Representation & Power Example Report
Example analysis of Parasite (2019) — screenplay by Bong Joon Ho and Han Jin Won. Shown for demonstration and commentary.
The narrative perspective is overwhelmingly aligned with the Kim family's class struggle, granting them full humanity and interiority, while the wealthy Park family is viewed from the outside, their perspective ultimately holding less narrative weight despite their social power.
Dominant perspective: The perspective of the working-class Kim family, specifically their experience of class resentment and precarity.
Character treatment
working-class Korean man in his late 40s, patriarch of a poor family, chronically unemployed
- Ki-Tek's arc from passive dreamer to violent actor is a powerful, if bleak, depiction of class resentment reaching a breaking point.
- His 'no plan' philosophy is a poignant articulation of the precarity that defines his existence.
- The script grants him moments of genuine tenderness, particularly with his son, complicating his eventual monstrous act.
- His final act of violence risks confirming the very classist prejudice the film critiques—that the poor are inherently dangerous.
- His interiority is often obscured by his performative 'serene' mask, making his final turn feel slightly abrupt.
young working-class Korean man, intelligent but lacking credentials, the family's primary schemer
- Ki-Woo is the audience's primary point of identification, and his intelligence makes his family's schemes feel thrilling rather than purely villainous.
- His relationship with the viewing stone provides a powerful symbolic through-line for his character, from a token of luck to a weapon and a burden.
- The script's ending, with his fantasy of buying the house, perfectly encapsulates his tragic, unfulfillable ambition.
- His romantic subplot with Da-Hae, while serving the plot, can feel like a manipulation that is never fully morally interrogated.
young working-class Korean woman, a cynical and talented forger who poses as an art therapist
- Ki-Jung is the most ruthlessly competent member of the family, and her skills in forgery and improvisation are a direct commentary on the waste of talent in a class-stratified society.
- Her outburst at the family for worrying about the fired driver is a rare, powerful moment of raw emotion that cuts through her cynical facade.
- Her death is the most brutal consequence of the family's schemes, and it serves as the tragic, irreversible cost of their class transgression.
- Her character is occasionally objectified by the camera (e.g., the underwear scene), which, while plot-relevant, still frames her body as a tool.
- Her interiority is the least explored of the family, making her feel slightly more like a plot device than her brother or father.
working-class Korean woman in her late 40s, a former athlete, physically powerful and pragmatically ruthless
- Chung-Sook's physical strength, a remnant of her athletic past, is a key asset that is directly responsible for the family's survival in the final brawl.
- Her line 'She's kindhearted because she's rich' is the film's most direct and potent thesis statement on class and morality.
- Her character is largely defined by her pragmatic toughness, with fewer moments of vulnerability or interiority compared to the male characters.
- The script sometimes uses her for comic relief (e.g., her drunkenness) in ways that slightly undercut her formidable presence.
wealthy, naive Korean homemaker, sheltered by her class position
- Her gullibility is a direct function of her wealth, which has insulated her from the need to develop skepticism, making her a product of her environment rather than a purely individual fool.
- She is consistently denied interiority and is treated as a punchline or a plot device, making her the least humanized major character.
- Her sexuality is used for a comedic scene (the sofa scene) that others her and her husband, framing their intimacy as absurd from the Kims' perspective.
- The script never challenges the 'simple' label Min-Hyuk gives her, essentially endorsing it.
wealthy Korean CEO, embodies the polite but firm class distance of the nouveau riche
- Dong-Ik is not a cartoon villain; his classism is expressed through subtle, 'reasonable' boundaries and private disgust, making him a more realistic and insidious antagonist.
- His obsession with the 'line' is a perfect metaphor for class boundaries, and his death is a direct result of his inability to see the Kims as fully human.
- His character is largely defined by his function as a class antagonist, with limited exploration of his inner life beyond his role as employer and husband.
- The 'poor smell' comment, while thematically crucial, risks reducing his class prejudice to a single, easily-identifiable tic.
Power dynamics
Ki-Tek is Dong-Ik's employee. Dong-Ik values Ki-Tek's work but maintains a strict, unspoken class boundary, referring to 'the line' and privately expressing disgust at Ki-Tek's smell.
Yon-Kyo is Chung-Sook's employer. She is friendly but demanding, treating Chung-Sook as a functional extension of the household rather than a person with her own life.
Ki-Woo, despite his lower class, holds power in this dynamic through his role as a tutor and his romantic manipulation of Da-Hae, exploiting her naivete.
A horizontal class conflict. Both families are poor and precariously attached to the Park household. They fight for the same limited resource: the right to parasitize the wealthy family.
Ki-Jung, through her performance of expertise and authority, completely dominates Yon-Kyo, reversing the expected employer-employee power dynamic through psychological manipulation.
Intersectional moments
Chung-Sook states, 'She's kindhearted because she's rich. If I had all this, my heart would be overflowing with kindness!' This directly links morality and emotional capacity to material class conditions.
Dong-Ik and Yon-Kyo discuss Ki-Tek's 'poor smell' while having sex, and Dong-Ik fetishizes the 'cheap panties.' The scene layers class disgust with sexual desire, showing how class is embodied and sensualized.
Ki-Tek kills Dong-Ik after seeing him recoil at Kun-Sae's 'poor smell.' The murder is a direct, violent response to the intersection of class-based disgust and a perceived assault on his family's dignity.
Mun-Kwang pleads with Chung-Sook, 'Us domestic workers, we're sisters,' attempting to forge solidarity based on shared class and gender positions. This fails, as their competition for the same job overrides any potential alliance.
- →All wealthy characters are portrayed as naive, simple, or emotionally shallow, while all poor characters are cunning, desperate, and emotionally complex.
- →Women's bodies are consistently used as tools or sites of class commentary (Ki-Jung's underwear, Yon-Kyo's sexuality, Chung-Sook's physical strength).
- →The only non-Korean characters are a German family who appear briefly and silently, serving as a punchline about the house's cursed history.
- →The script brilliantly uses the 'smell' motif to make class an inescapable, embodied reality that no amount of performance can erase.
- →It avoids simple moralizing by making the Kim family's schemes thrilling and sympathetic, forcing the audience to confront their own class allegiances.
- →The intersectional conflict between the two poor families is a masterful depiction of horizontal class violence, showing how precarity pits the marginalized against each other.
- →The wealthy characters, particularly Yon-Kyo, are so lacking in interiority that they risk becoming caricatures of clueless privilege rather than fully realized antagonists.
- →The script's treatment of its female characters is uneven; Ki-Jung and Chung-Sook are formidable but are given less interiority than Ki-Woo and Ki-Tek, and Yon-Kyo is largely a punchline.
- →The ending's fantasy sequence, while thematically resonant, could be read as suggesting the only solution to class oppression is to become the oppressor, rather than imagining systemic change.
- →Deepen Yon-Kyo's character with a single scene of genuine, non-comedic interiority to balance her function as a satirical target.
- →Provide Ki-Jung with a moment of private reflection or desire that is not in service of the family's scheme, to further solidify her as a subject rather than a brilliant tool.
- →Consider a brief, wordless moment with the German family that hints at their own story, to avoid the implication that the house's cycle of parasitism is a uniquely Korean phenomenon.
- →Sharpen the moral complexity of Ki-Woo's relationship with Da-Hae by having him acknowledge the cruelty of his manipulation, even if he proceeds with it.