Where will
Squid Game
stop
,
the phenomenon series broadcast on Netflix since September 17, credited with the best start in the history of the platform, with 111 million views in four weeks (figures given by the platform but unfortunately unverifiable)?
Not at the border between South Korea and North Korea anyway.
The propaganda newspaper
Arirang Meari
recently covered the series, as
The Insider
reports
.
To read also "Squid Game": Laguiole knives spotted in the hit series from Netflix
Unsurprisingly, Pyongyang's review is far from complimentary.
If the series is deemed
"realistic."
(...)
Squid Game
has gained popularity because it exposes the reality of South Korean capitalist culture, where immoral villains are commonplace.
A world where only money counts - an infernal horror ”
.
The journalist (the article is unsigned) does not stop there and denounces
"an unequal society where people are treated like pawns on a game of chess".
This last point hints at the very plot of
Squid Game.
456 Koreans, financially strapped, embarked on this survival competition which promises a reward of around 32 million euros.
The
Squid Game
turns out to be a game that is both childish and deadly, after which only one person will survive.
South Korean pop culture seen up close
In recent years, South Korea has managed to export various cultural products on a large scale and reach Europe and America.
The success of K-pop and of the group BTS, or of the film
Parasite
, allowed the country to develop a certain soft power.
North Korea, ruled with an iron fist for seven decades by a communist regime, is watching these phenomena closely.
Like
Squid Game
,
Parasite
already evoked the themes of capitalism and the class struggle.
When the film came out in 2019, Pyongyang was already denouncing a work that “
greatly reveals the reality
” of the South Korean capitalist system.