People Are Missing The Point of Squid Game
Hint: It's not about crab mentality or the inherent evils of humanity
The South Korean drama Squid Game took the world by storm when it was released in September, and it quickly made its way to the impressive position of Netflix's most-watched show ever. And it's not hard to understand why: given the current climate for the entertainment industry — one in which viewers are hungry for fresh content and adequately primed to be more critical of capitalism — it was a safe bet that the show would see some success. Perhaps not this much success, but certainly a modest amount. The success of Parasite, which won the Academy Award for Best Film in 2020, was proof that the world was ready for more such content.
That being said, Squid Game was also definitely a big gamble. There was no guarantee that a South Korean drama, based on South Korean culture and depicting traditional Korean children's games, would do well with international audiences — particularly when its core message was so strongly anti-capitalist. Today, a considerable percentage (if not the majority) of viewers lean left on the political spectrum. But this is far from meaning that the majority of people are anti-capitalist. It would be more accurate to say that those who are actively critical of the capitalist systems remain a minority. So how does one explain the success of the show?
One explanation could be that it has been, and is being, misinterpreted. I cannot make the assertion that most people have misinterpreted the show. But I can say that I have seen considerable amounts of online posts that seem to quite miss the point of the story. Whatever this suggests about those who've watched the show (which is a lot of people), it seems safe to assume that at least a large number of them have failed to recognise the political messages of Squid Game, as evidenced by tweets such as this one:
Or tweets such as this one posted by Twitter user @jenny2x4:
But perhaps the most egregious example of a tweet about Squid Game came from none other than the king of capitalism himself, Jeff Bezos, who tweeted that he "can't wait to watch the show." All of this leaves one wondering, have people really internalised the point of the show? Or is Squid Game this year's Fight Club, a film so thoroughly misunderstood that people still believe it is a glorification of toxic masculinity? This kind of misinterpretation certainly happened to Joker, which was a very self-important film that set out to portray the ways in which society fails certain groups of people, and then succeeded in portraying white narcissistic maniacal men as those victims, thus becoming a beloved symbol for the militant 'incels' who (naturally) saw themselves in the Joker.
Jeff Bezos probably has no intention of watching the show, but I would very much love to hear his thoughts on it if he does, especially considering that people have mocked him by saying that he likely already has his own real-life Squid Game. If he saw it, would he get the point? Or would he miss it completely, the way the unironically tone-deaf Elon Musk did when he claimed that his favourite movie was Parasite?
Beyond its wild success, Squid Game has brought to the forefront the realisation that despite their willingness to consume media from other cultures, audiences today still watch things blindfolded — with that blindfold being made out of a deeply entrenched nihilism that has been thoroughly ingrained into us in Western society over decades (once again, thanks Hollywood! and thanks broken political systems). As the first tweet shows, there are many cynical people (because it is also very much in vogue to be cynical) who seem to believe that Squid Game is about the inherent darkness within each individual. But that could not be further from the truth, as the final episodes demonstrate that this nihilist mindset is in fact the mindset of the villain, who is ultimately proven wrong. The show's bloody violence is probably what appeals to the so-called cynics, but the plot rises above all that brutality to prove that selfishness and greed are not our defining base instincts as human beings. It proves that crab mentality is not what characterises the human race at its core, and posits that crab mentality is in fact a flawed theory because the violence that the poor people inflict on each other in the show only happens due to the machinations of the rich elite who not only created the game, but created the societal circumstances that ultimately lead the poor people to return to play the game despite the deadly stakes. Which is why someone replied to that tweet with:
In a book called The Best Care Possible, physician Ira Byock writes, "anthropologist Margaret Mead was asked by a student what she considered to be the first sign of civilization in a culture. The student expected Mead to talk about fishhooks or clay pots or grinding stones. But no. Mead said that the first sign of civilization in an ancient culture was a 5 femur (thighbone) that had been broken and then healed. Mead explained that in the animal kingdom, if you break your leg, you die. You cannot run from danger, get to the river for a drink or hunt for food. You are meat for prowling beasts. No animal survives a broken leg long enough for the bone to heal. A broken femur that has healed is evidence that someone has taken time to stay with the one who fell, has bound up the wound, has carried the person to safety and has tended the person through recovery. Helping someone else through difficulty is where civilization starts, Mead said. “We are at our best when we serve others. Be civilized.”"
Much like 2015's equally misinterpreted Mad Max: Fury Road, Squid Game is a story about the inherent violence and inhumanity of capitalism, which exploits the individual and idolises the ego above all else, thus birthing cynicism and nihilism in its participants. But it is also a story about how those are external, artificial circumstances that do not, ultimately, define people at their core. Or society, for that matter.
By R. Jordan Ortiz