Squid Game — not a localized phenomenon

I think that Squid Game has translated well in the United States. While many might argue that Squid Game translated well because of its’ shock value and memorability, I argue that Squid Game translated well the United States because it mirrors and symbolizes their struggle under capitalism, and instead to rise above to instead wield capitalism to achieve the fabled “American Dream”. To elaborate, Squid Game focuses only on the successes portrayed in the show. This is similar to how there is the notion of the American Dream, and how anybody can get rich as long as they work hard enough. However, just like how we only focus on the successes, we ignore the 99 percent of those who do not make it. For example, many attest that college isn’t useful or necessary to strike it rich because Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard. However, what these people tend to ignore is that these two dropped out of college because they had already started businesses and realized that they didn’t need a college education anymore. Whether it was luck or hard work, people who state college is useless to use these two as examples for why college is useless, yet they purposefully ignore the thousands if not hundreds of thousands who dropped out of college and did not achieve such shining success. Squid game depicts this notion by only focusing on the main character while paying no regard to the families of those who have lost their lives during the course of the game. Similar to our fixation on the American dream, the show focuses on the survivor while ignoring the overwhelming number of losers.

Another reason is that Squid Game is presented as a fair game, and to reinforce this notion a cheater was publicly executed to show no tolerance for cheating. While on the surface this may look good, it shows how the rich and powerful attempt to warp the idea of fairness. Who cares whether the game itself is fair when rich people bet on the contestants’ lives just like racehorses? It sounds pretty degrading to treat these contestants as means to an end and to pit them against each other in a game of life and death for the enjoyment of the rich. Relating to how viewers in the US see society, they may also see that they are contestants in the Squid Game. While there is a promise of the “American Dream” being attainable by everyone, and how the system is fair, it truly is not. The rich have a huge leg up when it comes to achieving the American Dream. While they promise that everybody has an equal chance, studies have shown that is not the case. Similar to how the rich control the narrative in Squid Game, the rich in the United States control the narrative regarding socioeconomic mobility.