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So many of their recent films with worldwide acclaim are about rampant classism and economic inequality. Even as someone not super in touch with Korean social s

by dgunay 5y ago

So many of their recent films with worldwide acclaim are about rampant classism and economic inequality. Even as someone not super in touch with Korean social sentiment, I still get the feeling that Koreans are getting super fed up with their status quo. Might not be "having an effect" so much as "reflecting the way they feel".

yodsanklai 5y ago
It's a chicken and egg problem, or maybe a feedback loop.
robertlagrant 5y ago
Given most people are not super-wealthy, popular shows are much more likely to have been sympathetic to that view. No one wants to watch a show that says "Actually things are pretty good compared to how they were, and still improving, and while there are a few really rich people in the world, it wouldn't change your life for the better if they didn't exist."
- burnished 5y ago
  Do you have any idea then number of people and the volume of resources that go to servicing the wealthy? Yes, I think we'd be doing better if there were fewer extraordinarily wealthy people. They aren't necessary to work together to achieve economies of scale, but they sure are fucking expensive.
  - qaq 5y ago
    Do you? Do you really think you can magically turn raw materials + work needed to build a super yacht into something of global consequence ? Or a Pollock painting will magically turn into a 1000 homes? Or that 1% consumes significantly more food? Most ultra-rich sh*t is immaterial to struggles of regular people. Even if 1%ers consumes extra 300 square meters of real eastate if you divide it across the 99% you will get an extra 3 square meters. It's immaterial.
    - v-erne 5y ago
      I have seen this sentiment and on the surface its looks right. But I feel that we are missing here some real studies that should be done into impact of life style of the rich on the whole economy. I know few rich people (some of them ungodly rich). And seeing glimpses of their life style I cannot simply ignore cohorts of supporting jobs that make it all possibile (just to mentions few : private guards, house keeps, gardeners, cooks, private pilots on call, yaht crew members, drivers).
      - dkdk8283 5y ago
        It creates real jobs and wealth. A friend of mine has 200 people employed in his family office.
        LightG 5y ago
        "Real jobs and wealth" ... imagine putting them to work into something truly useful and creative, rather than a group of beck and call people.
        robertlagrant 5y ago
        "putting them to work" - what are you talking about? They are choosing jobs.
        v-erne 5y ago
        Im guessing that He is talking about "having job" being a poor abstraction for value creation from point of view of whole society. Its like triple A rating for CDOs backed by subprime morgages. On the surface it seems good but if You look close enough You will see only bullshit and wishful thinking.
        robertlagrant 5y ago
        I don't think your comparison holds. There is not whole society acting in concert, nor even in agreement about what is valuable. There are just individuals, some of whom band together into companies and other organisations, all with different priorities.
  - seoulmetro 5y ago
    There are not many truly wealthy people in South Korea.
- vintermann 5y ago
  Oh, I'm not so sure about that. Personally I don't want to watch squid game at all, and am only slightly more curious about Parasite. That's not because I don't sympathize with the politics, on the contrary. It's because I feel like I have enough reminders of what kind of world we live in already. I keep coming back to something Thoreau wrote: I didn't come into this world to fix it, but to live in it.
- jdgoesmarching 5y ago
  Most people wouldn’t watch that show, but well-off people would definitely read that Steven Pinker book to feel better about their insulated comfort in a suffering world. I guess people have different media preferences. To Pinker’s credit, even he wouldn’t make such a wildly hyperbolic understatement of global inequality. At least not in public, maybe on Epstein’s plane.
  - robertlagrant 5y ago
    The problem is inequality is the wrong metric. Standard of living is the right one.
- 0max 5y ago
  I think the "actually things are pretty good" view are most of the K-Dramas you run into on MBC and KBS based on what I've seen over the air.
ekianjo 5y ago
distorsion. poor people being exploited has been a common trope for centuries. Les Miserables anyone? Ultimately the movie industry in Korea is made of very wealthy people parading like friends of the poor. very amusing.

by dgunay 5y ago

yodsanklai 5y ago

It's a chicken and egg problem, or maybe a feedback loop.

robertlagrant 5y ago

Given most people are not super-wealthy, popular shows are much more likely to have been sympathetic to that view. No one wants to watch a show that says "Actually things are pretty good compared to how they were, and still improving, and while there are a few really rich people in the world, it wouldn't change your life for the better if they didn't exist."

burnished 5y ago
Do you have any idea then number of people and the volume of resources that go to servicing the wealthy? Yes, I think we'd be doing better if there were fewer extraordinarily wealthy people. They aren't necessary to work together to achieve economies of scale, but they sure are fucking expensive.
- qaq 5y ago
  Do you? Do you really think you can magically turn raw materials + work needed to build a super yacht into something of global consequence ? Or a Pollock painting will magically turn into a 1000 homes? Or that 1% consumes significantly more food? Most ultra-rich sh*t is immaterial to struggles of regular people. Even if 1%ers consumes extra 300 square meters of real eastate if you divide it across the 99% you will get an extra 3 square meters. It's immaterial.
  - v-erne 5y ago
    I have seen this sentiment and on the surface its looks right. But I feel that we are missing here some real studies that should be done into impact of life style of the rich on the whole economy. I know few rich people (some of them ungodly rich). And seeing glimpses of their life style I cannot simply ignore cohorts of supporting jobs that make it all possibile (just to mentions few : private guards, house keeps, gardeners, cooks, private pilots on call, yaht crew members, drivers).
    - dkdk8283 5y ago
      It creates real jobs and wealth. A friend of mine has 200 people employed in his family office.
      - LightG 5y ago
        "Real jobs and wealth" ... imagine putting them to work into something truly useful and creative, rather than a group of beck and call people.
        robertlagrant 5y ago
        "putting them to work" - what are you talking about? They are choosing jobs.
        v-erne 5y ago
        Im guessing that He is talking about "having job" being a poor abstraction for value creation from point of view of whole society. Its like triple A rating for CDOs backed by subprime morgages. On the surface it seems good but if You look close enough You will see only bullshit and wishful thinking.
        robertlagrant 5y ago
        I don't think your comparison holds. There is not whole society acting in concert, nor even in agreement about what is valuable. There are just individuals, some of whom band together into companies and other organisations, all with different priorities.
- seoulmetro 5y ago
  There are not many truly wealthy people in South Korea.
vintermann 5y ago
Oh, I'm not so sure about that. Personally I don't want to watch squid game at all, and am only slightly more curious about Parasite. That's not because I don't sympathize with the politics, on the contrary. It's because I feel like I have enough reminders of what kind of world we live in already. I keep coming back to something Thoreau wrote: I didn't come into this world to fix it, but to live in it.
jdgoesmarching 5y ago
Most people wouldn’t watch that show, but well-off people would definitely read that Steven Pinker book to feel better about their insulated comfort in a suffering world. I guess people have different media preferences. To Pinker’s credit, even he wouldn’t make such a wildly hyperbolic understatement of global inequality. At least not in public, maybe on Epstein’s plane.
- robertlagrant 5y ago
  The problem is inequality is the wrong metric. Standard of living is the right one.
0max 5y ago
I think the "actually things are pretty good" view are most of the K-Dramas you run into on MBC and KBS based on what I've seen over the air.

ekianjo 5y ago

distorsion. poor people being exploited has been a common trope for centuries. Les Miserables anyone? Ultimately the movie industry in Korea is made of very wealthy people parading like friends of the poor. very amusing.