Squid Game, an Allegory of Brutal Capitalism & Humanity
“Survival of the Fittest” — perhaps this quote from Principles of Biology (1864) by Herbert Spencer would be suitable to describe the overall symbolic message implied in Netflix's new series, Squid Game. This Korean thriller series recently has been filling our social media timelines. Even when this article is written, Squid Game is still perched at no. 1 most-watched series on Netflix Indonesia.
For the premise itself, honestly Squid Game may seem a bit cliché. It tells the story of 456 people who are all in debt, then they are given the rare opportunity by a secret organization to compete in children’s traditional games and the winner will bring home 45,6 billion won (554,4 billion rupiah). Yup, it sounds like survival game genre in general which the winner takes it all, but the loser has to die…
But for me, Hwang Deong-hyuk as a director was pretty successful to leave a deep message as a sarcastic series. More than just a bloody thriller, throughout the episode, Hwang Deong-hyuk wants to imply a symbol of social criticism of inequality and morality, although through a fairly brutal depiction.
If you remember the main character’s journey, Seong Gi-hun, unemployed man, addicted to gambling, too busy looking for debt from one person to another. The need for money for his mother’s surgery made him to participate in the bloody game orchestrated by the rich. He and the rest of players have to compete desperately to finish game after game while the special audience, known as VIPs are enjoying watch, laugh, amused while placing bets on each player. It’s an allegory of capitalism that smacks the reality of how the proletariat continue to be exploited by the bourgeoisie which ironically controls the wheels of capitalism itself. This is assuredly a reality not only in Korean society but in ours as well.
In Indonesia itself, the economic gap is still clearly visible in the community. Poverty is getting worse. Badan Pusat Statistik (BPS) noted that the number of poor people in Indonesia in March 2021 had reached 27,54 million people. That number makes the poverty rate reached 10,14 % of the total national population, and it is been widely known that the poor cannot access the best quality of health care for their illness.
Humanity is also the main theme that Hwang Deong-hyuk as the director was trying to address. Squid Game seems to be trying to make a comparison between human egoism and human altruism. The inner conflict is probably the most obvious in the characters of Sang-Woo and Gi-hun. These two characters contradict each other. Sang-woo is described as a selfish character, justifies any means to achieve his egoistic goals.
In contrast to San-woo, the altruistic Gi-hun makes him a more humanist character, although I personally think he tends to be so naive. If you remember the last scene when he met Oh Il-nam who was dying, and they made the last bet. Oh Il-nam final bet with Seong was a far-reaching element because it showed that the whole assumption of human egoism was not true. Others do not always act in their own self-interest.
Another spectacular symbolism that has been brought by the director was the game itself. If you are asking why the director uses Korean traditional games such as ‘Red Light Green Light’, ‘Squid Game’, ‘Ttakji’ that tend to be a simple game, well, those games are children's games, it was usually played in the alleys. But actually, these game teaches the logic of survival of the fittest. Which everyone needs to know in order to survive in this brutal capitalist society.
