Only three months after its North American debut, sophomore cinema major Jason Porteous is one among sixty students enrolled in a class on Bong Joon-ho’s multi-Oscar-nominated Parasite.
Held in Lecture Hall 10, behind locked doors and a wall of fire extinguishable only if you can recite the Criterion Collection’s privacy policy, no student nor the course’s as yet unknown professor have responded to the numerous posters and graffiti around the classroom’s entrance, all querying “how so fucking fast?”
“The Reddit [SPOILERS] discussion thread just wasn’t cutting the mustard,” Porteous said, fingering the cowl of his cowl-neck hoodie. “Parasite’s one of those films you can’t help but discuss in survey format via an elective reserved just for us, cinemaphiles. So maybe I willed the class into existence and that’s how ‘so fucking fast’ it came to be. Hey, did you know Joon-ho has a beloved terrier named Zzuni? We’re pulling the raffle next class to see who gets to legally rename themselves that.”
The tri-weekly course is split into three-hour lectures and a four-hour discussion, with one trip down to the Regal every Friday.
“We don’t rewatch the film, no. We just circle up and philosophize about it vaguely outside the theater.”
Binghamton University administrative officials declined to comment on the current and/or future existence of the class.