Okja: Rural Nightmares and Super Pigs

Photo of pigs on a farm that mirrors the prototype pigs in the film Okja Wikimedia Commons.

I spent my formative years watching my community suffer from economic hardship and environmental degradation—but that’s not what most people tend to envision when they hear that I’m from rural Vermont. The multifaceted challenges faced by rural American communities are completely foreign to most of my peers, but how could they not be? The complexities of rural life go unaddressed all too often in global media, so for those who do not live in or spend much time engaging with communities like mine, it’s as if the truths that dominated the latter half of my childhood don’t even exist. The modern media landscape is a definitively urban one, and the few rural-oriented stories that do exist tend to be superficial or incomplete portrayals at best. This urban-centric storytelling reflects a creative cityscape that marginalizes rural narratives and overlooks the lived experiences of rural communities. 

There are very few works of media that depart from this norm, but there are perhaps none that do so quite as powerfully as Bong Joon-ho's 2017 masterpiece, Okja. Since its release, Okja has been interpreted primarily within the context of animal cruelty, and while that reading isn’t untrue, defining the film by this sole characterization fails to recognize the radical opportunity the movie presents for rural discourse. Through real-life parallels addressing corporate greed and environmental exploitation, Okja offers an alternate, more nuanced space to analyze the issues of international rural plight, and ultimately serves as a proxy to tackle these pressing problems. In providing this space, Okja exposes the reality of rural plight and reveals more genuine possibilities for rural awareness and advocacy on the global stage.

At the center of Okja lies the ruthless Mirando Corporation, a company hellbent on genetically engineering an advanced breed of pig that would provide the world with cheap, high-quality meat products. After placing these prototype “super pigs” in various environments to see where might be most hospitable, prominent Mirando spokesperson and zoologist, Dr. Johnny Wilcox (played with extreme nuttiness by Jake Gyllenhaal), ultimately discovers one of these so-called ‘Okja’ pigs thriving in rural China, secretly under the care of a young girl. Despite the girl's determination to protect her beloved animal, Mirando immediately seizes the pig, tearing it away from her and forcibly bringing it to a meat harvesting plant for testing. 

These blatant, immoral tactics highlight the corporate degradation of animal life, yes, but also simultaneously draw an eerie parallel to rural degradation—and not just metaphorically. Okja’s fictional megacorporation Mirando is almost certainly an intentional mirror of the very real American agrochemical and agricultural biotech corporation Monsanto. For years, Monsanto has genetically modified organisms like soybeans in order to gain control of the U.S. seed market. As of 2022, the corporation controls 90 percent of soybean seeds available in the U.S. Because of the company’s monopoly on the market, farmers—who often serve as the lifelines of rural communities—are locked into cycles of debt and seed dependency, unable to save or resell excess seeds due to highly restrictive contracts. These contracts exemplify the profit-driven system in which Monsanto operates, while simultaneously reducing farmers to mere cogs. Crossing fictional bounds, these rural restrictions can be seen manifesting themselves in the commodification of the Okja pigs, which are rounded up, sold, and ultimately restricted in a preventative way that eerily resembles rural farmers. This cycle is self-sustaining and firmly enforced, leading to the inevitable degradation of rural farms. 

In making this connection, Okja inherently carries the mantle of political medium and creates a unique space to openly address rural plight. Okja elicits visceral reactions from audiences in response to its brutal portrayal of animal abuse, but because the film explicitly ties itself to rural exploitation in the same breath, it subtly forces audiences to view rural plight with the same empathy and horror as they do the "Okja" pigs. Given the instinctual recoil that characterizes the general public’s response to animal abuse, as evidenced by reviews of this very film, Okja makes a case to incite the same reaction to rural abuse. Drawing this parallel allows for the creation of a greater space in which rural advocacy can be not only acknowledged but also actualized. 

As the plot of Okja progresses, audiences are exposed to the full extent of Mirando’s sinister nature. In the film, their “Okja” meatpacking plants are riddled with immoral practices. Joon-Ho portrays in stark detail the dark, dirty, and utterly terrifying nature of these death factories, instilling a sense of fear in the film's viewers and ultimately creating a strong feeling of empathy towards the real animals that suffer at the hands of the meatpacking industry. But the impacts of large-scale meat production span far and wide, almost as devastating to the environment as it is to the animal populations it decimates. This intense environmental degradation has severe consequences for rural communities in particular. For example, pig farming operations in North Carolina—similar to those in Okja—have long inflicted incredible harm on local rural communities. Whether caused by untreated hog waste, open-air lagoons, or excrement pits, the issues that stem from these practices are environmental and detrimental, from widespread water pollution to sharp decreases in air quality. As a result, these largely low-income communities experience a vastly diminished quality of life alongside weakened environmental infrastructure.

Real meatpacking operations, run by companies such as JBS and Tyson Foods, continue to wreak environmental havoc across the rural Midwest today, seven years after the film’s release. Be it through waterway pollution or the destruction of local ecosystems, the track records of these corporate entities paint a clear picture of the irreversible harm done to our environment. Given the similarities between Mirando's ethics–or lack thereof–and those of real-life corporations, the film’s depiction of a faceless corporation as a key antagonist is not just an act of activism against animal cruelty, but a critique of how systemic exploitation in industries like agriculture, biotechnology, and meatpacking devastates rural communities. Joon-ho invites audiences to think critically about the intersectionality of these issues, pushing for a broader advocacy movement that includes not just animal rights but also the rights of rural farmers, the preservation of rural environments, and the protection of rural life itself. By centering these overlapping struggles, Okja elevates the conversation around rural activism, exposing the shared vulnerabilities between animals and rural communities while calling for systemic change that values humanity and sustainability. 

Okja, however, does not end here, with little to offer save for a cruel corporation ruining countless lives. Instead, the film purposefully includes numerous characters whose primary purpose is to combat Mirando and get rid of its immoral practices, meaning the movie itself demonstrates what successful advocacy could look like. As members of the fictional Animal Liberation Front (ALF), these activists act as both disruptors and truth-tellers, revealing the mechanisms of corporate exploitation while simultaneously offering a blueprint for resistance. Through covert operations (from planting recording devices onto the main Okja to expose the horrors of Mirando’s slaughterhouses to disrupting Mirando’s public parade), the ALF unveils the brutality hidden beneath Mirando’s corporate sheen. By linking this display of unethical corporate parallels and pairing it with the resistance efforts of the main cast, Bong Joon-Ho encourages audiences to imagine collective resistance—resistance that has historically displayed success for rural advocacy. 

For example, the Rural Community Assistance Corporation (RCAC) and Rural Community Assistance Partnership (RCAP) led a decade-long advocacy campaign culminating in the passage of the Regional Water System Resiliency Act, which became law on July 1, 2023. In response to urgent water infrastructure needs in rural New Mexico, the two bodies built coalitions among community leaders, utility operators, and state agencies, engaged lawmakers, and raised public awareness. Through persistent lobbying, community input, and support from foundations, they secured a transformative law fostering collaboration and long-term sustainability in water systems–all a byproduct of the power of rural advocacy, displaying humanity’s capability in standing up for rural communities. Indeed, these efforts were in response to an issue traceable back to organizations like Monsanto, whose historical usage of Glyphosate (in the farming product ‘Roundup’) and Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs) caused various water contamination issues in the Midwest. By juxtaposing the damage caused by exploitative corporations with the collective resistance necessary to confront them—paralleling the real-world dynamics between RCAP and Monsanto—Okja urges its audience to recognize their own agency in advocating for rural communities and environmental justice, and their possibility in spearheading initiatives that could result in successes such as The Regional Water System Resiliency Act. In looking at this showcase, it's clear that the film doesn’t just invite empathy; it calls for informed, intentional action that parallels real-world successes in rural advocacy. 

Bong Joon-Ho's Okja unapologetically confronts the harsh realities of corporate meatpacking and the industry’s innate cruelty towards animals, but it also presents a medium to discuss rural plight and the potential for advocacy centered around it. Through an allegorical lens, Okja proves to be more than just another “stop eating meat” film—it is rather a direct call to action for its viewers. Within its cautionary message, Okja provides a blueprint for collective rural advocacy. This global platform for advocacy not only brings many of the realities of rural experiences to light but also creates a roadmap that invites audiences to imagine how advocacy informed by truth-telling, collective organizing, and sustained pressure can lead to solutions that defend vulnerable rural communities and secure a more equitable future.

Kallen Zborovsky-Fenster (CC ’28) is a staff writer for CPR. He is a freshman studying History, Political Science, and Film. In his free time, he enjoys trying new cuisines, going to the cinema, and playing pickup basketball.