Parasite
I definitely think that we should watch this film in Sociology.
It represents all the themes we learn with how Parasite is a film about capitalism functioning exactly as designed by the bourgeoisie. The Park family represents the bourgeoisie and at first they are represented as polite, kind and aesthetically refined because their wealth shields them from material anxiety. And then the director uses the Kim family as a contrast of the Park family as they are portrayed as adaptable, intelligent and capable even thought they are structurally trapped beneath street level both literally and economically.
What’s brilliant is that the director avoids caricature. The rich are not monstrous villains, instead they are indifferent. Their power is passive as they exploit with employment contracts, architecture and the quiet expectation that others remain invisible.
Also the scene where the Kim family are left alone with the house enjoying the little moment of being rich shows how the Park family is in control because it doesn’t last that long. For a moment the class hierarchy collapses but then capitalism reasserts itself again when the Park family returns home early and the Kim family has to hide themselves once again.
And then the director doesn’t even portray it as rich vs poor, it’s poor vs poor as the old housemaid and her husband fight for survival and same with the Park family but the wealthy remain structurally protected.
The rain scene is political cinema. For the Parks, rain is aesthetic something to admire that brings them happiness the next day and for the Kims, it is displacement and sewage flooding their home. Same weather yet different material consequences.
And that final fantasy of upward mobility? It’s capitalism’s most seductive myth to work hard and you too can buy the house. Bong presents it not as hope, but as ideology a dream that sustains the system by postponing rebellion. This is what Michael Dunlop introduced in sociology. The myth of meritocracy that if we all work hard, we will get rewarded but this myth only benefits the rich. And that ending wasn’t hope, it was capitalism whispering “maybe one day”.