"Maid" and "The Squid Game", the two most talked about series by streaming giant Netflix, deal with poverty.
One that paralyzes you from fear, leaves you helpless, strikes you mercilessly;
Pulls you by the throat and defines you more than any other trait.
In "Maid", the protagonist is a young woman who lives with her partner and their joint daughter in a trailer. The spouse works and earns a living, he has never raised a hand on her, but the violence and fear are there all the time. In one of his outbursts of rage, she takes her daughter and leaves the house. Thus begins a fascinating journey of a woman who has nothing in the world - no profession, no job, no home and no supportive family. Throughout the process, viewers are exposed to all of America's grim evils: unimaginable economic disparities, welfare services collapsing under the burden, the lack of a social and occupational safety net, and a legal system unable to truly see the best interests of the child. The protagonist, who becomes a maid to make a living, enters all types of homes, and with it the viewer gets a glimpse into the various Americas: an America of tens of millions of dollars worth of homes and kindergartens that cost like a university, that of food stamps and housing vouchers that no one wants.
"The Squid Game" is a Korean series. A group of people in financial difficulties gather on an island to play children's games. The rules are simple: whoever wins moves on to the next stage, whoever loses is shot to death on the spot. The last one left, the winner, will win a huge amount of money. The game is run by people in masks, and there are also guests from abroad who come to watch it and gamble who will die and who will survive. Life is nothing, nothing. Man has no identity and no name, only a tool in a crazy and sadistic game The same thing, eating the same thing, is punished in the same way for loss.
"Housekeeper" is simple and bloodless and violent, while "Squid Game" is violent, scary and shocking.
In the first, the protagonist has many hands outstretched for help, in the second, whoever dares to reach out - dies.
But despite the huge difference, they both have one thing in common: neither of them feels sorry for her viewers, they both grab the viewers by the throat and force them to look into the eyes of poverty and what it can cause a person to do.
Everyone who learns writing knows that sometimes it is necessary to make it easier for the viewers.
It is impossible to disappoint them all the time.
Must give them a moment of laughter, let go.
In all of Shakespeare's great tragedies there is a comic pause that will relieve the tension.
In these two series it does not happen until the last second.
And perhaps the most amazing thing is the global success of both.
In the days of a global post-epidemic, which dropped the ground beneath the feet of millions of people, fears and insecurities became universal.
Everything can be turned upside down at once.
And in this chaos there is nothing to hold on to and no one to trust: a world of man-to-man.
