With the new season of Squid Game coming out a few days ago, I feel like it is a perfect time to talk about how we are so hypocritical when it comes to dystopian stories in comparison to real life. Watching the poor and desperate fight and kill each other for the sadistic pleasure and economical gain of the rich is a popular plot line for dystopian shows and movies. We see this in Squid Game, Hunger Games, and in some sense, even The Purge. Although, I didn’t really like The Purge. Storyline was great, but not a fan of how it was all played out. But, this is not a movie review, this article is about how we are already living in a dystopian like world and how we view it in contrast to fictional dystopian worlds. Just to give you a little taste of this article, take Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury for instance. It’s all about banning books. Books are banned everyday, even here in the “land of the free”. But, that’s an obvious one. Perhaps by the end of this stupendous article you can see the connection between even something as unbelievably cruel as Squid Game to our world.
Context
Squid Game is the unfortunate metaphoric retelling of life as we know it under capitalism. It is a Korean dystopian show that took the world by storm in 2021 when it premiered. The story, plain and simply, is one of the rich taking advantage of the desperation of the less fortunate in a series of inhumane versions of Korean childhood games. Basically, if you lose, you die. Every time a person dies, 100 million Korean won is added to the total prize. After every game or so, the remaining players get to democratically vote whether to continue playing the games or leave now and split the current prize money. This leads to the eventual death of 455 people, leaving one to win. It shows the lives of those ruined by debts and loan sharks in South Korea, which at this point is a mini USA. When I had first watched it, I was immediately reminded of Parasite. Remember that movie? The groundbreaking movie that won a total of four Academy Awards. It displayed the lives of the poorest of the poor and the richest of the rich in South Korea and how their differing lives led to the tragic ending of the movie. That may have been a run-on sentence but I think it describes the movie well enough. I feel like this is also a perfect segue to the next section of the article because I truly believe that all those who missed the point of Squid Game need to watch Parasite. Maybe it can help them see beneath the colorful deadly games of Squid Game to the harsh reality of the common folk.
Missed Point
After the massive success of Squid Game, Netflix, as well as YouTubers like Mr. Beast and others, decided to make a reality TV show version of the games, monetizing it for their own personal benefit. How did we miss the point SO BADLY? When I first saw these recreations, I honestly couldn’t believe it. Not because I was surprised, but because I didn’t want to believe that we as a society has decided to get some fun out of the idea of the squid games. Do you know what I mean? Creating a reality TV show spin off of Squid Game was basically mocking the entire storyline. And it just got so much worse once stories from those participating in the reality show version of the games started coming out saying how badly they were treated on set:
If you don’t know what I’m talking about, many of those who participated in the reality show came out and talked about the harsh conditions they were kept in as well as their awful food situation. I’m not going to go too into it but it’s definitely worth a Google search. But back to the main point…
While there was a lot of skepticism to the recreation of the games, there was also a lot of viewership. Just looking at the views of these shows and how long the Netflix game show stayed in the Top 10 Most Watched tells you exactly how the show came off to SO MANY people. It this cool dystopian show that had lovable characters for you to get attached to and root for. As someone who enjoys watching dystopian shows and movies, this culture of romanticizing them is just plain crazy. I feel like Hunger Games is a great example of this. I watched the entire movie franchise plus the recent prequel and I will watch the next movie when it comes out. BUT, it is not because it’s a story that is interesting and fun with characters I like, but because of the real word connections and how the protagonist actually wins. It is always a great when resistance against the capital wins, even if its fictional. People who watch the Hunger Games feel the same way. But, the feeling isn’t mutual when we talk about it in real life. Thats where the problems is.
Contradictory
When you feel yourself rooting for Katniss from Hunger Games or Seong Gi-hun (player 456) from Squid Game, does it ever cross your mind that you are rooting for resistance and revolution? For example, in the the second season Squid Game, there was a long scene where many of the players grabbed the guns of the guards, trying to kill the front man and everyone else that has been controlling them. Being the viewers, watching comfortably from our homes, or in my case, the school library during lunch, we of course root for the players. We root for those resisting against the rich and the powerful. I’m sure you feel the same way because it is easy to support a revolution when it is fiction. There is nothing that you are risking and there is nothing “controversial” about it. “Revolution hell ya Katniss kill President Snow!” At the same time, we are living in a world where the word “intifada”, according to main stream media, is used amongst “terrorists”. Intifada is Arabic for revolution by the way. We are watching Palestinians be labeled as terrorists for resisting and surviving a genocide that has been going on since 1948. We are watching protesters here in the United States of America being gassed, beat, and arrested for being against our governments support for an apartheid state. But when it comes to TV, we should all root for resistance, right? Will you only support revolution when it’s fictional?
Poor killing other Poor People
Here’s another way to think of it: poor people fighting and killing each other for the entertainment and bloodlust of the rich and powerful is the basic storyline Squid Game. When you think about it, it sounds a lot like war right? Sure, greed for land and oil also plays a role in war but when you think about who are the ones dying in overwhelming majority, a lot of pieces start to click. Just like the players in Squid Game, those entering the military are promised certain things if they survive and come out. I won’t start the conversation about how that system is corrupt but I’m sure you get the point.
Conclusion
I’m hoping this is all making sense now. Anyways, think about it, watch the dystopian genre, and learn from the rebels. Okay bye.