#To move closer squeed over series

Seong Gi-hun (played by actor Lee Jung-jae), the main protagonist, is solicited to play a child’s game of ttakji (folded paper flip) at a subway station after a long day when he was beaten up by a gang of loan sharks and had his earnings from a lucky win at the horse races swiped by a pickpocket. And the punishment for elimination from the game is no longer light-hearted humiliation but literally death. Escher, sumptuously painted labyrinths, and happy-creepy classical music from composers George Frideric Handel and Richard Strauss played on loudspeakers. Instead of familiar everyday sites, such as city parks or department stores, the action takes place on a remote island filled with staircases inspired by graphic artist M.C.

Rather than comedians and K-pop stars, the (fictional) contestants in these playground games are desperate men and women who are drowning in personal debt and willing to do almost anything to make some quick cash. The facility where the competitors are held features brightly colored M.C. Netflix’s new blockbuster show Squid Game turns this concept on its head, stripping away the veneer of comedy found in grown-ups playing children’s games and transporting it to a dystopian world of neoliberal capitalism it seeks to critique-to horrifying effect.Ĭompetitors and guards file up a brightly-colored twisted staircase. The game scenes recall that we have lost the joy of simply playing the game and that far too much emphasis has been placed on the binary outcome of either winning or losing. They simultaneously remind viewers of the loss of youthful innocence in contemporary reality and invoke fantasies where the clock has turned back, albeit momentarily. The shows are also infectiously sentimental for they draw on audience empathy and childhood memories associated with these silly games. Watching famous people reenact and mimic children’s behavior elicits laughter. One of the enjoyments of watching these shows inspired by children’s games is the self-deprecating attitudes the gag artists and K-pop celebrities must assume. Contemporary social media is filled with videos uploaded by ordinary Asians from different corners of the continent featuring copycat games inspired by this Korean television program. Since 2010, this show, which features middle-aged comedians competing with young K-pop singers and K-drama celebrities, has been an integral part of the so-called Hallyu (“Korean wave”) that has dominated the internet around the Pacific and beyond. One of these comedy reality television shows, Running Man, has been popular not only in South Korea but also in many other Asian countries.

#To move closer squeed over series

The more humiliating the punishment, the more cathartic the enjoyment viewers may feel.Ī week-long series on horror and folklore around the world that examines what popular stories and tropes can tell us about a society’s greatest fears, grimmest challenges, and darkest fantasies. The losers of these games receive humiliating but ultimately harmless punishments most often, they are denied a meal or a ride back to the studio. They talk, giggle, and lightly push one another in a juvenile manner before dispersing to change into tracksuit uniforms and play silly playground games, such as hide-and-seek, capture the flag, jump-rope, and rock-paper-scissors. Instead of the one-on-one talk show format that is popular in the United States, these Korean productions typically feature a pack of male performers standing before a camera in a public space, such as a parking lot, playground, city park, or large shopping mall. Anyone who has visited South Korea in recent years has likely noticed that comedy variety shows are quite popular there.