Frank Bruni characterizes Netflix’s Squid Game as a “portrait of life as a sadistic lottery…and poverty as a hopeless torture chamber. (It is) … a bullet to the soul.” E. Tammy Kim describes it as “a world of violent and macabre desperation.”
The word unredeemable comes to mind when characterizing Squid Game. That said, in less than two months, the South Korean production has become the most-watched Netflix offering ever, and–within ten days of release–it ranked as the #1 Netflix watch in 90 countries.
Popularity aside, spewing blood and gore with personal despair as its stage, Squid Game should shock sensibilities. The backdrop involves backs-against-the-wall contestants putting their lives on the line (literally) for money, playing under the guise of a child’s game. In the opening episode, hundreds of contestants–dressed in prison-like jumpsuits (which, by the way, have become the rage)–are shown in a life or death contest as a shifty-eyed, epic-sized doll shouts “Green Light (to move)! Red Light (to stop)!
Contestants follow her orders, moving forward or stopping in their tracks as a clock counts down the seconds. Guns blaze, and contestants drop (dead), as an overseer watches from the comfort of his distant viewing station, sipping a cold libation all the while. We watch the gory action as we listen to Joo Won Shin perform a big-band arrangement of the popular 1950s/60’s era love song, Fly Me to the Moon.
But there’s no love here. The surreal scene of people being shot to death as the song plays probably has Bart Howard, “Moon’s” songwriter, spinning in this grave.
https://youtu.be/gKpsrKJqDSk
The juxtaposition of an iconic American love song with fallen/piled-up bodies should tell us all we need to know about this nasty brew of a film. But for every person who tells me they have clipped the program from their viewing schedule, another says they’ll keep viewing.
Art imitates life, and writers often base their work on personal experiences. Both assertions apply in this case. First, Screenwriter/director Hwang Dong-hyuk based the story on economic struggles earlier in his life, which he views as his personal experience with the social class divide in South Korea. But how and why this version emerged from his pen is the stuff of which a thousand commentaries are composed. The storyline could have been dramatized in so many other ways, including the horrors that emerge from economic systems that desperately need reform.
But rather than evaluate Squid that way, many people around the world are applauding. Mesmerizing. Has me on the edge of my seat. I can’t wait for the next episode. Concerns? Not really. What’s the harm in watching? It’s entertainment, after all. Fiction. Fantasy. It isn’t real.
Really? Then why this? “Schools are issuing statements to warn parents to keep their children away from the show, as children are starting to act out the games from the show at school. For example, according to CNET, “one school in Belgium is reporting that kids are mimicking the show on the playground, and beating up those who lose the games.” And consider this: there have been 437 deaths by way of mass murders in the U.S., 2021, and 19,380 gun deaths in the U.S., 2020.
That’s real, not fiction. It’s life as we know it.
I do not favor restricting artistic boundaries or censoring content. What bothers me is that Squid Game is not just another production (in a long line of productions) that has achieved niche/cult status. We’re talking mainstream here. It’s what people are viewing and talking about around the world. That’s the most disturbing thing about Squid Game. The camera is on us.
My advice? Turn away and turn it off. Per Bruni, your soul is at stake.
