Food studies in media provide complex layers to the films that viewers quite literally consume, a fact complicated depending on how one analyzes 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 family 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.
Faculty Mentor: Emily Rutter
Department of English
Undergraduate