[-empyre-] Fwd: Welcome to Week 2 on -empyre_

[Junting Huang]

I am particularly struck by Paul’s comment on the profound relationship between odor and disease, as well as its historical ties to classism and racism during the Victorian era. Many would perhaps recall a recurring motif in Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite (2019), the Kim family’s “poor man's smell.” 

Parasite is not its original title, but this new title has so forcefully crystalized the idea that the poor is often characterized as disease-ridden. In the beginning of the film, the family are bathed in the stinky smoke from the public fumigation because they can’t afford disinfectant to kill stinky bugs. Bong also talked about the chemical substance that Korean police in the past used to disperse protesters: “It was a very traumatic smell. It’s impossible to describe: nauseating, stinging, hot … It’s strange, sometimes I smell it in my dreams.”

Junting