Squid Game as a globalization episode, and vice versa

A South Korean survival drama, Squid Game, has produced many new images that float around us. They include proposals about the EU summits, arguments in Turkish party politics, a civil service competition in Indonesia, and a pop-up store in France. It is a case of globalization not just due to its mass circulation but also due to what it tells. The show fascinatingly depicts a political order based on economic disparities, indebtedness, obstacles against upward social mobility, and the lack of means other than risking one’s life to climb up. Accordingly, a bunch of (so far) invisible hands and masked faces lead the market sustained by this political order. Writer-director Hwang Dong-hyuk’s message resembles the populist narrative about the global elite turning hopeless lower classes against each other. What is more debatable is the kind of populism it promotes and the kind of globalization it bashes. I see this controversy as an opportunity to explore several intersection points between clashing ideologies on the “left” and the “right.”