My three favourite messages from ‘Squid Game’
Yes, there are spoilers, so if you haven’t watched it yet, there’s something to do for the next 9 hours.
Squid Game has been lauded across the world, quickly becoming Netflix’s most watched series of all time, with its most popular episode being watched over 7 times more than the most popular Game of Thrones episode. And apart from all the obsession with how good-looking the cast was, and theories for what might happen in Season 2, I was most interested in:
What makes it so popular?
While I don’t think I have the answer, I would say something of quite large interest to most watching is how relatable the characters in the show are — how intimately we’re drawn in by the behaviours of individuals who are pushed to the edge with the need to fight for their lives, rather than the glamorous, glorified lives of reality shows and rom-coms we’ll never be able to emulate.
As such, I thought it would be fitting to provide my thoughts into where Squid Game crosses over into our own lives, and some lessons it teaches us about competition in general.
1. Capitalism turns us all into rivals
At the forefront of the show is the contrasting characterisation of Sang-woo and Gi-hun. Sang-woo, an ex-investment banker, embraces the finance archetype and taking the opportunity to turn on the rest of the players at every turn. From the first game to last, Sang-woo is unwavering in his spirit and commitment to taking the money home with him:
We have to kill everyone anyway to leave with that money. (Episode 8)
In stark contrast is Gi-hun, an employed gambler who lives on the brink of poverty, keeping his morals close by in every game. Even in the final game, Gi-hun’s mind is set on giving everything up, just so he can save another player:
She [067] was alive, and she could have been saved. (Episode 9)
Split in their personality, the marble game in the Gganbu episode unites them both in needing to conquer those closest to them, or die trying. It is here, that Hwang suggests that irrespective of the individual, rivalry within a capitalist structure is unavoidable, and perhaps more importantly, that this rivalry is usually against those closest to us.
Players’ actions seem to represent what it takes to ‘get ahead’ in a game or economic system predicated on competition and beating one’s peers — betrayal, when Sang-woo tricks Ali into handing his marbles over; deceit, when Gi-hun exploits Il-nam’s fake Alzheimer’s and most devastatingly; sacrifice, when Ji-hyeong forcibly loses the game and parts with her new friend, Sae-byeok.
As Roxana Hadadi puts it:
Hwang makes plain how the demands and disappointments of capitalism inspire and enforce the selfishness that the economic system requires for living within it.
Even without direct rivalry in many of the games, Hwang makes it glaringly obvious that it’s not just the VIPs or the organisers of the game who are to blame for the deaths — for any of the players to get by and have a chance at succeeding, they too must be complicit in the massacre of their ‘peers’, sharing the guilt of those who organised the game.
Most interestingly, Gi-hun’s characterisation as an archetypal ‘sweetheart’ who would not seem to hurt a fly, is contradicted through subtle actions he pursues throughout the series, even outside of the game. Early in the show we see that he is an avid gambler — an activity which (by and large) depends on chance and transfers wealth from one party to another, and we also see how he betrays his gganbu in the marble game. In the final episode, Gi-hun and Il-nam’s final interaction involves yet another game, where, after he realises he was correct, the former exclaims:
Did you see that? Did you see that I won? (Episode 9)
As if to make the point that rivalry in all forms is inescapable just one last time, Hwang’s cliff-hanger involves Gi-hun — one who now has the freedom to finally see his family once more, choosing to re-enter the game to take vengeance, surrendering himself to a never-ending game.
Indeed, this speaks volumes not only about rivalry and competition between individuals, but more relevantly for our societies, between countries, organisations and groups in general, where success is often defined not as how one overcomes their own self, but the extent to which they can conquer their enemies and make them suffer.
2. Choice in a broken system is merely a guise
When the players enact the clause which allows them to leave the game if the majority agrees, Hwang constructs an illusion of choice for us to reflect on — for the indebted players to return into society and face the mire of poverty and shame, or re-enter the game and have their chance at redeeming themselves financially and hopefully, morally.
This illusion is epitomised by Sang-woo’s suicide attempt. Despite seeming to be the outlier in the pool of indebted outcasts, his resort to poisoning himself allegorises the struggle of the lower and middle classes in a capitalist society to transcend their strife — while it seems like he has a choice to play the game and face an almost certain death, or live to fight another day on the outside, both are demonstrated to result in the same sorry ending.
It is through Sang-woo’s reality (and his peers’), that Hwang presents the choice of playing the game as a decoy — most players return to the game because they are shunned by the society which marginalises them in the first place, with the Squid Game providing them one last chance at ‘re-entering’ a society they would never fit into otherwise.
Why is this at all relevant? Many marginalised groups often face a similar illusion of choice where they seem to be given an option to free themselves from the subjugation they suffer — but the reality is that in a system that fails them, choice is merely a deceitful pathway into what usually ends up resulting in a similar plight for the oppressed. Here are some examples I thought of, but feel free to comment your own:
People in poverty
Those in poverty who are offered the choice to receive public housing or unemployment benefits if they actively seek work, while the system does not allow them to pursue meaningful education or a long term career, thus usually not being able to free themselves from the shackles of their financial strife
Ex-convicts re-entering society
Those in prison who are given the option to apply for parole, while society still scorns their actions heavily, failing to provide them meaningful social connection and work, to the point where the institutionalised ex-convicts are forced to re-offend simply to return their new ‘home’ — jail (if you’re interested in this, I would strongly recommend watching The Shawshank Redemption, which, much like this series, speaks to the perils of an individual being forced into a society they simply are not conducive to thriving within)
Choice feminism
Choice feminism is the ideology that if provided with an adequate set of choices, women are able to free themselves from any form of patriarchal oppression (of course, this realistically extends to any oppressed minority). The contradiction here, is that this is often an illusion of choice — women making choices under the guise of being ‘free’ and ‘empowered’ are often doing so in a system that is simply not conducive to their freedom and empowerment. Consider an example that might be a little bit closer to home for some of the students reading — many firms in male dominated corporate industries (e.g. consulting, banking, corporate law) often hire 30–50% of women at a graduate level, often taking affirmative action to ensure that women are just as cognisant of competitive graduate opportunities that were typically taken by men, say 10–20 years ago.
This seems to provide women with a reasonable choice of what career path they want to pursue — the contradiction, however, is that when women enter these industries which, at a senior leadership level, is dominated by men, they fail to see role models such that they are inspired to pursue progression within these companies themselves. In another word, the structure in which these female graduates work, seems to be averse to their progression, thus making the provision of such choices less effectual in the first place. It is through this illusion of choice, that we can see why even though women come into companies at ratios which are commendable, senior partnerships in large firms are often held by men, not to mention, from very similar cultural and demographic backgrounds.
A similar logic can be applied to female progression in any male dominated field (engineering, large corporates, etc.), where the provision of abundant choice for women to pursue their own career path overlooks the obvious behavioural biases of (usually) men who would less commonly promote women into senior positions, perpetuating a cycle that is incredibly difficult to vanquish.
As Jennifer Chang writes so poetically:
Squid Game represents the razor-thin edge of the “choices” that marginalised communities are forced to navigate in a world that isn’t built for them to succeed (and in many ways is relentlessly hostile toward them). The choice to sink or swim is a false one: No one mentions that the waters are infested with sharks, or that the shore is quicksand.
3. Sometimes, you just need a bit of luck
Of all the cruelty in the show, Hwang waves hard work and skill in the audience’s face as insignificant in the face of something else — luck.
Think about the game which eliminates the highest proportion of its players. The Glass Bridge seems to punish players for factors which are completely out of control — consider the player who elects to go first, who would have no way of knowing that he would be disadvantaged in this game (quite possibly, Gi-hun could have been in the same position). It is here, that Hwang tells us that irrespective of how loyal, kind, strong, intelligent, experienced or subservient one is, chance spares no one.
Once in the game, regardless of what background the players come from, they are united by one thing and one thing only — chance.
Each and every one of you is considered an equal within the walls of this facility. You must be granted the same opportunities without being disadvantaged or facing any kind of discrimination.
The ability of chance to determine one’s fate in life plays into Hwang’s allegory quite well — those in the lower classes are united in their battle not against those who are subjugating them, but against each other. Ultimately, success is guaranteed not for the intelligent, or the moral, or the educated, but for the hyper-rich — those who watch on, controlling our every move and enjoying our struggles voyeuristically, and it is through this that they will continue to perpetuate this oppression, without any ability of having this power taken from them.
So, the next time you ask yourself — ‘Why is this happening to me?’, the answer might be a plain old boring: ‘For no reason at all’. Much of where we are in our lives is because of sheer coincidence — in the case of Squid Game, many of the players who make it to the last round share nothing in common, other than the fact that they were ridiculously lucky. If you’re complaining about the afflictions of your horrible life, just remember, there’s someone who was in an identical position to yours who might not have the opportunity to move forward and try again. Don’t take it for granted.
So… is this all just overthinking it?
Notwithstanding the above, many will make the argument that an overhyped, gory Korean drama cannot possibly be paralleled with capitalist, or for that matter, any society at all. But I would say, that whether you consider the show as Hwang’s elegant allegory of South Korea’s pursuit of excess and perspective on what happens to those who are left behind, or simply a series of games where the focus should be simply on the game itself and what happens to those who are in debt — that it doesn’t matter.
Perhaps the most brilliant trait of Squid Game, attracting hundreds of millions of viewers, heated debate online and thousands of articles, is how closely the behaviours of the characters represent an actual system where economic agents are acting in their own self-interest, competing against each other to ‘win’ the game. Regardless of if you see the above points as representative of any economic scenario that manifests across the globe is irrelevant — Hwang’s ability to interweave the game with such honest human behaviour allows the audience to introspect into how, much like the games, capitalism pushes us to our competitive boundaries, producing the best and worst of humanity in the process.
So, while Squid Game’s stellar acting, eye-grabbing theatrics and brilliant narrative deserves ample praise, I believe our largest applaud should go out to the series for giving us an unfettered look at the behaviours humans resort to when fighting for their lives against each other, and for how relatable we find these behaviours are, to our very own lives.
