A life spent appreciating film & television can be a frustrating one when others don't share your enthusiasm or passion. Being told that someone won't watch Psycho - the greatest film ever made - because: "I don't like black and white films!" can be soul destroying (and yet still to this day, I've never heard anyone leave the cinema for any movie waxing lyrical about how nice the colours were!) Telling me that you "gave up" on The Wire - the best TV show ever made - because it's "a bit slow" is like red rag to a bull (despite the fact that bulls are actually colour blind - and therefore might actually like Psycho!) So, if you were to have made a bet with me as little as a year ago that the most talked about and watched TV show on Netflix was not only one that had subtitles but was from South Korea (not a country particularly well known for its televisual output) then I would have totally lost that bet (but hopefully not find myself in the financial dire straits that would require me to apply for the Squid Games themselves).
So here's the question - despite the language barrier, despite the cultural differences & despite the sometimes brutally graphic & fantastical representations of violence - how has the series garnered such a following in the west and how are we all so hooked? The answer lies in the fact that the show uses a shared language that requires an understanding of neither Korean nor English - instead it is made up of a set of subtle codes and signifiers that make the unusual; usual, the unfamiliar; familiar - the shared language of narrative television. This set of codes & symbols can be understood through a semiotic analysis of the show using Roland Barthes' codes.
Here we go; but first...
1. Enigma Codes
To avoid as many spoilers as possible I am going to use the first two episodes which are a kind of pilot for the whole series inasmuch as we get a sort of microcosm of what the series has in store & then almost resets in the end so that most of the characters end the episodes in the same situation as they started - I say: 'most' of the characters - with the obvious exception of the few hundred that get shot in the head - I TOLD YOU THERE'D BE SPOILERS!!!
Any opening to any narrative will move between Enigma and Action codes. Questions are posed and then answered as we are moved through the story - in fact, Annette Kuhn identifies: "A high degree of enigma resolution" as a key criteria for conventional narratives. Squid Game is no different - it is a strange and mysterious show, we are placed in unusual and surreal settings - yet an audience will be comfortable with these things - they will expect to be confused and confounded, it's part of the ride!
Most of the Enigma's in the first episode Red Light, Green Light revolve around two aspects of the show - the mystery surrounding the show's main plot device: the games and also our introduction to the show's main character Gi-hun.
When we meet Gi-hun we see him as a low life loser - squandering money that has been earned by his elderly mother or supposed to be spent on his young daughter - it's clear that his moral compass is not where it should be and then we begin to learn just how serious his gambling addiction is as we see him have a run in with the gangsters to whom he owes a substantial amount. Not paying means they will start harvesting his organs - with his own consent! As soon as Gi-hun signs the contract giving the gangsters permission to slice and dice in the event of non-payment the audience is given their first significant enigma code - How on earth is he going to pay?
Circumstances move forward and we continue to see that Gi-hun does not have the resources practically or morally to earn or win this money back - until he encounters the businessman in the train station who challenges him to a game - when the game is finished and Gi-hun is offered the chance to play a different game for a significantly greater sum of money the audience is treated to a spectacularly visual enigma code - a business card with a single phone number on it.
This tiny prop - a small part of the mise-en-scene, that the audience instinctively knows represents a turning point in Gi-hun's story also represents so much of what we do not know:
Who does this man work for that he has these business cards?
What will the opportunity be?
Why has Gi-hun been chosen to be given this opportunity?
Will this make his circumstances better or worse?
What do the symbols on the back of the card represent?
Do the printers offer a discount if the cards are ordered in bulk?
Well - maybe not the last one. But it is testament to the idea of Barthes' hermeneutic/enigma code that something so seemingly insignificant can engage an audience so completely and be the key plot point to guarantee our continued viewing. The fact that we are certain that Gi-hun will definitely call the number doesn't even matter - the business card has a dozen other questions to answer and the mystery begins!
2. Action Codes
Many of these codes reveal just how conventional the show is in terms of narrative television and its use of what is known as continuity editing - in other words, editing that makes logical - usually chronological - sense. Some of these action codes work because of an accumulation of knowledge the audience has received, meaning that a single image allows us to know exactly is going to happen next.
Gi-hun's first scene reveals him to be selfish, whining and deceitful as he cons his elderly mother into giving him more money to buy a present for his daughter's birthday (which he has clearly forgotten). We see his mother head out to work as he eats breakfast & the moment she leaves he raids the kitchen cupboards until he finds what he's been searching for - the old woman's credit card.
The single close up shot which incorporates both Gi-hun & the credit card make it clear what is going to happen next - Gi-hun intends to steal from his mother and gamble her money away...
...and sure enough, he does.
Sometimes an action code can work simply because of the familiarity of an image within a genre - acting as iconography & introducing a new sequence or change of tone to a narrative. The following image is from the first episode of Squid Game but could easily be from any action thriller film or TV show...
...any kind of clock that counts down is a clear code to suggest that for the next sequence - time will be a constant pressure to the proceedings - this will usually signify a change in pace and almost certainly a change in tone as the tension ramps up the closer we move towards zero on the clock.
3. Semantic Codes
Arguably the entire basis of the study of Media Language comes from our understanding of a
series of Semantic codes - those codes seem to have a symbiotic relationship with the audience. The more media savvy the audience becomes, the more these codes can evolve and become read instinctively. This happens from our experience of media in childhood - you
only need to watch a few episodes of Scooby Doo to quickly learn that a transition of a couple of wavy lines and Fred's voice over signal a flashback that will explain why the monster turned out to actually be the owner of the fairground (and he would have got away with it too if it weren't for you pesky kids!!)
So media savvy have we become, that we understand the meaning of music, camera shots, even transitions & edits - many things that we would normally not describe as part of our expertise. Where semantic codes become really interesting is when one particular code has multiple readings and can hint towards the meaning of a text - not as 'powerful' or significant as a Symbolic Code - a semantic code can make us understand implicitly whilst also process things a little more externally as well. In Squid Game we might look at the costumes. Specifically...
...the tracksuits!
OK - so I'm going to cheat a little here and consider the tracksuits alongside the bunkbeds in the 'dormitory' setting. Our initial understanding or reading of the tracksuit is that it represents physical activity - combined with the beds in the dormitory setting we might see this almost like a boarding school - the characters are infantilised and certainly once we start seeing the games that they are going to be playing - this idea of referring back to childhood is reinforced.
However there is also clearly a regimented nature to the tracksuits - for a start they are all individually numbered and perhaps are more likely to resemble prison uniforms - the bunks being more similar to those we would see in a prison cell - and clearly as the story progresses it is clear that the 'players' are much more like prisoners than they are school children!
4. Referential Codes
It might seem likely that a TV series made and set in South Korea may have little for a western audience to recognise in terms of cultural or intertextual references - however Squid Game is very smart in making sure that its global audience feels both alienated by the overall strangeness of the show but also - cleverly - included; by references to our childhood that pretty much everyone will recognise. These are, of course, the games themselves.
Even if some of the games are more specific to South Korea they will have a Western equivalent that's easily enough recognised - and, again, through Semiotics a show that can feel unsettlingly odd & disconcerting in its tone can also feel nostalgically familiar - I think that this cognitive dissonance is actually part of its appeal!
But what about intertextual references? I am willing to bet that the show is littered with them - I am sure that there are a number of Korean film makers who get some kind of nod - as well as a number of Hollywood film makers - there's something incredibly Tarantino-esque about the show and although I haven't spotted any specific homages I'm sure that readers can rectify that in the comments below!
The one filmmaker I am going to cite as being a reference is a bit left field - a filmmaker whose whimsy would mean that he is one of the last people you would describe as an influence on this dark, ultra violent series - but I think that the mise-en-scene, in particular the use of colour, owes a lot to... Wes Anderson!
There - I said it out loud- let me try to convince you..
...is it just me or does this feel like a shot from a Wes Anderson movie or what!? (feel free to disagree in the comments).
5. Symbolic Codes
So here we go... the big one... the one where I have to nail my colours to the mast and actually try to provide some kind of reading as to what this show is actually about and then find some actual evidence rather than just make a claim and then hide somewhere else on Twitter.
There's always a danger with a media text that is as aesthetic as this that it is accused of being a case of style over substance - a shallow and superficial shock fest designed to get people talking about the show and little else. For me, the show is about more than that - so far - and I say this because at the time of writing I have only watched five of the nine episodes - which may mean that anything I have to say about the show's thematic concerns might prove to be a load of rubbish - and I may look like a fool, a fool I tell ya!! But I'll give it a go anyway.
There are clearly some thematic concerns typical of a lot of dramas. Gi-hun's relationship with both his mother and his daughter talk of the complexities of family life and hurting the ones you love even if you are trying to protect them. When Gi-hun is part of a team during the games there is a lot of stuff about loyalty and trust. Player 001 obviously brings to mind themes of mortality and what we have left in old age and I firmly believe that you cannot represent violence in the way it is represented here without having something to say about it.
However I don't think that any of these things are the main ideological explorations - I think they are represented by the following two symbolic codes...
First of all - the giant piggy bank!
Whilst this obviously represents the end goal for all of those playing the game - I feel that it signifies so much more, it represents the impossibility of ever achieving what you want to within a capitalist system even though it is presented as being right in front of you.
All of the characters are lured in by the piggy bank filling with cash - even though it is clearly beyond their physical reach. It is conveniently lowered whenever the players need to be convinced to play on as a reminder of what they aspire to. Even after the first game when they discover that essentially the money increases with every violent death - the piggy bank fills with more and more cash and the players are more and more willing to play for it.
It is a symbol of the grotesqueness of capitalism as an aspiration and what people will not only do for money - but how those that have it will use it against those that don't. The significance of it being a piggy bank? Perhaps it's a comment on the useless goods that we end up using all this money to buy - the meaningless ephemera that comes with consumerism. Or maybe, like the games themselves, it's a throwback to youth - a reminder that this pursuit of money for the sake of it has been engrained in us since childhood - and that it has always been toxic.
Which brings me to the second symbolic code...
...Gi-hun's birthday present for his daughter...
Whilst this moment in the show may be played more for laughs, I think it's as significant as the piggy bank - and may even add a few additional layers. Gi-hun acquires the gun after selfishly gambling away the money he had taken from his mother for his daughter's present. In an act of sheer desperation Gi-hun, failing to learn his lesson, engages in a game of chance to win her a present - however this time the game of chance is a claw machine from an arcade. A game designed for a child - itself a portentous symbol of the childhood games yet to come in the series - but either way it is a game which can never be won.
Whether it's the bookmaker, the gangster you owe money to, the government or the arcade machine - the house always wins. Even when Gi-hun thinks he's won and hands over the box to his daughter and with misplaced pride watches her open it, the confusion in her eyes and the shock in his as he realises it's a gun is a reminder that he will always be one of life's 'little people'. The gun is yet more foreshadowing, this time of the violence ahead for Gi-hun but it is also a powerful symbol of a tool, mass produced by those with wealth and sold in order to let society destroy itself - for the 'haves' to watch the 'have nots' tear each other apart - like the Squid Game itself. Making the gun turn out to be a novelty cigarette lighter is more than just a comedic twist; it's a reminder that when we're not being sold the seeds of our own destruction, we're being sold mass produced useless novelty crap!
Squid Game & South Korean 'Mythology'
Perhaps the oddest twist of the show doesn't happen within the show's narrative but has arrived in the form of a positive review - it turns out that Squid Game's biggest fan is their totalitarian neighbours to the North!
In a rare display of neighbourly compliments (albeit backhanded) the infamously secretive & oppressive North Korean regime has said that the show is an accurate representation of what happens within a capitalist society where it's people "are treated like chess players". An interesting reading not far from that of others (this writer included) but perhaps lacking the self awareness needed if you are criticising a kettle's treatment of its citizens whilst also being the blackest pot that it's possible to be!
So how does Roland Barthes fit into all this international diplomacy? We need to consider what we learn about South Korea from watching this show and how it adds to our overall conceptual understanding of the question: What is South Korea?
Barthes said that the media has a powerful role in creating modern mythologies - it can often be a replacement for reality in our understanding of issues, events, people and places. Barthes says that this process can be Naturalised, are Reductive & often Reinforce Social Power Structures. In other words they are often hegemonic and these mythologies bolster the status quo. From this perspective it would be strange for a show which is so satirical and even critical of its own society to be considered part of a South Korean mythology. Even if we do read this as satire and commentary on capitalism (Korean or otherwise) it is intended as allegorical rather than literal.
However, I believe there is still a way to apply Barthes' Mythologies to Squid Game - if its popularity has done anything this year, it is to reiterate just what a huge player South Korea is on the global entertainment stage. Squid Game joins Oscar winning film Parasite, PSY's Gangnam Style & the colossal pop band BTS as yet another contributor to the perception that South Korea is one of the most culturally significant nations in Asia.
It would be forgivable to think that rather than being part of a constructed Mythology it was more a statement of fact - well in part that is true, however when you start to look more closely at just how manufactured and planned this cultural ascent has been and how the K-Wave (as it is known internationally) has been part of South Korea's manifesto to achieve economic & soft power since the 1990s when a financial crisis hit Asia and many countries had to rebuild via cultural means rather than traditional agricultural or industrial means.
It entirely suits the South Korean infrastructure for Squid Game to be viewed as part of an eclectic mix of pop-culture winning audiences from across the globe - the perception of the country as the keeper of these cultural enigmas is all part of the mythology. The fact that the show also indulges in discussing how toxic capitalism can be is all part of the irony - and maybe the deception; Netflix have bought the show and we're all watching it.
Who's playing who in this Game of Squids?
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