These cheap apartments severely lack a decent liveable environment. In 2015, more than 360,000 people, mainly low-income migrants and young students, lived in such apartments with meagre rental prices (Kim 2020). With the rising density in South Korean cities, banjihas has become a residential preference of the economically downtrodden. Known as ‘banjiha’, these apartments are characterised by a lack of hygiene and ventilation. Like other poor neighbourhoods, it is located in a downhill place where many families live in semi-basement apartments.
#Parasite city vs movie
The movie starts with the depiction of a poor filthy neighbourhood, where the Kim family lives. The movie juxtaposes the life experience of a poor Kim family and business tycoon, Park’s, family.
East Asian cities are no exception to this, as can be easily seen since the beginning of Parasite. In general, neo-liberal cities are exclusionary, characterised by stark differences in living conditions. Visualising Stark Differences in Living Condition It also tries to explain how South Korean urban reality resembles other cities of the global South. In this context, the present paper tries to bring out the urban narrative of this movie with regard to the concept of Giroux’s “biopolitics of disposability” and widening class inequality under the neo-liberal regime. It is no wonder that this layered story-telling has made history with a foreign language movie winning an Academy Award in the best movie category for the first time. Within a thriller genre, it beautifully reflected urban realities in a very intricate manner. What is particularly impressive about the movie is its story-telling. Therefore, viewers from different parts of the world can closely associate their urban experiences with this movie. Parasite, directed by Bong Joon-ho is one such example, which has reflected the dark underbellies of South Korea’s cities in today’s neo-liberal times, and has captured the essence of widening inequality. Other than urban underdogs and the criminalisation of this section, several movies nowadays are focusing on the intricate details of urbanism. Over time, many pieces of art like Jana Aranye by Satyajit Ray, Slumdog Millionaire by Danny Boyle, Metro Manila by Sean Ellis, also tried to show urban realities from the perspective of class inequality. Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927) and Carol Reed’s The Third Man (1949) are examples of such masterpieces (Mennel 2008). Interestingly, this grim reality of class structures in the urban context have been captured by the imaginations of film makers. In this context, Giroux (2007) has introduced the concept of “biopolitics of disposability” where the poor are treated as “waste.” In this context, he says, "those poor minorities of color and class, unable to contribute to the prevailing consumerist ethic, are vanishing into the sinkhole of poverty in desolate and abandoned enclaves of decaying cities, neighborhoods” (Giroux 2007). Poor citizens are being treated as disposable and have been deliberately excluded from equal opportunities of education, health, shelter and economic opportunities. Widening of inequality has become a reality of neo-liberal times, encompassing both the developed and developing countries. Scholars like Shin and Kim (2015) have highlighted the government’s negligence towards pro-poor development in these cities, which has led to substandard housing and cheap rental accommodations to absorb the continuous influx of migrants. Its success story is marred with an increasing population density, the housing crisis and rising class differences across its demography. This economic development has been accompanied by high levels of urbanisation, with more than 80% of its population living in cities (UNDESA 2018).ĭespite its noticeable economic development, however, South Korean cities resemble other cities in the global South. Within the region, South Korea, in particular, has made noticeable progress in economic development and has come to be known as an “economic miracle” (Ha 2004). Asia has, and will have, the largest share of the urban population in the world. The world is undergoing rapid urbanisation, as half the population is predicted to move into urban areas, by the mid of the present century, changing the locus of urban population to the global South (UNDESA 2018).
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