Hello! Welcome to the Parasite episode of Slate Money Goes to the Movies. I am Felix Amon of Axios. I'm here with Emily Peck of Fundrise.

And we are going to talk about what I think is safe to say. The best movie, not only of this season, but of both seasons so far.

This is an absolute masterpiece of a movie by Bongrinho. Parasite, if you haven't seen it, don't listen to this podcast. Just go off and see it. That's the most important thing.

Once you've seen it, you can listen to a little bit of me and Emily talking about this. But the main person you want to listen to to talk about this movie is Dodai Stewart of the New York Times. Welcome, Dodai.

Hello. Hi. How are you? Hi, Dodai. Introduce yourself. Who are you? Who am I? Who are you, Dodai?

I'm a writer. I'm an editor at the New York Times. I'm your former co-worker, a lifelong New Yorker. Yes. And I'm a former screenwriting major and a movie enthusiast.

In the movie that you chose, it would have been amazing just for the presence of Dodai Stewart. But I have to say this is the consequence of two absolutely perfect things.

Dodai Stewart and Parasite coming together on slate money goes to the movies.

Okay. So Dodai, this movie came out in 2019. Did you see it in the theater when it came out? Certainly, Dad. Yes, absolutely.

Did you leave the theater thinking, wow, that was something? Absolutely. I left the theater thinking that I actually had some hype around it. And I wasn't even prepared for like how actually good it was.

I thought it was even better than it had been hyped to me. I kind of completely agree with you on this one.

I felt that when I came out of the movie theater in 2019 and then rewatching it for this show, I was like, you know what? It's probably even better than that. It's kind of even better on repeat viewing.

Yeah, it's a masterpiece. I really do believe that. And I think that seeing it again, I saw some things that I didn't notice before. And also I think just with a little space and time, I had more feelings about it.

I was thinking about the pandemic also and revealing haves and have nots and so on and so forth. Is this a parable of contemporary capitalism and temporary and past and future?

It's just capitalism writ large inequality, parasitical behavior, lack of trust. I think it just raises so many questions. It's so interesting. And it just there are so many different layers of have and have not.

I mean, the very first scene is like that they're trying to get Wi-Fi and just thinking of all of the technological issues that the pandemic raised and public school children who couldn't do remote learning because they had no Wi-Fi or broadband.

And it just, you know, it's just there's so many things. There's so many ways that it's applicable. And, you know, the fact that this family can't function without employing all these people. It's like, aren't they the parasites?

Yes. Yes, they are. Yes, they are.

Capital is always parasitical on labor. We learn that reading Karl Marx.

You know, and beyond, I mean, the fact that her kid needs art therapy in her mind.

I don't even know what that is. Is that capitalism or is that something else?

Your theory, Dodai, when the daughter, like, has her first lesson with this completely unruly kid that no one can bring to heal and she immediately knocks him into perfect behavior. How does she manage that?

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