Reading Symbols In Squid Game: Contemplating Social Structure And Capitalism We Live In
JAKARTA - This article was compiled around 03.00 western Indonesia time, when we finished all the Squid Game episodes. A dozen hours earlier, an old friend came with a story of his broken heart: a creative worker from a middle-class family who agreed to separate from his girlfriend because of differences in social class. A story that propels us into the depths of the Squid Game episodes one by one.
It's not just a cliché. Indeed, we often encounter this kind of illustration as the premise of soap operas and FTVs at dawn that take the background of events in Jogjakarta. But the story of an old friend's heartbreak is a true and perhaps the simplest picture of how social structures affect our lives. Squid Game covers a wider dimension. Global.
Squid Game tells the story of hundreds of people in South Korea (South Korea) who are experiencing financial problems. They are then invited by a mysterious group to participate in a series of life-threatening competitive games. Yes, basically Squid Game is a film survival game that uses South Korean children's games as an element in the plot.
The main plot of Squid Game focuses on a character named Seong Gi-hun, played by Lee Jung-jae. Gi-hun is a South Korean grown man who failed to build a decent life in his country. He was fired from the car factory where he worked, lost a friend in a strike, was left behind by a wife who married an older man, and lost custody of his only child.
Gi-hun is also isolated in his social circle. No privileges. He even lived with his mother who worked as a trader. All these conditions drag Gi-hun into a vicious cycle of debt and gambling. Gi-hun is crazy about betting on horse racing and so dependent on debt. At one point the mother got sick and she needed the money more than ever.
All circumstances are sufficient reasons for Gi-hun to take part in the mysterious group's series of games, even though Gi-hun knows he must risk his life. The group promised a total prize of 45.6 billion won for participants who were able to win the match until the final stage. Like Gi-hun, the participants are people who are experiencing acute financial problems.
Social class conflict and capitalism
The highlight of social class conflict in the film touched an important achievement when Parasite won the Best Picture Oscar 2020. This is no less important for the director, Bong Joon Ho, who consistently raises this issue: Snowpiercer (2013) to Okja (2017). Both from South Korea, the director of Squid Game, Hwang Dong-Hyuk raised the same concern in Squid Game.
Local culture observer, Kim Seong Su sees Squid Game as an illustration of the reality of many people's lives today: social class conflicts and the harshness of living in a capitalist system. Yes, the owners of capital or financiers will always get richer. The rest are the proletariat who are the wheels of capitalism, who only have the energy or the mind to contribute.
"All games here only require energy and thought. If we are united, we will not be defeated," said Cho Sang-woo (Park Hae Soo) to the character Ali (Anupam Triphati) in a scene. Sang-woo is told as a young South Korean genius, a famous university scholarship winner. Meanwhile, Ali is a character who from the beginning accentuated his physical strength.
"Games such as squid game, marbles, and dalgona appear in dramas are games that are usually played in the alleys. But in reality, these games represent the way humans survive," said Kim Seong Su, quoted by The Focus.
In a general sense, capitalism is an economic system that gives everyone complete freedom to control trade, industry, and production activities, with the aim of making a profit. Capitalism is also often described as an economic system, in which all economic activities are carried out by the private sector. Government authorities only supervise.
Quoted from various sources, Karl Marx explains capitalism as a system, in which the price of goods and market policies are determined by the owners of capital with the aim of achieving maximum profit. Meanwhile, Adam Smith highlighted that ideally capitalism can achieve prosperity because the government does not intervene in policies and market mechanisms.
The proclaimer of the Republic of Indonesia, Ir Soekarno explained capitalism as a social system in society that was born due to the separation of workers from the means of production. Meanwhile, the production sectors actually rely on the owners of capital. Sukarno called capitalism the cause of the misfortune of small communities. An endless vicious circle.
Symbol comprehension in Squid Game
Squid Game is a picture book with lots of colors and symbols in it. A number of characters are designed as symbols of the characteristics of society. Besides Sang Woo and Ali who depict the working class, there is also Han Mi-nyeo (Kim Joo-ryung), the most oppressed people in South Korea: women and the poor. In South Korea, the culture and social structure of patriarchy is very thick.
The LIPI study explains gender inequality in South Korea, even starting with differences in salary standardization. The gender gap is significant in labor market participation. Data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) shows that only 55 percent of South Korean women aged 15-64 are in the workforce.
This figure is fairly low if you look at the average percentage of 65 percent in OECD countries. Indeed, South Korea has now made significant economic progress. But the country has a unique culture that has a significant impact on the economic life of its people. In the context of gender equality, the significant aspects are Confucianism and collectivism.
Confucianism is a code of conduct based on morals held by adherents of certain beliefs. These values influence how social structures place women under pressure and discrimination. Women must be one hundred percent for the family, while at the same time also obliged to fully contribute to the socio-economic environment that excludes them.
Women are low paid workers. Women also have an attractive appearance. Women are also symbols to image a developed company. Those three reasons are usually the reasons why a company recruits women. Another irony is that a woman has to leave the company when she decides to marry or give birth to children.
From among the mysterious group who became the authority of the game, symbol games were also displayed. Director, Hwang Dong-hyuk explained the meaning of circles, triangles, and rectangles on the masks of men in pink jumpsuits. "The circle symbol represents the workers, the triangle is the symbol for the army, while the rectangle is for the manager," Dong-hyuk said at a press conference held by Netflix, Wednesday, September 15.
In addition, the three symbols also represent the game of squid itself. According to The Focus, circles, triangles, and squares are actually letters of the Korean alphabet written in Hangul: the Korean writing system. The circle is the letter 'o'. The triangle is part of the letter 'j'. While the quadrilateral is 'm'. If traced, the three make up OJM. OJM is the initials of the squid game in Korean which is read as Ojingeo Geim.
Another most interesting symbol is the character Kang Sae-byeok, played by HoYeon Jung. Sae-byeok is a critical perspective that represents the film as a whole. Coming from the land across the wall, North Korea, Sae-byeok brings a lot of hope to improve his life and that of his sister.
But living in the system that runs in South Korea is not as safe as he imagined. At one time he was very skeptical and cynical. At other points, he is so reliable. Sae-byeok is also equipped with strong and deep dialogues. In terms of character development, Sa-byeok managed to take us on a mind trip designed by Squid Game.
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