks later on May 30th. In North America, the film was released by distributor Neon starting on October 11th.

Reception

Upon release, Parasite received near-universal acclaim. On Rotten Tomatoes,^[2]. the film holds a 92% audience rating from over 4,900 users and a 99% Certified Fresh rating from 399 critics, the consensus reading "An urgent, brilliantly layered look at timely social themes, Parasite finds writer-director Bong Joon Ho in near-total command of his craft." On IMDb^[4], the film holds an 8.6/10 rating from over 200,000 users. On Metacritic^[3], the film has a 96/100 rating from 52 critic reviews and an 8.9/10 rating from 796 users.

In addition to winning the Palme d'Or at Cannes, it also won "Best Foreign Language Film" at the 77th Golden Globe Awards and won the most Oscars at the 92nd Academy Awards, with a total of 4 for "Best Director", "Best International Feature Film", "Best Original Screenplay", and most notably, "Best Picture", making it the first non-English film to do so.

Online Presence

The strong fan reaction to the film has led to its solid online presence. The film has 6,400 likes on Facebook.^[9] On November 5th, 2019, Bong Joon-ho held an AMA on Reddit^[10] which gained over 12,000 points. The film has inspired many popular YouTube videos analyzing and commenting on the film. Some popular examples include a video by Nerdwriter1 analyzing a montage from the film that gained over 1.8 million views (shown below, left). Insider made a video explaining the film's ending, gaining over 1.5 million views (shown below, right).

In contrast, YouTuber Robert Storms posted an angry reaction video after the film won Best Picture in which he bemoaned the Oscars for getting "too woke" and awarding the honor to a foreign film (shown below, left). The video was heavily downvoted with a 38:1 dislike-like ratio, and mocked elsewhere online, including in a video by Cr1tiKal (shown below, right).

Twitter user and BlazeTV host Jon Miller called Bong Joon-ho "The destruction of America" following the director's acceptance speech for "Best Original Screenplay" (shown below, left). This led many to criticize Miller, including musician John Legend, who wrote, "Do they pay you for these dumb takes or is this something you do for fun" (shown below, right).

Before the Oscars ceremony, one Oscar voter told in a "brutally honest" interview with the Hollywood Reporter^[12] that they didn't "think foreign films should be nominated with the regular films" and that "The Oscars is an American thing".

In one scene of the film, the Kim family folds pizza boxes, following a YouTube tutorial.^[11] Breanna Gray, the creator of the video, posted an update on how the video got into Parasite (shown below).

On December 20th, Donald Trump decried the movie winning best picture, and requested more films like Gone With The Wind and Sunset Boulevard(shown below).

"How bad were the Academy Awards this year?" @realDonaldTrump says "we've got enough problems with South Korea" and lists off some of his favorite movies. "Can we get Gone with the Wind back please? Sunset Boulevard … "He called Brad Pitt "a little wise guy." pic.twitter.com/PKZM3NzYUJ

— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) February 21, 2020

Related Memes

Jessica Jingle

In the first act of the film, the Kim family is scamming the Park family by taking on fake personas and getting jobs in their household. In one scene, the daughter of the Kim family, Ki-Jung, prepares to fool the Park family by pretending to be an art therapist named Jessica and work with the Park family's wild son. Before entering for a job interview, she sings a jingle with her brother that they apparently wrote as a mnemonic device to help her memorize her story. The lyrics are "Jessica, only child, Chicago Illinois, classmate Kim Jin-mo, he's your cousin." The tune is set to the Korean language song "Dokdo Is Our Land."^[5]

On November 7th, 2019, Neon released a video of actress Park So Dam, who played Ki-Jung, performing the jingle (shown below). The jingle is currently available to download for free on the movie's official website.

The scene proved memorable for many viewers, who parodied it in numerous memes.^[6] For example, Twitter user @cooleauto^[7] tweeted an I Just Took a DNA Test with the scene, gaining over 70 retweets and 120 likes (shown below, left). User @samcorb^[8] tweeted a dancing ASCII character with the lyrics, gaining over 650 retweets and 1,700 likes (shown below, right).

Bong-joon Ho Oscars Kiss

Bong Joon-Ho Making Oscars Kiss refers to a set of image macros in which South Korean Director of the 2019 film Parasite Bong Joon-Ho at the 2020 Academy Awards making his two Oscars kiss each other. In February 2020, the image became an object-labeling meme on Twitter, Instagram and Reddit. On February 10th, 2020, in the morning following the night of the 2020 Academy Awards, Twitter user @soalexgoes shared two photos of Bong Joon-Ho making his Oscars kiss with the caption, "i love him" (shown below). The post gained over 191,400 likes and 34,800 retweets in a day.

On February 10th, 2020, Twitter user @e_alexjung tweeted the image with the caption, "bong joon ho said gay rights !!" which garnered over 235,900 likes and 39,300 retweets in a day (shown below, left). That same day, Redditor CediOsmanGoat posted the image to r/memeeconomy with Joon-Ho labeled "my mom" and the two oscars labeled "me" and "that one girl I mentioned something about" (shown below, right). The post accumulated over 35,500 points (96% upvoted) in a day.

Jennifer Lopez' House

On March 18th, 2020, amidst the self-quarantine taken as part of the social distancing measures taken to mitigate the spread of the Coronavirus, Jennifer Lopez posted a video of her son and fiancee outside of their house. The video gained over 6,800 retweets and 79,000 likes (shown below).

However, viewers of the video quickly noted how similar it looked to the house of the wealthy Park family in Parasite. User @niazahraaa^[13] tweeted "Please check your basement," a reference to the film, gaining over 50,000 retweets and 236,000 likes (shown below, left). User @hawillisdc^[14] posted the "Jessica Jingle" in response to the video, gaining over 200 likes (shown below, right). The jokes were covered by The Daily Dot.^[15]

Ki Taek Driving

Ki Taek Driving is a reaction image macro series featuring a frame from the 2019 Korean thriller film Parasite. In the film, a wealthy family hires the character Ki Taek as their chauffeur, who must endure their dehumanizing and belittling behavior, particularly in regard to his body odor. The meme features one instance in which the character Yeon Kyo discussing his smell on the phone as Ki Taek drives her. Online, people use the image of Taek driving her to express feelings of class resentment.

Search Interest

External References