2.2 Squid Game and Homo Ludens

Squid Game and Homo Ludens

Introduction

We’re all playing in a game called capitalism. Are we actually playing the game with fair rules, or is it somehow rigged against us?

Squid Game was an international sensation, with critics and audiences lauding the show’s powerful social commentary on the zero-sum brutality of capitalism. By using games as a direct analogy for society, the disconnect between the promise of a fair market and the reality of an evil rigged game is made even clearer.

Desperate for a chance to win a massive cash prize, they compete in life-threatening games, each elimination bringing them closer to the brink of death. Show creator Hwang Dong-hyuk has expressed that “the show is motivated by a simple idea - we are fighting for our lives in very unequal circumstances.” Link

Squid game and play

Perhaps you’ve heard of the magic circle theory of play? This term was coined by Johann Huizinga in his 1953 book Homo Ludens.

Johan Huizinga was a Dutch cultural historian and cultural theorist. In his book Homo Ludens, Huizinga discusses the importance of the play element of culture and society. Huizinga thinks that All games share certain formal similarities, and he listed five rules to define play in games.

All games have similarities, and Huizinga wanted to define them.

He set forth a series of rules that he uses to define play that we can find in games.

1. Play is voluntary.
2. Play is rule ordered.
3. Play happens in a ‘magic circle’.
4. Play is different from ordinary life.
5. Play is not done for money.

By looking at Squid Game through the lens of Huizinga’s theory, I hope by the end of this video, we can better understand both Huizinga’s theory of play and what Squid Game has to say about play and culture.

Let’s take a look at Squid Game through the lens of each of these principles to see how perverted they have become from the pure vision of play set forth by Huizinga.

1. Is Squid Game voluntary?
2. Is Squid Game rule ordered
3. Does Squid Game take place in a ‘magic circle’.
4. Are the games they play different from ordinary life?
5. Is Squid Game played for money?

Let’s start with number 5: is Squid Game done for money?

Squid Game is absolutely played for money. These contestants have enrolled in the game because they are broke. What’s more, the games were created by and for the insanely rich to entertain themselves by gambling on it.

This dovetails nicely with question 1, is Squid Game played voluntarily?

The characters in Squid Game do volunteer to play the game. They can choose to leave at any time as well. But – they are targeted by the organization, because they are broke. And, the ability to leave at any time is a false hope, because it is decided through a vote, not individually.

The idea that play is voluntary means that the individual can choose, like when you are playing a game of chess, you can choose to stop playing at any time. The individual playing Squid Game can’t opt out of playing “cut out the ppopgi cookie shape” if there’s a gun being held to their head! They even pass a majority vote at one point and end the games… but, the deciding vote is cast by the person who is running the game.

The next principle we’ll look at: is Squid Game outside of ordinary life?

On the surface, it does seem like Squid Game fulfills this principle. The characters are brought to a mysterious island facility. But, the idea that the Squid Game is outside of the players’ lives makes less sense when you consider that they are literally fighting for their lives. These are people who have lost at the game of capitalism in the outside world, and their lives/livelihoods are threatened, which is why they feel the pressure to volunteer to play the game.

Taken as such, the world of the Squid Game isn’t a temporary sphere of activity outside of their real lives, but rather just a new stage for them to compete in. And that’s one way that Squid Game shows that its deadly competition is more than just a twisted game show, but actually a metaphor for our society - because the players aren’t leaving their real lives, they’re fighting for them.

This principle is very similar, but crucially different in some ways from the next one: does Squid Game take place in a Magic Circle idea?

Now, the magic circle idea is very similar to the idea that play is outside of everyday life. But, for Huizinga, the magic circle has more to do with how play is limited in time and space. Play takes place in a distinct location, such as a court or a playground. It also only lasts for a specific amount of time, and then you return to ordinary life.

So again, this does seem true – the game takes place on an island!

Breaking it down further, there are separate rooms with time limits specifically for each game, and a living area the players return to. But how real are these distinctions? The prize money for the winner goes up for each person that dies during the games. But, it is eventually revealed that they don’t necessarily have to die IN a game for the money to go up. So they start killing each other in the living area. The concept of a “magic circle” that separates game from reality is now gone, because just like in the real-world of 24/7 capitalism, the game never ends.

The last principle is : does Squid Game create order?

It’s definitely true that each of the five games that the players play in Squid Game are ordered by rules. They are games that every Korean child knows the rules of (show names of games). But, even though each of the games have rules, the order is not enforced by the players. The rules are somehow superseded by the order that is imposed by the threat of death in the games themselves. In the Squid Game, we have masked guards who are a force of order during the game.

Conclusion - How squid game critiques society

In order to understand how Squid Game critiques play and the role it has in our culture, we need to talk about someone in the Squid Game who we’ve been ignoring until now. It’s time to address the elephant in the room, the spoilsport.

Huizinga talks about how the biggest threat to all games and play is the possibility of someone who ruins the game by deliberately misinterpreting the rules. This is so dangerous because this breaks the illusion of the game, and robs it of its significance.

Hwang Jun-Ho is a detective who breaks into the island, and I think in some ways he is so threatening because he is a spoilsport. Remember, a “spoilsport” isn’t just someone who cheats, because that would still be upholding the illusion of the game-world. A “spoilsport” is someone who doesn’t engage in the game-world at all, actively threatening it.

But, if this is a show about games, why is one of the most important characters a spoilsport? It’s because without him, we’d only see the Squid Game from the inside, from the perspective of characters playing it. It’s through the eyes of our detective character the cracks in the system are revealed. The “order” in the Squid Game is nothing more than a barely held-together system that is constantly threatened by the outside world.

The detective character also represents a moral compass in the show, in contrast to the other players of the squid game. For example, our main character Gi-Hun has a heart of gold, his character is developed through many actions that are desperate, sad and otherwise indicative of the problems in his life.

He steals from his elderly mother, he punches his ex-Wife’s new husband in the face. He gambles and runs up huge debts.

When he joins the Squid Game, we meet other characters in similar predicaments, we get the sense that all of them have similar backgrounds.

They’ve made bad decisions, and are in a bad situation.

So while we root for the “good guys” in the Squid Game compared to the evil crew of “bad guys”, I think without the detective we would feel even less satisfied by the show’s bleak conclusions.

That’s because by making the conscious choice to participate in the Squid Game, each player is flawed.

The detective character in contrast is not compromised by the demands made by the game.

The players choose to gamble with their lives with each new game.

This leads them to make decisions that harm others.

So, the protagonist is flawed.

All of the players of the game are flawed.

The game compromises their humanity at every step of the way.

Squid Game is showing us that you can’t dismantle a broken system from the inside.

You can’t stop a game like capitalism that is composed of games within games.

It’s a game where nobody wins except those running it.

And if you just keep playing it, if all you do is play games, you become a target of the game .

You have to be the detective in your own life.

We live in a time when game logic seems to have pervaded everything.

What Squid Game shows us is that the action of playing does not really show you how to lead a good life.

It is the balance between games and “ordinary life” that gives true play its meaning.