Squid Game arrived on Netflix last year and was the biggest hit in the streamer’s history. It’s the story of a group of people so miserable and determined to get out of debt they’re ready to put their lives on the line by playing a series of children’s games made by a group of rich douchebags excited to see these poor fighting to the death.
Lee Jung-Jae told The Guardian, “I’m happy about it, of course, but it’s bittersweet,”…… “Yes, it’s great that audiences are consuming Korean content around the world. And they appreciate it. But if you think about the themes of Squid Game–how far are we willing to go to accumulate personal wealth; the lengths people are forced to go to–the fact it resonated with so many around the world is worrying. You get a sense this is the reality for so many people globally. And that makes me feel hugely sad.”
Hollywood usually does not get the point of the material it’s selling to people. For example, Netflix is building up a Squid Game reality show where one lucky winner will be given a $4.56 million prize. Obviously, they won’t be killing the contestants who lose the games, but the point of these games was to bring out the exploitative and the product of a broken economic system.
People will still watch Squid Game season 2 whenever it is released. And it is good that the show became so popular in the U.S. despite being made in a foreign language; Lee Jung-Jae himself came to be the first person to win an Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series for a non-English role and was also the first Asian man to win that honor. “The world is moving closely together,” he said. “We’re seeing an increase in the exchanges between countries, and increased understanding. And we’ve realised that in art and culture, language needn’t be the first priority.”
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