Parasite and the power of branding
**THIS IS SPOILER-FREE**
The first lockdown feels like long ago. But one of the best things I did during that time was watch Parasite.
Bong Joon-ho’s masterpiece has layers – like a trifle, but it’s far from sweet, or trifling. Imagine a trifle made of sediment. The realities expressed in the film are closer to what you’d find in stones. Rather than your nan’s dessert of choice. Parasite is stacked with ontological truths from everyday existence in the hyper-capitalist 21st century. A deep dive into societies strata, and how each piece in the Jenga tower of social class directly affects another.
There are many curious moments in this film, but this one I found to be very interesting is likely quite dry against the backdrop of slapstick mayhem and hard-hitting reality.
While Mr Kim (poor dad) is driving his stoic boss Dong-Ik (rich dad), he is cajoling him into hiring his wife as the family’s new housekeeper. To seal the deal he pulls out a literal trump card. A business card was designed by his mastermind daughter for a fake house help agency called, ‘’The Care’’.
Dong-Ik is instantly enthralled by the imaginative and classy use of a standard sans-serif font.
Dong-Ik’s immediate ease and trust in a company he only knows from a printed piece of paper is telling. Maybe he subconsciously linked the card’s design to Burberry. Or Balenciaga. Looks like Burberry’s new logo! Must be legit. Dong-Ik took the bait and with this card, quelled the incredible headache of having to hire somebody who cleans your house 24/7. If Mr Kim had mentioned he knew somebody who’d be perfect for the job, Dong-Ik would not have listened. Why would he listen to this poor, should-be pensioner? But since he had evidence, a value proposition, something that wasn’t of Mr Kim’s existence, but was closer to Dong-Ik’s, he trusted it straight away. It was this assumptive trust in an aesthetic that unlocks the film’s major narrative arc. Jean Baudrillard would be buzzing. This is the ultimate evidence of his Hyperreality theory.
This card — a simple piece of branding — warped the fortunes of two contrasting families in an instant. A brand can be aspirational and opportune. In this instance, for Mr Kim’s family, it was. It helped to seal a fourth income. They used brand cleverly to boost their desperate life fortunes. But a brand can also be used to reinforce — ones own status, perceived status, and ego. Which is what it did for Dong-Ik.
This particular moment is really a very minor part in a film full of bombast and intrigue. But I guess this is the beauty of Parasite — the truth exists in minute details. For a tiny piece of branding to create such a major sliding doors moment for people at two opposing ends of the class spectrum is evidence of the great power that branding holds in modern society. What I learnt from this is — Branding is a tool, that should be used mindfully. One that must be used in an egalitarian context as much as possible. Some things are what they are. Burberry is Burberry. But in an era where you will find viscounts and builders battling for hot croissants (and bog roll) in Lidl, the lines between who-buys-what/shops where are blurring.