A devious CON game based on REFERRALS (warning: spoiler alert, the movie 'Parasite')

Only something quite thought-provoking or spectacular would motivate me to write about a film.  If you haven't seen this movie, NOW is the time to stop reading or just skip down and read 'The Moral of the Story'.  I recommend it and do not want to spoil the film for you. (unfortunately, language is not very clean throughout)

OK.

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I had no interest in watching this movie but as I kept hearing reports of major wins in BAFTA, the Golden Globes, and finally as best picture, writing, and directing for Parasite -- we decided to watch it.

This is obviously a story based on rather realistic events that could only have been imagined by someone who experienced daily life in the ghettos of South Korea.  

As the story unfolds, you witness the extreme contrast between the upper and lower classes: their lifestyles, their prejudices.  Anyone who has lived in a third world country knows what life is like.  There is a real struggle to maintain any form of decency even, much less make sure there is food on the table and a roof over one's head. 

Anyone in the middle or upper class (of wealth) who sees the poor in the streets of mainline industrial, financial, and tech-rich cities has to feel thankful at least that their place in life is more secure and tolerable and perhaps they can even do something positive to alleviate the suffering of the indigent and poor. 

The poor may reach a level of stasis though that seemingly keeps up their spirits and reason to live.  A minimum level of safety and security, or just above that, of food, clothing, heat, and a dry house may do the trick.  If the poor are well segregated then they will not feel the sting of the disparity between the haves and have-nots.  But if they live close by or serve those much better off on a daily basis, then the jealousy and realization of their lot in life is amplified.

In this movie we see how a family living in the slums live a barely tolerable day-to-day existence and how their lives change by a chance opportunity to serve the well to do.  The slum family though is not ignorant or tech stupid.  The cell phones they use by intercepting signals from other tenants open the world to them and they are savvy to all sorts of conniving and corruption amongst those around them, up and down the ladder.

The family has a 'plan' that is engineered by two siblings in their 20s.  First, the son has an opportunity to tutor a friend's rich client's daughter and he takes it.  Then, his sister manages to find a position in the same household to teach art to a youngster who has some slight psychological problems.  This works so well and the money is so good that before long the mother replaces the cook/nanny and the father replaces the chauffeur.  There is mayhem that follows that goes from comical to very dark.

There are two interesting aspects of this movie that made me ... ponder. 

The first was a statement by the father when the overall plan started falling apart.  His son asked him about 'the plan' (how they were going to get out of a real stinking mess) and the father replies: "I don't have a plan.  The best plan is no plan."  He goes on to say something similar to this: "One doesn't know what is going to happen from day to day, so why have a plan."

The second point, and the one that really got to me, the obvious one staring me in the face, was the matter of referral...  As Brando uttered in Apocalypse Now:  " And then I realized... like I was shot... like I was shot with a diamond... a diamond bullet right through my forehead", the entire 'plan' could not have been accomplished without a con game based on referral.

The referral process was a devious one that led the rich household to depend upon the referrals from those it had just recently hired.  Hmmmm.  More pondering...

I thought to myself, I thought: wow, this could happen in any industry with a wily group of con men...er con people.

It's fun to watch cons in the movies, "The Sting" and other heists and inside jobs are great entertainment and offer parables to digest.  

But in this movie, it is simply spectacular to watch how one referral leads to another based on a modicum of trust established over just a short time.  An entire family is employed by another, thereby escaping poverty.  Is the lying justified?  (The rich family has no idea that all their staff are blood relatives.)  If they had simply done their work and gone home, the 'white lies' might have been forgiven if or when discovered.

So as I'm writing this piece I associate this con game with unconfessed sin and trying to find the term I was thinking of... I came upon this quote:

Unconfessed sin indisposes us for duty. "Sinful heart makes feeble hand." Duty is enforced by conscience, but when the conscience itself lies in a comatose state, because of the diffused poison of an unconfessed sin, its authority is paralyzed. 

I was actually looking for the phrase 'sin of omission' vs. 'sin of commission'.  And so this is where I stop with the religious thinking and go back to the con game.

How easy it was, in this movie, for a rather unsophisticated and poor but shrewd family to con a sophisticated highly educated well to do group of people!  And the way it was done was through clever manipulation.  The 'plan' was totally devious.  And it got them into further trouble.

The Moral of the Story

The power of referral is the greatest I believe, in our service professions.  When you do good to one, you are believed to be able to do well to another.  One recommends you to another based on the good work you deliver.  You cannot afford to slip one iota, in your dealings with the new client.  The referral you received is of such importance, especially if from a high profile source, that you cannot afford to make mistakes that can be quickly corrected.  That high profile source will not only never refer you again, if you do not live up to an expected standard, but they will likely spread negativity associated with your name.

Because a referral can backfire, especially if you are offering one, you lose your own credibility if the one you refer does not measure up.  For this reason, unless I have seen and experienced myself, and received solid testimony, I am very wary of offering a referral.  The issue becomes more critical as more money and time are involved.  A referral to a mechanic is one thing, to a doctor another.  A mistake can be simple and easy to rectify or it may entail lawsuits!