What Do We Do About Squid Game

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This week’s newsletter is about the Netflix show Squid Game. It will contain spoilers, and if you’re worried about that sort of thing, I suggest holding off reading this until you watch the series.

What Good Is Entertainment, Anyway?

I’ve got a problem: I don’t think “Squid Game” is very good.

Sure, it might have broken Netflix streaming records to the tune of billions of views—but at its core, “Squid Game” is a pretty ham-fisted takedown of the horrors of capitalism running rampant in a society that’s quick to buy in. The show works hard to explain to viewers just how desperate and downtrodden the characters are, in order to give them believable motivation to participate in the core concept: That people would sign up for these dangerous and deadly games, just for money.

The games are, of course, developed and put on by a secret cabal of unimaginably rich investors who like watching the contestants compete with their lives for sport. As a concept, it isn’t exactly new. The idea of people being pitted against each other in a controlled environment in order to survive outside of that environment is also the plot of “The Hunger Games” books and films, which in turn were heavily influenced by the 2000 Japanese movie, “Battle Royale.” That movie, meanwhile, was inspired by the first chapter of Ralph Ellison’s 1952 book, “Invisible Man,” titled “Battle Royal.”

That chapter, which is often excerpted as a short story (and which can be read in its entirety here), comprises the unnamed narrator’s recollections of graduating from high school as a young Black man, and being forced to compete in a degrading, brutal, and disgusting contest against other young Black men for the entertainment of the white people in town, and in order to receive a college scholarship. 

It’s worth reading that story in its entirety. Something Ellison does masterfully is placing the reader in the perspective of the main character. The pain, hurt, shame, humiliation, fear, and struggle are easy to see and feel. 

But “Squid Game” doesn’t do that. 

As the games escalate, the viewer learns that an audience has been watching the participants for entertainment, and eventually this rich, masked cabal shows up to see the action in person. As the audience, we’re meant to think how horrifying it is for these elites living a decadent lifestyle to watch people die for sport and entertainment. And yet, isn’t that what we’ve been doing this entire time?

“Squid Game” makes a lot of effort to show the horrific games in all their gruesome detail. After the first one, maybe two, games that we see, the point has been made. But the show doesn’t stop there. Each game is given full screen time, complete with up-close gore . If we want to watch this social commentary about what the extremes of capitalism do to society, we must also buy in. As an audience, we’re no different than the people who staged these games. They’re watching the brutal killing of people as entertainment, and we’re also watching the brutal killing of people as entertainment. 

Exploitative violence has been part of movie entertainment for years; you could argue the entire horror genre is built on it. But where “Squid Game” fails isn’t even when it asks the viewer to participate in this voyeurism (re-examining our relationship to on-screen violence, even through dubious means, can be worthwhile.) 

Where “Squid Game” fails is in giving the audience a pure-of-heart proxy to root for, which further undermines its moral stance. Gi-hun’s actions as a gambler and general layabout have put him in great debt, which risks the health and well-being of his elderly mother. But as we learn, Gi-hun was greatly affected by the murder of his co-worker by the police during an auto plant strike. Even though he’s put himself in this financially precarious place, his actions aren’t necessarily his own fault. 

During the games, however, Gi-hun decides everyone should work together, and outside of the tug-of-war, Gi-hun gets to keep a fairly clean conscience. He’s never directly responsible for anyone dying in the games—the senile old man gives him his final marble willingly, he’s the last one crossing on the bridge, and even Sang Woo ends up stabbing himself in the neck so Gi-hun won’t have to. 

At the end of the series, Gi-hun takes a card invitation away from a potential new Squid Game recruit and swears that he’s going to track down the people who are behind it. This character arc puts Gi-hun fully into the “hero” category. 

The audience is meant to root for Gi-hun. We want the pure of heart to win. But win what? “Squid Game” wants to both demonstrate the horrific, structural evils of a hyper-capitalist society and have us root for someone to succeed in that system at the same time. At its core, the message is clear: If you stay true to yourself and your ideals, you, too, can succeed in the cutthroat world where people sacrifice themselves and others for money. 

It’s a morality play. And that’s the dirtiest trick “Squid Game” pulls on its audience. Other films and television series that deal with moral ambiguity tend to tread a more delicate line: The main character is often an anti-hero with just as many awful traits as good ones. Sure, some audiences get confused by this trope (which is why all the worst people you know wear Walter White T-shirts and love saying “Skylar is the worst one”). At least with an anti-hero, there’s a debate the audience gets to have about whether you should root for the main character. 

In “Squid Game,” there’s no place for ambiguity. Sure, some of our favorite characters may have died, but in the end it all works out. Easy peasy. 

The evidence of this failure is everywhere. Nearly daily, I see a new article about how people are excited to stage a real-life “Squid Game.” Even well-researched articles that have good knowledge about how the show defies the sub-genres it plays with end with the conclusion that, well, the wrong person won.

There’s an undeniable urge among viewers everywhere to participate in the system. Even at the end, as the old man is on his deathbed, the message he delivers is that it’s better to play than to watch, and Gi-hun doesn’t necessarily refute his statement. 

The main character in Ralph Ellison’s “Invisible Man” doesn’t voluntarily enter the battle royal knowing he’s competing for the scholarship. Instead, he gave a speech at his school graduation that was so well-received, he was invited to give it again in front of the town’s most powerful and well-respected white business owners. Once there, he’s shuffled into a group of his peers and forced to participate in the brutal events. When it’s over, someone reminds the crowd that, oh yeah, this young man was invited here to give the speech. He’s forced to stand, bloodied and brutalized, and deliver a speech to the crowd that was cheering for his destruction just moments earlier—and whenever he says something about “equality,” the crowd shouts at him, forcing him to rework the message he was once commended for delivering. He’s praised at the end for being a future leader for “his community,” and also for knowing his place. 

It’s a difficult story to read, but its moral stance is clear: The ruling class will destroy you for entertainment, and there’s no such thing as winning. 

When “Squid Game” spends nine hours delivering horror stories, the message and point are unclear. At the end we have a sympathetic winner, one who didn’t have to compromise his own moral code. What’s the harm in the game after all? 

The entertainment, then, is rooted in watching what plays out. It’s centered on audiences being engrossed when a person falls through a glass pane and has their brains explode out of a shattered skull. It’s centered on watching a group go on a murder spree in the dormitory to better their odds at winning. It’s centered on a close-up shot of a bullet ripping through someone’s chest when they lose at marbles. 

“Squid Game” wants to highlight the brutality of glorifying violence for entertainment purposes, but the only form of entertainment it offers us is glorified violence, with the flimsiest moral gloss. If that’s the case, I’d rather just watch “Nightmare On Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors.”

Artwork by Ashley Elander Strandquist. You can view her illustration work here and check out her printing business here.