You have either watched it, are watching it, are about to watch it, or are rolling your eyes at every mention of it. Yup, I’m talking about Netflix’s Squid Game. Much like the players in the games themselves, you can’t escape it. From the endless memes on Instagram to real-life conversations, Squid Game is everywhere. This Korean drama has taken the world by storm, reaching number one on Netflix in 94 countries. It was the first Korean title to reach the top spot in the United States. Something about this show has had millions of eyes glued to the screen. What is it?
*Warning: This article contains spoilers about Netflix’s Squid Game.*
When I first heard about Squid Game, I was not expecting to want to watch it in the slightest. Then I read a synopsis of the first episode, and the concept of the show was shocking enough to pull me in. That’s what I think Squid Game excels at on the surface: shocking its audience. The show’s overall concept — innocent civilians entering a game show with the promise of prize money only to realize that elimination = death — is gruesome and terrible. We don’t want to look but we also can’t look away. There is a dystopian aura that envelopes the world of Squid Game, with anonymous showrunners and masked killers that make viewers question where humanity has gone.
The tension in each episode is heart-pounding. Once we know that our main characters face imminent death, any scene has the potential to be a stomach-churning one. What intensifies Squid Game is the fact that the show dips below its vile surface to reveal the personal lives of each character. We aren’t merely watching a show about people who die when they fail to complete a challenge. We are watching people at their absolute lowest put their lives on the line to try to salvage the little hope they have left at a better life. The characters extract empathy from us, heightening the shock we feel when we see a wealthier class treat them like board game pieces. The class symbolism in this show may be blatant, but it is extremely effective and relevant.
Although this show comes out of Korea, with heavy Korean cultural and societal themes, the show’s main points can be understood globally. The storylines of a poor father, a mistreated immigrant worker, and a sister trying to provide a better life for her younger brother are all universally empathized with. Even watching with subtitles or with a dub, we grimace at the explicit organ harvesting, we hold our breath at the deadly version of tug-of-war, we wince at the elimination gunshots, and we cry at the characters’ relationships with each other. Squid Game takes huge ideas and packs them into one deadly game show. It’s intense, it’s shocking, and it leaves you wide-eyed. It’s something that just makes you want to talk about with as many people as possible.
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