A long time ago, I had a charming friend who was very concerned with propriety. He only went to the right kind of dinner parties. He only liked the right kind of chatter underneath his Facebook posts. Needless to say, we didn’t stay friends for very long.
I thought about him again when watching Netflix’s Squid Game, of all things. It’s been hailed as an incisive critique of late-stage capitalism — especially how it collides with cronyism and group dynamics, I’d argue — and it certainly delivers, but it’s also, well, improper, in the sense that it is also a show that has a vicious sense of humor about itself.
Even in its most abjectly grim moments, in how it portrays both violence and betrayal, Squid Game does not attempt tragedy. It’s rather a very honest, very explicit farce.
Farce, like many other forms of comedy, is, strangely, still considered a lower art form. I think it’s because we’ve built our understanding of art around the idea that if we enjoy it too much it’s not really art, or at least not great art. Very smart people have written and spoken concisely about why that is, citing many historical factors, but I like to think it all comes down to being dragged to a museum by your mom at an early age, and being told to behave a certain way.
If you imprint on art that way, you’re not going to think it’s supposed to be fun. And Squid Game is precisely like the time we are living in — terrifying and over-stimulating and oddly hilarious.
My former friend was someone who made me feel wrong in my skin, even as his attention felt like a ray of light I could bask in, at least for a while. He disapproved of me, yet there was something addictive even about the disapproval. I wanted him to disapprove of me again and again.
There was a vanity to our interactions — I was a younger woman, not fully cognizant of what my attention meant to him but knowing that I craved it and that it made me feel seen, and he, in turn, seemed as though he was made to feel wise and important by me. The hollowness of this arrangement only became apparent to me later.
Some stories have a heart of darkness. Squid Game has a heart that is hollow — albeit not in a bad way. It takes our own vanity, the idea that we can “win” in an interaction that is fundamentally rigged, and it blows it up to grotesque and deadly proportions. What’s behind this false self-image? Betrayal. Mayhem. Splattered brains.
What I really liked about the show’s premise is that in its own, very calculated and chillingly atmospheric way, it shows how every insincere interaction is a kind of game
My former friend thought and acted like an impresario for a woman of a fundamentally lower background. I didn’t understand this part at first. I didn’t pay attention to signals, but also, I have a very cheerful view of my background: traumatized by my past in some interesting ways, but also coddled and genuinely blessed in others, always feeling lucky for having a wealth of experience at an early age and going to build on it with a fair bit of recklessness. I’m privileged in many ways, but I’m especially privileged because I’m actually surprised and amused when people look down their noses at me. Really? I think. But I have so many stories to tell.
When watching Squid Game, I thought back to the games that the more powerful and more well-connected play with people they know to be trusting and ignorant. What I really liked about the show’s premise is that in its own, very calculated and chillingly atmospheric way, it shows how every insincere interaction is a kind of game. Maybe your life will depend on it, or maybe it will just result in some residual embarrassment. In all of its iterations, the game is fundamentally dishonest.
I know that at this point in this column, you’re expecting me to condemn my former friend — but the thing is, who cares about how douchey he was? He didn’t harm me all that much. He did teach me to look for hidden meanings, drawers with false bottoms, holograms flickering in the place of what you believe to be a person’s true face.
He is one of the reasons why I believe shows like Squid Game are important, and not just because of their very incisive social and political commentary. It’s because they show us how we lie to ourselves — over and over and over again, thinking that next time will be better.
Image credit: Kelsey Chance