Hey guys, remember squid game?
I remember how in 2021 it was a massive sensation, mostly because it was grades above most of the Netflix originals produced then, with the few competitors being Love Island and Stranger Things. Even wine aunts would mention in casual passing, despite the show being Korean.
What got me is how you had leftoids like Agent Kochinski praising Squid Game as some anti-capitalist woke show. Excuse me?
I bothered to watch the first season, and I can’t tell you with how much it sucked. Before going into why Squid Game isn’t communist, I’ll give a simple review of the series and why it’s not woke.
The show, as you can guess, is about a bunch of people who for various reasons decide to compete in a deadly reality show full of games and competition for huge amounts of cash, with the games being broadcasted to a shadowy elite cabal made of the ultra rich. Sounds leftist, right? Well, except it’s not.
For starters, the show has no class analysis + the most popular character (and main female contestant in the plot) is a Nork fugitive in the story. As for progressive values c. 2021 standards? Nope.
The only LGBT+ representation is some ultrarich guy trying to rape one of his masked male servants, the MCs are heterosexual men, all the main female characters get their way via sex appeal or psychological manipulation as opposed to via Grl power, and the only brown/black character is a Pakistani contestant and immigrant worker to South Korea that gets betrayed and killed in the most cold-blooded way imaginable.
The problem with trying to apply any leftist narrative onto the series is that the show is so generic with its message that you could apply to any given situation. Greed, plutocracy, and desperation due to poverty? That shit exists in AES countries as well, it’s not exclusive to capitalism, and I bet the creators leaned towards the show being anti-capitalist just to chase clout back when Tumblr idpol pseudo-Marxism was en vogue during the BLM era. I guess there’s a generic message about greed, but that’s about it because this k-drama ain’t that deep. But if that’s the case, why not have the series be about people combing back for more as more money is dumped for the rewards? And that’s where I get into the plot and why I think it’s asinine.
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