Squid Game Missed the Chance to Leave a More Impactful Message
By now everyone is well aware of Squid Game and it’s powerful critique on capitalism. There is a lot of potential for where the show can go in season 2 in how Gi-Hun will take down the games that take advantage of the 99%. However, there was one scene in the show that I felt missed a big opportunity to leave an impactful message on the audience:
The mastermind of the games, Il-Nam, plays one last game with Gi-Hun. Ever the pessimist, he bets Gi-Hun that a drunk man who is passed out on the sidewalk will continued to be ignored by people walking by until at least midnight; and more than likely freeze to death by morning. The ultra wealthy use that pessimistic reasoning to justify the horrific things they do to generate or use their wealth. Because why bother cutting into their wealth to treat people well when the poor don’t even treat each other well?
Gi-Hun plays along and remains in the apartment to get the answers to why the games were created. Right before midnight a passerby notified the police and brought them to help the drunk man, making Gi-Hun the winner. The message is clear: the world is not as bleak as what the ultra wealthy make it out out to be.
The biggest flaw of the scene is that Gi-Hun, along with most of us, plays within the confines of the rules, both on the island and in society. The show presents what horrific things capitalism is capable of bringing out of people, but we’re not presented with what should be done.
It could be argued that maybe Gi-Hun fell prey to the bystander effect. It is a social psychological phenomenon in which a person is most likely to wait and see if someone else will help when in the presence of a group. All of us are guilty of that one way or another, especially if we live in a city. When we see something wrong most of us assume it is someone’s job to take care of the issue, but that is only true if someone takes action to report it.
The scene could have been more powerful if Gi-Hun told Il-Nam that the reason why he knows someone will help him is not because of his faith in humanity, but in his own humanity, and then walked off to help the drunk man himself. That would have shown the audience that each and every one of us can make choices to help each other in defiance of the system designed to make us do the opposite. That call to action would have made a greater impact than what we saw in the original scene.