Social, Economic, & Political Commentaries in Squid Game
⚠️ Warning: This article contains spoilers ⚠️
Squid Game (season 1) is a brilliant work of art infused with thoughtful commentaries on social, economic, and political issues. (It also offers a hidden commentary on Christianity.)
In the story, there’s an old man who is insanely rich and has everything he could ever want. But he gets bored, so he designs a game where 100 impoverished people compete to death in order to have a shot at winning the prize money. There will only be one winner, and all the losers are guaranteed to suffer a gruesome death.
It’s an interesting narrative for sure. Let’s see the commentaries that the writers of the show seem to be making on society.
1. The government is incompetent.
At the police station, the cops are portrayed as incompetent fools.
When the detective escapes the island and calls the police station, his boss doesn’t listen to him and just spouts incompetency.
In the end, the frontman asks, “When have the Korean police ever been quick to do anything?”
The makers of the show seem to be suggesting that the government is a joke.
2. How much is a human life worth?
Whenever a player dies, a sum of money gets added to the giant piggy bank, suggesting that each human life is only worth a certain amount of prize money.
The main character wants to win the money to buy his mom healthcare, yet dozens of people have to die in order for him to get him that money. Is it fair for one person to receive healthcare if dozens have to die in the process? The way that rich people receive life-saving healthcare while poor people don’t suggests that society unfairly values the life of a rich person more than the life of a poor person.
The makers of the show seem to be posing the question of how much a human life is worth. God
3. Money isn’t everything.
By the time the main character wins all the prize money, he feels too guilty to even spend it. He seems to wish he had his friends back rather than having the prize money.
Similarly, the old man says that his wealth sucked the joy and excitement right out of his life.
The makers of the show seem to be suggesting that money isn’t everything. While the contestants were miserable in their poverty, many of them actually had friends and family who made their lives richer.
4. Is equality/fairness really as good as it seems?
The participants in the games were so impoverished that they’d do anything for equality—even risk their lives. They were sick of being victims of inequality. Yet when they joined the games, they realized that equality isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. The games treated them all inhumanely—yet with equality.
The show was filmed in South Korea, where people can witness the socialist/communist framework embraced by their North Korean neighbors. While impoverished people might be attracted to the “equality” offered by socialism and communism, the makers of the show suggest that communist “equality” is never as good as it seems.
