Parasite reminds us why mobility isn't the priority it should be

Parasite character Kim Ki-jung asks the wealthy Park family's chauffeur to drop her off at Hyewha Station, a stop on Line 4 of the Seoul Metropolitan Subway. (Photo courtesy of LERK, via Wikimedia Commons)

A wealthy, cuddling couple jokes about how people who ride public transportation purportedly smell. On a couch in the living room of a perfectly minimalist mansion (that needs only a Peloton), watching as their young son throws a trivial tantrum in an idyllic yard, they reminisce that it’s been “ages” since they’ve used transit themselves. In an earlier scene, their private chauffeur had urged a passenger to “take the Benz, not the subway” as she begged to bet let out of the car at a station.

Such discriminatory rhetoric is quite common in U.S. pop culture, normalizing our country’s auto-dependence. But this particular example of transportation classism wasn’t made in America.  

Instead, this was Parasite, the Academy Award-winning South Korean film. The transportation references are just one component of the hit thriller’s powerful commentary on Korean society’s Confucian-based social strata.

But in spite of its stark class divides, and in contrast to the U.S., South Korea provides its citizens top-notch mobility. Its urban rail and bus systems serve as models for planners around the world, and even in lightly populated areas like Jeju Island transit is a viable way for people to get around. In Seoul, where Parasite takes place, anyone who looks down on transit is certain to suffer; as they sit in traffic congestion of their own creation, they’ll watch bus after bus whiz past them in a dedicated lane.

So, how could any person who lives in a place like Seoul – regardless of their wealth or status – subject themselves to such misery? Was that Parasite couple simply misguided, making bad decisions that better policies or incentives could address? Or do they represent a deeper flaw in humanity’s evolution?

   

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Director Bong Joon-ho may have snuck only subtle transportation references into Parasite, but his 2013 film Snowpiercer (which TNT is adapting into a drama set to premiere in May) was a bit more upfront about social disparities in mobility. The film takes place in NUMTOT dystopia: a world where environmental cataclysm has eradicated humanity, save a group of survivors aboard a train that perpetually circumnavigates the planet.

Members of the elite class live in luxury at the front of the train, bombarding themselves with North Korean-style personality cult propaganda worshipping the mysterious oligarch who constructed the global rail line and never leaves the locomotive. They enjoy amenities that include, among others, a self-sustaining aquarium car where the fish are occasionally prepared into delicious-looking sushi to “keep the ecosystem balanced” (no word on if Amtrak has studied this as it overhauls its dining services). The “freeloaders,” meanwhile, live in squalid conditions at the rear and are fed processed bugs.

The back-of-the-train protagonists of Snowpiercer turn to old-fashioned activism to solve their conundrum, staging a rebellion. They have fleeting successes, but also get played by the powerful in their pursuit of equitable access. The future of this cinematic version of humanity, akin to our own transportation future, is left a mix of hope and fear when (spoiler) the train inevitably derails and the credits roll.

In Parasite, humanity’s fate doesn’t rest entirely on the management and operation of a transit system, and the poor and rich don’t engage in total war for mobility and freedom. In some ways, the dichotomy is actually reversed – transportation doesn’t cement division, but rather gives the rank-and-file access to opportunities. 

However, people use that access solely to serve and, to the extent possible, leech off privileged individuals who don’t understand or appreciate that transportation. The result isn’t too different from that of Snowpiercer, as neither side comes out ahead.

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Policy and planning tools could certainly nudge the transportation behavior of people like the Parasite couple. For example, Seoul – despite all its subways and buses – has a dearth of protected bike infrastructure on its primary arteries; fixing this would free up valuable space in the crowded city. The city’s leaders could also implement more car-free zones, mandating reality on existing pedestrian-dominated alleys while building on prior accomplishments like the early-2000s restoration of the Cheonggyecheon Stream and the more recent conversion of the bustling Shinchon district’s main thoroughfare into a busway.      

But, just as the political revolution in Snowpiercer didn’t achieve clear results, it will take more to change the evolutionary traits of our species that shaped the Parasite couple’s perspective on mobility.

Those millennia of lived experience have taught us that others are out to get us, and that the only way to shake them off is to stand out at their expense. It is why politicians succeed by giving people a boogeyman to blame for their problems, even if they fail to – or even make any effort to – actually solve those problems. It’s why NIMBYs see any potential change to their neighborhood as a threat to their rights and beliefs, even if the change would benefit everyone, including them.

Automobiles are a flawed transportation product, but those flaws are the perfect complement for this unsettling construct. Cars may occupy excessive space, but they give people an easy way to flaunt status wherever they go. From a driver’s perspective, other people hinder every trip – slowing them down, cutting them off, sometimes even colliding with them – but in the end, they get the satisfaction of overcoming these obstacles, enjoying a sip of life at the top without ever leaving their own little world.

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When the Parasite couple mocks Seoul’s transit riders, they’re not talking about a literal smell or other problem with their city’s trains or buses. Rather, to them transportation is a means to reinforce a sense of superiority, rather than a means of mobility. And thus, even in Seoul and other places with excellent transportation options – places where transit powers the economy that allows the elite to prosper – things like congestion, crashes, and pollution put a damper on life.   

   

So, will humanity ever evolve to prioritize access over status? Perhaps pressure from continued climate change or economic strife – or, as suggested by the Snowpiercer train’s derailment, an upheaval even more stark and sudden – will ensure we do someday.   

     

But for now, the goal should be to discover new things and savor every experience, not to be superior. To that end, let’s ride on.