





































Food studies in media provide complex layers 
to the films that viewers quite literally consume, 
a fact complicated depending on how one an-
alyzes food. Different theories, lenses, and 
contexts can change how food is used in film, 
much like how using different ingredients in a 
recipe can alter the final product. But why does 
food matter in film, and how do directors use 
food to create meaning? Food is often employed 
to symbolize greater significance or to prove a 
point that a director wants to assert in their film. 
For example, Bong Joon-ho’s film Parasite (2019) 
utilizes food to symbolize social class: food is a 
vehicle in this film to show both the stark divide 
between the upper and lower classes and how 
such economic disparity can be perilous for 
society. Bong does this to warn viewers that class 
inequality is unjust by demonstrating how greed 
within different social classes warrants grave 
consequences. Ultimately, Parasite concludes 
with the patriarch of the ultra-wealthy Park fam-
ily deceased while the extremely impoverished 
Kim family is divided, still dangerously poor, 
and suffering the death of their daughter/sister. 
While these may be extreme conclusions to draw 
from the film, Parasite aims to warn its viewers 
of the greed between social classes that could 
lead to such dismal ends. Bong accomplishes 
this through the placement of food: it symbolizes 
the class divide that each family struggles with in 
different ways.

The Parasite of Society: Food and Class Studies in 
Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite

Emily Turner, Ball State University

Essay

The role that food plays in film typically has more 

meaning than a viewer might realize at first. Often 

viewers watch movies for entertainment without ana-

lyzing the context that the food in each scene provides 

to the richness of the plot. For example, Bong Joon-ho’s 

2019 award-winning film Parasite thrills its audience 

while warning them about the dangers of capitalism 

and class disparity. Despite the popularity of this film, 

the aspect of food was quietly forgotten even though it 

enhances the movie’s theme. Bong intentionally placed 

food in this film to signify class status, which further di-

vides the Park and Kim families. While this is a critical-

ly-acclaimed film, there is not much scholarship devot-

ed to food studies, concerning social class in Parasite; 

therefore, I am drawing upon movie reviews as well 

as scholarly work about food in media. In doing this, I 

have studied Parasite through lenses of socioeconomic 

theory as well as food theory to analyze how food is 

used in the film. Food involves more than simply pre-

paring ingredients and consuming the final product, 

especially when used in media and popular culture: it 

often provides deeper meaning that must be examined 

in order to know what is truly being said. In the film 

Parasite, food is the vehicle that Bong uses to signify so-

cial status, and furthermore, it signals class disparities 

between the wealthy and impoverished. Beyond the 

film, Bong uses food to warn his audience how class in-

equality could be the downfall, the parasite, of society. 

7 | Turner



 Although Parasite is a critically-acclaimed film, due to its newness, there is not much scholar-

ship devoted to it; therefore, my essay draws from film reviews, socio-economic and food theories, and 

scholarly work about food and media in order to show how Parasite uses food to elucidate class inequal-

ity that threatens dire ramifications for the whole of society. Food involves more than simply preparing 

ingredients and consuming the final product, especially when employed in media and popular culture. 

In Parasite, food is the vehicle that Bong utilizes to signify social status, and furthermore, class dispari-

ties between the wealthy and impoverished. Such class disparity—the struggle over wealth and resourc-

es—beckons the collapse of society as the rich become richer and the poor become poorer until society 

can no longer withstand the pressure of the parasitic relationship that capitalism fosters.

 In the film, viewers are first introduced to the Kim family: they are living in a crowded basement, 

and it becomes obvious from the clothes they wear, their lack of Wi-Fi connection, and their living sit-

uation that they are impoverished. The Kim family is always in need of work, so when Ki-woo, the son, 

tricks his way into tutoring the daughter of the wealthy Park family, the Kims take extreme measures to 

infiltrate the Park household for employment through various means. The Parks are oblivious to the Kims’ 

schemes—they are blissfully unaware since they rely so heavily on the employment of the lower class to 

maintain their homelife. However, their ambient relationship turns parasitic once the Parks’ old employ-

ees threaten to reveal that the Kims have been scamming the Parks for work. The Kims will do anything 

to keep their jobs, including murder, but the struggle over power and wealth comes to a head when cha-

os unfolds at the end of the film due to the parasitic relationship that each family cultivates. Bong leaves 

the viewers questioning the inner workings of capitalism and class inequality as they reflect on which 

family was the true antagonist, or parasite, of the film. 

 Bong portrays the class divide between the Kim and Park families in a variety of ways, including 

their homes, lifestyles, levels of education, and hygiene. For example, the Park family lives in a pristine, 

well-kept mansion while the Kim family lives in a crowded, dirty basement. Yet, when we consider food 

theory in cinema, it becomes clear that food in Parasite is a key mechanism through which Bong cri-

tiques class exploitation. Anne Bower and Thomas Piontek explain that “[t]hroughout cinematic history, 

food has played a part in all kinds of films, frequently revealing aspects of characters’ emotions, iden-

tities, cultural backgrounds, fears, and inspirations” (177). Food in Parasite acts as a vehicle to explore 

not only the families’ socio-economic statuses but also the sheer divide between the two, which is why 

the film ends with death and despair. The Park family consumes food out of luxury while the Kim fam-

ily consumes and uses food out of necessity: this demonstrates how each family operates within their 

respective social classes. Hojin Song explains how food studies can be used to identify systems within 

media: “Through identifying and studying food categories, it is possible to decode the religious, politi-

cal, economic, social, and cultural systems in which food and food-centered practices are embedded” 

(5). Song’s ideology can be used to analyze the food in Parasite as social and economic mechanisms, 

like how food and consumption denotes a class divide between the two families, ultimately pushing 

each family to collapse. While the Parks consume in excess, the Kims consume the bare minimum due to 

their poverty, which promotes the greed that causes them to infiltrate the Parks’ lavish homelife. Bong’s 

employment of food to denote social status is particularly striking because food is needed to survive. 

Access to food should be a given right; however, Parasite highlights how this is not true among the

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impoverished. While the Parks have fully stocked fridges and pantries as well as a maid to prepare their 

every meal, the Kims must buy and consume food from vending machines. Food is not guaranteed for 

the Kim family. In other words, any scene that contains food and drink in Parasite, whether it be ram-

don or alcohol, signifies either economic distress or excess, suggesting that too much or too little of 

something—money, food, etc.—can be fatally dangerous, promoting the parasitic relationship of the rich 

profiting from the poor.

 Although the Kim and Park families are starkly different, they act like symbiotics, sucking the life 

out of one another, to survive. Put another way, the way in which each family prepares and consumes 

food symbolizes the class divide as well as how each family needs each other to live. The Kim mother, 

Choong-sook, must prepare meals for the Park family as Yeon-kyo, the Park mother, does not have the 

capability to do similar tasks for her family on her own. Due to her wealth and status, Yeon-kyo never 

needed to learn how to cook or clean; therefore, she, as well as her family, are reliant on Chong-sook. 

Observer film critic Mark Kermode defines this relationship in his review as “[a] lifestyle that relies 

upon hired help: tutors, a chauffeur and, most importantly, a devoted housekeeper Moon-gwang (Lee 

Jung-eun), who stayed with the building after its original architect owner moved out”. The Kim family 

disposes of Moon-gwang by exposing her to peaches, which she is allergic to, in order for Chong-sook 

to take over as the Parks’ maid. Food here is used as a weapon; while the peach itself may not symbolize 

economic inequality, it does show the desperation of the Kims to infiltrate the Park family for their mon-

ey. The Kim family is so poor that they feel the need to endanger Moon-gwang so they can be paid in 

her place. Weaponizing food thus reflects the wealth gap that causes the Kim family to go through such 

great lengths to acquire wealth. Through the disposal of Moon-gwang, Choong-sook is able to become 

the new maid, which allows the viewers to see Chong-sook preparing food for the Kims. Even though the 

Parks could not produce their own meals without Chong-sook, the Kim family would not be able to buy 

their food without the money they receive from the Parks. Bong utilizes this symbiotic symbolism, from 

production to consumption of food within the two families, to highlight the downfalls of capitalism. 

Neither the rich nor the poor can survive without each other, but to do so, the impoverished must suffer 

while the rich profits from such suffering. Bong’s portrayal of food preparation and consumption in this 

film signifies such a divide between the two families and beyond them, concerning the wealthy upper 

class versus the impoverished lower class. Parasite implies that without remedying class disparity, soci-

ety will inevitably fail under the strain of greed caused by capitalism.

 Despite being the poorest of the poor, working for an elite family can include certain advantages, 

though such benefits can come at a grave cost. While the Park family is away on a camping trip for their 

son’s birthday, the Kims sneak into the Parks’ mansion to indulge in their employers’ riches through the 

consumption of alcohol, which leaves the family intoxicated. They drink in excess because consuming 

alcohol is a luxury that they cannot afford to enjoy due to their poor circumstances. French essayist and 

theorist Roland Barthes posits in his book Mythologies that “[d]rinking is felt as the exposure of plea-

sure, not as the necessary cause of a sought-for effect: wine is not only a philter but also a durational act 

of drinking: the gesture here has a decorative value, and wine’s power is never separated from its modes 

of existence” (80). Here, Barthes is discussing wine; however, one can come to a similar conclusion 

within this scene even though the Kim family consumes liquor as opposed to wine. Both wine and

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liquor are alcoholic beverages that lead to drunkenness when overconsumed. While the Parks use ex-

pensive liquor for decorative value, they are never shown drinking to become drunk. The Kims, howev-

er, manipulate the Parks’ wealth in order to drink for pleasure—a luxury. They invade their employers’ 

mansion while it is vacant, but they also invade the family’s lifestyle, feeding off of what the Kims could 

never obtain without the Park family. Alcohol in this scene is a mode for transformation as well as escap-

ism for the Kim family: in doing so they are not only breaking and entering, but also stealing. Viewers 

might resent the Kims for stealing what is not theirs, or they might empathize with the family who is too 

poor to afford life’s necessities, let alone life’s luxuries. Whether or not viewers support or chastise the 

Kims in this scene, alcohol is a mechanism for morality: “Wine thus provides a collective morality, with-

in which everything is redeemed: excesses, disasters, crimes are of course possible with wine, but not 

wickedness, perfidy, or ugliness; the evil it can engender is in the nature of fate and therefore escapes 

penalization, it is a theatrical evil, not a temperamental one” (Barthes 81). Barthes claims that under the 

influence of alcohol, one can be immoral but not wicked, so while watching this scene in Parasite, one 

must ask themselves: are the Kims simply immoral, or are they committing evil acts? Gluttony is a trans-

gression; however, it feels impossible for the Kim family to be gluttonous, even when they are drinking 

in excess, due to their poverty. Conversely, the Parks overconsume on a daily basis because of their 

wealth. It is immoral to break and enter. It is immoral to steal. But it is also immoral to be complacently 

rich in a society where the destitute struggle to provide for themselves day in and day out. Through alco-

hol, Bong highlights this question of morality that forces viewers to think critically about the economic 

inequality caused by capitalism. The alcohol scene thus marks the beginning of the end for the Park and 

Kim family, mirroring the downfall of society once it, too, inevitably fails.

 Bong uses the alcohol scene to depict the Kims as the luxurious, decadent family, but all illusions 

are suspended when Yeon-kyo calls Chong-sook, who is supposed to be home to house-sit, to inform her 

that they are coming home early from their camping trip due to bad weather. Film critic Manohla Dargis 

from The New York Times summarizes what is at stake during this scene: “By that point, you are as com-

fortably settled in as the Kims; the house is so very pleasant, after all. But the cost of that comfort and 

those pretty rooms—and the eager acquiescence to the unfairness and meanness they signify—comes 

at a terrible price.” Here, Dargis refers to how certain aspects of capitalism have severe consequences 

as seen in the film. One scene in particular demonstrates the fatal class divide between the Park and 

Kim families via the production of food: when Yeon-kyo is on the phone with Chong-sook, she asks that 

Chong-sook prepares ram-don for the family to eat when they arrive home. Ram-don is a popular Korean 

dish that is quick and easy to make on a budget, which is why it is so shocking to the Kim family when 

Yeon-kyo requests that Chong-sook adds premium beef on top of the ram-don noodles. Viewers who are 

unfamiliar with this dish might compare the oddness of the request to putting high quality steak on top 

of macaroni and cheese prepared from a box. Evelyn Yang provides further context to Yeon-kyo’s request 

by observing that “[t]o add a steak on top of the cheap instant noodles is an act of qualifying and justi-

fying Mrs. Park’s enjoyment of a ‘lower-class’ dish. The rich, despite their wealth, would still crave for 

things that are below their social status, but with their own imagination.” One can infer from Yang that 

although the wealthy can relate to the poor by craving a cheap dish, they can never close the gap be-

tween social classes that capitalism established; Yeon-kyo cannot consume ram-don on its own, for it

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must include wealthy ingredients such as premium beef. Bernice Chan and Alkira Reinfrank, writers and 

reporters for the South China Morning Post, describe how Yeon-kyo’s request demonstrates how far re-

moved the wealthy is from the rest of society: “This is meant to be a sign of how outlandishly rich these 

people are and how out of touch they are from what normal people eat.” Therefore, Yeon-kyo’s request 

for a cheap dish (despite the addition of steak) is also used for irony since she craves a dish typically re-

served for those who cannot afford higher quality food. As soon as Yeon-kyo hangs up the phone, chaos 

ensues as the Kim family rushes to erase any signs that they have intruded before the Parks’ return home. 

The premium ram-don and the Kims’ panicked response after Yeon-kyo’s call represents how each family 

cannot belong in the opposite social class, showing division among the families due to the wealth gap.

 The struggle for power and wealth between the Park and Kim families comes to a climax, result-

ing in bloodshed, trauma, and death. Yeon-kyo throws an elaborate birthday party for her son Da-song, 

the youngest member of the Park family, that includes copious amounts of consumption fit for all the 

wealthy partygoers. They even watch a performance that mocks marginalized people (Indigenous Amer-

icans), showing how superior the wealthy believe they are compared to other groups: at the apex of the 

film, Bong blatantly demonstrates how he thinks the wealthy dehumanize those who are poor or margin-

alized. The party ends horrifically when Geun-sae, another impoverished captive of capitalism, escapes 

his confines and stabs Ki-jung, the daughter of the Kim family. Geun-sae is Moon-gwang’s husband, 

who she has hidden in the depths of the Park mansion so that she could provide for him via the Parks’ 

wealth—another symbiotic relationship. Due to his devotion to the Parks, as well as being mentally 

unstable because of the isolation, Geun-sae escapes the basement and kills Ki-jung. Food, then, is an 

enabler for Geun-sae because without the Parks’ food and shelter, he would have never survived poverty. 

In the end, both families suffer from loss and severe trauma, which Bong uses to signify how the over-

consumption of wealth and resources proves to be fatal to both the upper and lower class, causing the 

eventual collapse of society. Hence, the Kims’ and Parks’ relationship evolves from symbiosis to parasit-

ism as the Kims’ infiltration leads to the deaths and/or injury of members of each family. Korean cinema 

researcher Christina Klein contends that “Korean cinema allows us to think about the global circulation 

of U.S. popular culture in a more comprehensive way” (24-25). Bong utilizes the party scene to take an 

inward look at Korean social class disparity to then look outward in order to perceive how other capital-

istic economies face the same struggles that viewers see in Parasite. Beyond the film, viewers must real-

ize that unequal distribution, or hoarding, of wealth and resources destroys societies from within, much 

like how a parasite overtakes its host. Bong’s use of food in this film is poignant as it is the vehicle to 

promote this anti-capitalistic message. By the end of the party scene, Chong-sook fatally stabs Geun-sae 

with a kabob stick, which symbolizes how even the poor are pitted against each other in the ever-lasting 

struggle for control over wealth. Yang summarizes that “[Bong] witnesses the story of Parasite every day 

in a capitalist society. Living in a world where capitalism dominates our values, where we celebrate our 

freedoms of choices, our wealth and quality of life are more polarized than ever.” Food placement is 

essential for the analysis of the party scene as what began with the overconsumption of food ends with 

bloodshed. Here, Bong employs food to encapsulate the theme of his film: class divides promote the rich 

to benefit from the poor’s suffering before ultimately collapsing. Both the Kim and Park families experi-

ence great loss by the end of the party scene, showing how their parasitic relationship that mimics the 

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downfalls of capitalism festers and dies, much like how food inevitably rots and decomposes until it is 

nothing at all.

 Bong utilizes food in Parasite to highlight the danger and greed that promotes class inequality 

within capitalistic economies. Through what each family consumes, Bong shows the scarcity of wealth 

and resources of the Kim family and the hoarding of the same items from the Park family. Furthermore, 

the Kims use food as a weapon and a luxury, which shows their desperation for wealth, while the Parks 

use food for comfort and decorative purposes. Although Parasite concludes with extreme consequences, 

it is simply warning viewers to take a critical look inwards at how their economy operates to create class 

inequality. Food studies in this film provide rich and complex meaning beyond the overlying message that 

Bong aims to promote: Bong intentionally placed food in Parasite to define the capitalistic structures that 

extend the gap between the rich and the poor. In the film, food symbolizes how greed and class disparity 

will ultimately cause the collapse of society. Bong accomplishes this throughout the duration of the film, 

but his point is made evident at the end of the party scene wherein each family suffers injury, trauma, and 

death, demonstrating that capitalism is detrimental to every social class whether it be families as poor or 

as rich as the Kims and Parks. Food preparation, delivery, and consumption in Parasite shows that such 

distress and disparity among social classes lead to perilous ends to everyone within that society.

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Works Cited

Barthes, Roland. “Wine and Milk.” Mythologies. Bréal, 2009, pp. 79–82.

Bower, Anne, and Thomas Piontek. “Food in Film.” Routledge International Handbook of Food Studies, 

 doi:10.4324/9780203819227.ch16.

Chan, Bernice, and Alkira Reinfrank. “Those Ram-Don Noodles from Parasite: A Cheap Noodle Treat 

 Popular with Students and Not Usually found on Restaurant Menus: South Korean Film 

 Parasite’s Win at this Year’s Oscars also made a Global Star Out of an Elevated Snack Food 

 Classic. Anyone for Ram-Don?” South China Morning Post, 26 June 2020, www.scmp.com/life

 style/food-drink/article/3090342/those-ram-don-noodles-parasite-cheap-noodle-treat-popular.

Dargis, Manohla. “‘Parasite’ Review: The Lower Depths Rise With a Vengeance.” The New York Times, 

 The New York Times, 10 Oct. 2019, www.nytimes.com/2019/10/10/movies/parasite-review.html.

Bong, Joon-ho. Parasite. Neon, 2019.

Kermode, Mark. “Parasite Review – a Gasp-Inducing Masterpiece.” The Guardian, Guardian News and 

 Media, 10 Feb. 2020, www.theguardian.com/film/2020/feb/09/parasite-re

 view-bong-joon-ho-tragicomic-masterpiece. 

Klein, Christina. “Why American Studies Needs to Think about Korean Cinema, or, Transnational Genres 

 in the Films of Bong Joon-Ho.” American Quarterly, vol. 60, no. 4, 2008, pp. 871-898. 

Song, Hojin. “South Korean Food and Women in Glocalization: A Case Study in the Role of Food

 Media,” ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 2016.

Yang, Evelyn. “‘Parasite’ Symbolism Explained: Instant Noodles, Language, Basement.” The News Lens 

 International Edition, 15 Feb. 2020, www.international.thenewslens.com/article/131297.

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