On September 17th, 2021, the indie show ““Squid Game”” was made available to the public on Netflix. It immediately rose to the top of every chart in terms of viewership and public interest. It seemed as though the entire internet hyper-fixated on this work for the better part of a couple of months, and when seasons two and three came out, that same hype came surging back. With so much attention pointed toward a single work of art, one would think that the general public would come to understand what Hwang Dong-hyuk was trying to communicate when he took up directing the show. On its face, “Squid Game” is about a competition in which 456 people compete in a deadly competition for a life-changing monetary prize. 455 people die, and one character, Syong Gi-hun, comes out as the sole survivor and victor. There is a greater narrative beyond this story, a narrative of class struggle and desperation that parallels many struggles that the working people of South Korea live with daily. The point is not that people willingly chose this, but that they felt driven towards this ominous game because they have no way out of the personal hell they are living in every day.
An argument that is often made is that these people are in these poor financial situations because of decisions they have made, such as Gi-hun’s severe gambling problem. This is true in some of the characters’ cases, but not all of them. Ali Abdul is a Pakistani migrant worker who joined the game to provide for his family after his employer withheld his wages for months on end. Cho Hyun-ju is a transgender woman and former special forces soldier who joined because she cannot afford gender-affirming surgery. Park Gyeong-seok joins out of desperation to treat his daughter’s blood cancer. None of these people are shown to have personal character flaws that put them in these desperate situations. These are only a few of a plethora of character examples that indicate a larger theme, a theme that states that the Squid Games do not just target people who are bad with money, but rather victims of a larger system that denies the working person basic rights. It is an allegory for the economic state of South Korea and even the larger world.
Mr. Beast, or Jimmy Donaldson, is the most popular and successful YouTuber of all time. He has mastered the algorithm and harnessed it to bring about success for himself and the people associated with him. He has characterized himself as an individual who is constantly work-focused and centered on creating something even bigger than his last project. One of the things that Mr. Beast does best is following trends. At some point during the height of its popularity, Donaldson watched “Squid Game” and wanted to recreate it in real life. This idea reached its fruition in the Amazon Prime Video exclusive series titled “Beast Games.” The show became Prime Video’s second-largest series of 2024, behind “Fallout.” Although critics gave it less than favorable reviews, the general public seemed to love it. A large controversy surrounding “Beast Games” was the reported horrific treatment of its contestants. There were complaints about the denial of food, water, medication and beds. Various injuries took place, as well as numerous reports of general mistreatment and sexual harassment. Donaldson’s team allowed contestants to back out for a small cash prize, a prize that many declined because it simply was not enough. While it is not a direct parallel – Jimmy Donaldson did not kill anyone on his show, although a portion of a tower exterior did fall on a crew member at one point – both “Squid Game” and “Beast Games” show individuals of lower financial standing putting themselves through nightmarish conditions for a shot at escaping the current financial situation they are in. As followers of Christ, it is unacceptable for us to be so unaware of an injustice as ironic as this one. This not only speaks to our collective inability to understand the messaging of the media we consume, but also our complete unawareness of injustices happening right in front of our eyes.
