North Korea holds up Parasite, Palme d’Or-winning South Korean film, as proof that Kim Jong-un’s leadership is best
- North Korean propaganda website uses an award-winning South Korean film about social inequality to praise its own regime as one that is ‘envied and admired’
- The film’s director, Bong Joon-ho, was awarded the top prize at this year’s Cannes for the film
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An award-winning South Korean film about social inequality was used by the North on Tuesday to claim its citizens live a better life than their cross-border neighbours.
“This film gaining popularity in South Korea is clearly letting people know that capitalism is a rotten and sick society with a malignant tumour of the growing gap between the haves and the have-nots that has no hope or future,” said an editorial on the North Korean propaganda website DPRK Today.
In reality, North Korea operates a system known as songbun that rewards individuals according to their perceived loyalty to the regime, and which results in hugely differing living conditions and opportunities.
The isolated country – which is under several sets of sanctions because of its nuclear weapon and ballistic missile programmes – also suffers chronic food shortages.
Average incomes were about four per cent of those in the South in 2017, according to the most recent statistics available from Seoul.
But South Korea, Asia’s fourth biggest economy, also grapples with social problems.
The country currently has one of the world’s lowest fertility rates, and scholars say social inequality – linked to the country’s long work hours, high cost of housing, education and child rearing – is one of the major causes.
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As of 2017, over 17 per cent of the country lived in relative poverty – defined as surviving on less than half of the median household income – according to South Korean government data.
Parasite also features a character who mockingly imitates a North Korean news presenter, but the filmmaker has said the scene was more of a joke and should not be understood as a criticism of Pyongyang.
