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Hidden lesson about poverty and pride from ‘Parasite’
Financial technology and microfinance do help provide alternative access to finance, but they do not create a big effect on poverty and the sudden understanding of class discrimination that Parasite brings.
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Notes from underground: The characters Geun-sae (left) and his wife Moon-gwang, a housekeeper, from the Oscar-winning film Parasite find safety from the outside world underneath her employer’s opulent home. They represent many others mired in debt who remain unbankable. (CJ Entertainment/-)
Please don’t misinterpret the title; the audience that I intend to talk to comprise not just one or two groups of people.
If you are a student, this piece is for you. If you are borrowing money from a cooperative or moneylender to get through the day, this is for you, too. If you own half the world’s wealth, I am talking to you. If you are the decision- maker of the country’s development policy, this is about you. If I have forgotten to mention you, this is still addressed to you, too.
Concerns about poverty often rise when there is a sudden exposure to it by a powerful work of art that cinematically depicts what it’s like to live below the poverty line. Consider Parasite, this year’s winner of the Academy Award for Best Picture.
The movie became the first foreign movie to take the trophy home. Some talk about how it casts the class war narrative in a whole new light or about underrepresented nations at the Oscars.
But the movie also encourages us to take a look into one specific household and how they relate to the worldwide tragedy of the poor. While many commentaries center on the narrative of the Kims and the Parks, this piece will review the life and decisions of the one kicked out of the household: Moon-gwang.
Moon-gwang, a housekeeper of the Park family before the Kim family took over the household’s various occupations, hid her husband Geun-sae in a secret room under the house because he was caught in a classical capitalist situation; debt that multiplied by a thousand times due to excessively high interest rates charged by a moneylender.
It remains puzzling as to how Moon-gwang approached the problem. She could have told the Parks about her husband’s problem and asked for their help. Clearly, she was a loyal employee that even the Parks seemed uneasy to let go. Or did she think it was almost impossible for the Parks to help her escape the debt problem? Or maybe Moon-gwang wanted to maintain her image as a respectable housekeeper with no bad record of any kind and preferred not to trouble anybody with her husband’s unpaid debt.
