Fuck it, I have thoughts.
So, I saw the first Squid Game back when it originally came out. It was good but definitely got by on style and gimmicks more than having much depth. The intense commercialization was also icky. I'm not here to rehash the first season; there's plenty of writing about that out there, if you want to find it.
What's interesting to me is that season 2 seems to be less well-received, and I have a few thoughts on that. I actually thought it was more complex and interesting, willing to examine its premise rather than go along with it the way season 1 did.
It will be impossible to avoid spoilers here, so: everything after this will be spoilers!
Season 1 was focused on the game itself: what the individual games were, the rules, the players, who would live or die, etc. There were some subplots but ultimately, you were there to find out if Gi-hun (and anyone else) would live and win.
Season 2 challenges the very existence of the game. Gi-hun has put the fortune he won to work trying to find the people responsible for the game in the first place, starting with the guy who recruits players. You learned very little about him in season 1 but season 2 establishes him to be essentially a psychopath. He torments homeless people for kicks, for crying out loud. I mention this because while the evil of the capitalist villains in season 1 is there, it's not put on perverse display the way it is this time. This time, you get to see that the capitalists and power brokers aren't just agents of a system--they are the facilitators of it, the owners of it, the creators of it, and they know exactly what they are doing.
Naturally, Gi-hun does attract the Front Man's attention enough to get himself reinserted into the game. The show fools you (and Gi-hun) into thinking it's gonna be the same games as last time, because they start with red light/green light. Here is where the show starts to put its message for this season on its sleeve: Gi-hun starts organizing the other players. He tells them how to survive, and those who listen to him fare a lot better than those who don't, or who panic.
Other players' trust in him is diminished when it turns out none of the other games are repeats, though. What's interesting about the games this time around is that they are less gimmicky and flashy (lending themselves much less to fun product tie-ins), and also depend more heavily on teamwork, because solidarity and cooperation are massive themes this time.
There are people who find Gi-hun's message compelling: is it really worth dying to get your hands on some money? Some of the players desperately need it, but they agree with him. They'd rather live than continue to risk dying in the game. Unfortunately, more players keep voting to stay, and the number of them doing so out of pure selfishness is highlighted pretty bluntly. This show is not subtle.
Even less subtle is the Front Man joining the game, albeit undercover. This is where the most overt messaging happens. Here we have the Front Man, the uber-capitalist, insinuating himself amongst the plebs and pretending to be their friend, pretending to be Gi-hun's friend specifically. He earns the trust of their little group, helps them survive and win games, etc. He is content to do this because, in the end, these are his games and his rules. He's not worried about the outcome. (You could also argue that his detachment has left him emotionally bereft and part of joining the game is to give himself a thrill by actually putting himself in danger.)
Gi-hun ultimately realizes that the players who keep voting to stay aren't going to change their minds, so he proposes more drastic action: picking up guns and fighting their way out! Like I said, this is not subtle. Gi-hun, who has organized a bunch of the other players and formed a mini revolutionary army, tries to fight his way to the control room. Notably, we see more of the guards this season and come to understand that they are just working-class shlubs, too, often poor and/or homeless themselves. They are paid to be class traitors, because of course they are. Who does the fighting in all this? Not the lead staff, that's for sure. It's the low level guards and the players who have to shoot it out.
Since the Front Man holds almost all the cards, it's not a huge surprise that Gi-hun's gambit fails and almost his whole force is taken out. The Front Man confronts him but doesn't kill him, because it's more important to break him. What was I saying about subtlety? Killing people is easy. But to see you resist and prove to you that it's futile, that's hard. That requires work. That is part of the work of capitalism, to convince you that you are powerless.
The show ends on a cliffhanger after that. There is a final season coming in the summer.
While this show is clearly not subtle, I appreciated the pretty direct applications of Marxist theory. The only path to worker power is solidarity. Capitalists will pretend to be your allies only to deceive and oppress you. And workers can be turned against each other, even in deadly violence. It is the belief in your collective power that make change possible.
"But isn't this show made under capitalism? Doesn't that diminish its message?" Well, the message is still in it, no? Capitalism indeed embraces and subsumes all critiques of it into itself, but that is because capitalists believe so fully in their unassailable position. They don't think any critique could actually harm them, so they gladly exploit such critiques for profit. But what if they're wrong? What if those critiques are getting through to people, who are starting to rethink the world order they see around them? Hmmm.
So, I saw the first Squid Game back when it originally came out. It was good but definitely got by on style and gimmicks more than having much depth. The intense commercialization was also icky. I'm not here to rehash the first season; there's plenty of writing about that out there, if you want to find it.
What's interesting to me is that season 2 seems to be less well-received, and I have a few thoughts on that. I actually thought it was more complex and interesting, willing to examine its premise rather than go along with it the way season 1 did.
It will be impossible to avoid spoilers here, so: everything after this will be spoilers!
Season 1 was focused on the game itself: what the individual games were, the rules, the players, who would live or die, etc. There were some subplots but ultimately, you were there to find out if Gi-hun (and anyone else) would live and win.
Season 2 challenges the very existence of the game. Gi-hun has put the fortune he won to work trying to find the people responsible for the game in the first place, starting with the guy who recruits players. You learned very little about him in season 1 but season 2 establishes him to be essentially a psychopath. He torments homeless people for kicks, for crying out loud. I mention this because while the evil of the capitalist villains in season 1 is there, it's not put on perverse display the way it is this time. This time, you get to see that the capitalists and power brokers aren't just agents of a system--they are the facilitators of it, the owners of it, the creators of it, and they know exactly what they are doing.
Naturally, Gi-hun does attract the Front Man's attention enough to get himself reinserted into the game. The show fools you (and Gi-hun) into thinking it's gonna be the same games as last time, because they start with red light/green light. Here is where the show starts to put its message for this season on its sleeve: Gi-hun starts organizing the other players. He tells them how to survive, and those who listen to him fare a lot better than those who don't, or who panic.
Other players' trust in him is diminished when it turns out none of the other games are repeats, though. What's interesting about the games this time around is that they are less gimmicky and flashy (lending themselves much less to fun product tie-ins), and also depend more heavily on teamwork, because solidarity and cooperation are massive themes this time.
There are people who find Gi-hun's message compelling: is it really worth dying to get your hands on some money? Some of the players desperately need it, but they agree with him. They'd rather live than continue to risk dying in the game. Unfortunately, more players keep voting to stay, and the number of them doing so out of pure selfishness is highlighted pretty bluntly. This show is not subtle.
Even less subtle is the Front Man joining the game, albeit undercover. This is where the most overt messaging happens. Here we have the Front Man, the uber-capitalist, insinuating himself amongst the plebs and pretending to be their friend, pretending to be Gi-hun's friend specifically. He earns the trust of their little group, helps them survive and win games, etc. He is content to do this because, in the end, these are his games and his rules. He's not worried about the outcome. (You could also argue that his detachment has left him emotionally bereft and part of joining the game is to give himself a thrill by actually putting himself in danger.)
Gi-hun ultimately realizes that the players who keep voting to stay aren't going to change their minds, so he proposes more drastic action: picking up guns and fighting their way out! Like I said, this is not subtle. Gi-hun, who has organized a bunch of the other players and formed a mini revolutionary army, tries to fight his way to the control room. Notably, we see more of the guards this season and come to understand that they are just working-class shlubs, too, often poor and/or homeless themselves. They are paid to be class traitors, because of course they are. Who does the fighting in all this? Not the lead staff, that's for sure. It's the low level guards and the players who have to shoot it out.
Since the Front Man holds almost all the cards, it's not a huge surprise that Gi-hun's gambit fails and almost his whole force is taken out. The Front Man confronts him but doesn't kill him, because it's more important to break him. What was I saying about subtlety? Killing people is easy. But to see you resist and prove to you that it's futile, that's hard. That requires work. That is part of the work of capitalism, to convince you that you are powerless.
The show ends on a cliffhanger after that. There is a final season coming in the summer.
While this show is clearly not subtle, I appreciated the pretty direct applications of Marxist theory. The only path to worker power is solidarity. Capitalists will pretend to be your allies only to deceive and oppress you. And workers can be turned against each other, even in deadly violence. It is the belief in your collective power that make change possible.
"But isn't this show made under capitalism? Doesn't that diminish its message?" Well, the message is still in it, no? Capitalism indeed embraces and subsumes all critiques of it into itself, but that is because capitalists believe so fully in their unassailable position. They don't think any critique could actually harm them, so they gladly exploit such critiques for profit. But what if they're wrong? What if those critiques are getting through to people, who are starting to rethink the world order they see around them? Hmmm.
the horrors persist, but so do we
(aka large mozz)
(aka large mozz)