Much like Nigeria, in Squid Game, players emerge victorious not really due to their skills but due in large measure to cheating. Success is a matter of survival of the fittest but the fittest is the trickster.
‘Do you know what someone with no money has in common with someone with too much money? Living is no fun for them.’
— Oh II-nam, Squid Game
Squid Game―the South Korean survival drama―has taken the world by storm. In November 2021, the dystopian series became Netflix’s most-watched show of all time, garnering over 1.65 billion viewing hours following its premiere on September 17 and surpassing Shonda Rhimes’ Bridgerton: Season One. Squid Game boosted Netflix’s stock market value by $19 billion so that Netflix is on its way to becoming a trillion-dollar company. In a global system where wealth inequality is an axiomatic fact―about 2,000 billionaires wield more money and power than over 4.6 billion people―the grave-digging proclivities of capitalism is obviously the leitmotif that recurs throughout the series. So celebrated is Squid Game’s fight-to-the-death fantasy that...
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