By – Yashaswini Sirwar

Abstract 

This review looks at Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite through the lens of Indian public policy. The film is highly acclaimed and most commonly discussed as a commentary on class inequality. While this is true, its deeper strength lies in its nuanced way of portraying inequality as something produced through everyday governance. Through how it depicts housing, labour and education the movie reflects many conditions that are familiar in Indian cities. By constantly contrasting between the Park and Kim families, it shows s how access to security, opportunity and dignity is in a way shaped by policy choices. These choices include urban planning, labour regulation, infrastructure and education systems. The article also explores why the film was a global success even though it was based on a very specific cultural setting. It presents inequality through routines and spaces, by showing us instead of telling us through dramatic monologues. 

Introduction 

Parasite (2019), the popular South Korean movie directed by Bong Joon-ho, became the first non-English language movie to win the Academy award for Best Picture. The film is widely acclaimed for how it effectively portrays class inequality in the form of cinema. The film is successful at being both entertaining and socially critical. It avoids abstract speeches and chooses to show inequality through locations, routines and behaviour. Although the story is set in Seoul, many of the conditions captured are familiar to urban Indian ones. The conditions of housing, labour, education and infrastructure are all results of unequal policy outcomes. There is a stark difference between the wealthy Park family and the struggling Kim family, one that is spatial and cultural along with economic. A similar, complex inequality can be seen in Indian cities as well. Gated communities here exist right next to slums, and the rich households rely on underprivileged workers. Parasite depicts a world that does not feel too far from us. Many of its tensions such as space and status are issues that are a part of Indian policy discussion. 

Housing Policy 

The Kim family in the movie live in a semi basement house, with one single street level window through which passersby can be seen. In one scene, an intoxicated passerby urinates into this window. The Park family on the other hand live in a luxurious mansion with a large private backyard, and smart security systems. The depiction of the stark contrast between the locations reflects how safety, privacy and dignified housing are only available to those who can afford it. In India, similar contrasts are common. Luxury towers are often situated very close to informal settlements. The residents of these settlements usually provide labour to those same neighbourhoods. These conditions are usually a result of policy decisions involving land use, zoning, rents regulation and housing. The government has launched programmes such as the PMAY so that they can improve access. Despite these efforts, housing shortages and poor conditions are still concerns. The location and conditions that families live in decide how long they take to commute, what kind of schools and healthcare they have access to and sanitation as well. Parasite gets this point across clearly. Housing is an important public policy question and not just private market activity.

Labour Policy

The wealthy Park family is extremely dependent on their staff. Their drivers, chef, and tutors are all staff that they rely on to carry on with their day to day lives smoothly. But still, these workers are very replaceable to them and are socially distant. The Kim family knows everything about the Park family because their livelihood depends on them, but the Park family know hardly anything about the people who work for them. We can see such similar dependence on workers in Indian cities as well. A single day of not having a domestic worker come in, or guards or delivery staff makes a huge difference to the convenience of the lives of the urban upper class. Most of this labour is informal. These workers don’t have written contracts or grievance systems for when they have issues with their workplace. Platform work in recent times has created newer income opportunities for people looking to earn an income but they have added to the insecurity. Public policy often focuses on telling the urban growth story although the workers who sustain the growth are severely under-regulated. The film captures how labour is essential to society but is still undervalued and almost invisible. Even the film’s title can be analysed through this perspective. There is a mutual dependence as the rich depend on the poor for labour and the poor are dependent on unstable access into these spaces to earn an income. It could be argued that the real “parasite” is the system that turns basic survival into this kind of dependence with no dignity. 

Education Policy

The Kim family gets their opportunity first through one of the members joining the Parks as a tutor. It’s the elder son’s education that opens their path to an elite space. In India, education is widely seen as the main method to gain financial and social mobility. But schools with differing qualities, the coaching class industry and language advantages inhibit people from achieving this. Competitive exams are said to be merit based but the resources that students have to prepare for them are highly unequal. The movie suggests that opportunity is controlled by markets rather than being guaranteed by institutions that are supposed to. 

Risk 

The scene with the rainstorm is one of the film’s strongest and most important moments while looking at it from the perspective of policy. Mrs Park sees the rain as a blessing. The Kims on the other hand have to rush to their home, only to find it in a destructed state. In India, floods and waterlogging issues have similar patterns. Infrastructure is often much less developed in low-income settlements. These areas become risk prone as they have weaker drainage and infrastructure. Sometimes, a brief shower is enough for water to leak into people’s homes or in extreme cases destroy them. Such sudden changes in weather and extreme situations reveal failures in public infrastructure planning. Rain falls on everybody, but its impact is not the same for everyone. The damage caused by the floods depends less on the rainfall and more on where people live and how cities are planned. Parasite manages to capture this efficiently by showing two families experiencing the same storm in two very different ways. 

Why the film works 

The film avoids lectures and does not try to be preachy. It communicates everything it intends to mainly through visuals. It uses architecture, tension and subtle dialogue to depict the social hierarchy. It arguably does this better than speeches could. Another reason the film works is because it never presents inequlity in an over-simplified manner. It avoids common tropes such as the wealthy characters being very cruel. It doesn’t show the poor family as morally pure. The tension in the film comes from systems itself and not from individual villains. The systems force people into competition, dependence and insecurity. It makes the story feel realistic and allows the audience to connect with it better. The audience can recognise these patterns in their own societies rather than looking at the movie as something only Koreans can understand. Which is exactly why the film was well acclaimed globally. Audiences in almost any part of the world could easily recognise and relate to the inequalities depicted in the Korean story. 

Conclusion

Parasite is a conceptually brilliant film that very much deserves its acclaim. It can also be looked at as a film about how policy affects our everyday lives. It shows us that most inequality is expressed through ordinary routines, gestures and conversations in everyday life. It appears in where people live, what kind of work they do, and what their priorities are. The film doesn’t have unnecessary dramatic speeches or monologues to get this point across. In this view, the film’s most impressive achievement is that it makes these structures that are often hidden and subtle more obvious and visible. It forces viewers to look at their worlds with more depth and care. 

Author Bio

Yashaswini Sirwar is a 2^nd year law student from Jindal Global Law School. She has been a columnist for Nickeled and Dimed since December 2025.

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