Us as viewers are the real villains of Squid Game
Squid Game — the popular South Korean Netflix Original — has already become the most successful non-English language show on Netflix, with it projected to be Netflix’s most popular show ever. To break this down, we have to analyse why it’s so popular.
Many have praised Squid Game for it’s creativity and originality, as well as the overall content quality about how this show hooks you, which I agree with. This show is intriguing, and truly surprised me how much I enjoyed it. But why? I don’t even enjoy horror films or shows and the style of horror films and tv shows often feel pointless to me and the plot feels weird, or it’s all just a bit too much. So why have I, and so many others, enjoyed Squid Game?
The show isn’t really that original when you think about it, several movies such as Hunger Games and Circle have previously touched on the idea of game style events to slaughter people for the notion of “fun”. This kind of media isn’t that uncommon, and “blood sport” has been a common theme in TV shows and Movies since the Japanese 2000 movie Battle Royale. Both link their violence to state fascism and Squid Game’s plotline of poor people being killed for the amusement of the rich can even be found in the 1983 movie Hard Target.
I think what separates Squid Game is choice. Hunger Games, for example, gives participants no choice to compete, whilst in Squid Game, we see poor and desperate citizens of South Korea willingly compete in the games for the potential reward of money in the hope to improve their lives. Without spoilers, participants are given the choice at any time and this particularly plays out both at the start of the games, and after the first game. It’s the element of choice that intrigues us, the notion to choose to compete because life outside the arena is a comparison to “Hell”. I am sure many viewers also saw the comparison of their own societies beyond Korea and related to this show.
When the VIPs are introduced in the show, we are shown the idea that people are competing in these survival games purely for entertainment value for the amusement of wealthy VIPs. We are meant to find this violence repulsive and exploitative, the behaviour of those who pay for it and organise it irredeemable.
Despite this, we sit here, as viewers, binging on the bloodfest, gobbling every episode up and enjoying the evil genius of the games. This whole thing is a trick for us viewers, demanding a reflection on the reality of horror, murder and atrocities as entertainment.
That’s why Squid Game is so popular. Whether we watch in horror or delight, we are the ones in control — the lucky ones, shall we say — we are granted the power of life or death over content, armed only with a remote control in the comfort of our houses.
Us viewers are the villains of the story, because we too are watching for entertainment. We are the VIPs.
