‘Squid Game’ Is the Most Disturbing Show I’ve Ever Seen

Everything we can’t stop loving, hating, and thinking about this week in pop culture. [Manage newsletters]( [View in browser]( [Image] with Kevin Fallon Everything we can’t stop loving, hating, and thinking about this week in pop culture. This Week: - Forever traumatized by Squid Game. - We’re doing that “next James Bond” thing again… - Three magical duets. - The celebrity quotes I can’t stop thinking about. - Cher!!!!!!! On Squid Game, My Nightmares, and Global Domination It was a little over 40 minutes into the first episode of Squid Game when my eyebrow arched in confusion, I squinted closer at the TV, and, without realizing it, stopped breathing. Over the next minute, I reflexively started to lean back into my couch, as if my body was trying to run away from the TV, and began to make this weird combination gasp-yelp sound. I sort of shielded my eyes, but also couldn’t look away. I wonder if I’ll ever stop thinking about it? When I talk about how disturbed I was by [Netflix’s hit series Squid Game](, it’s not in the way that, at brunch with friends, someone might exclaim, “Oh my god, you guys, this show totally creeped me out,” for dramatic effect and attention. The violence, the psychological warfare, the haunting real-world feasibility of something seemingly so outrageous: it pierces you, but then it stays there. It’s the show’s own brutal gameplay with the audience. A metaphorical stabbing. Few series in the age of streaming have ever become [word-of-mouth phenomena]( at the scale and speed with which the South Korean thriller has since its Sept. 17 debut. Especially in this last week, that peculiar title—what the hell could a “Squid Game” possibly be??!—has been everywhere, spreading its tentacles, so to speak, to news headlines, social media feeds, and group texts, where friends and family debate each episode’s twists and commiserate over the trauma. Proving both how clever and exquisitely cinematic the series is, but also maybe how desperate people are not to be left out, Squid Game is currently the No. 1 show on Netflix [in 90 different countries](. The streamer is on record saying it is on track to be its [most-watched series ever](. So here we have this interesting dichotomy: Squid Game may be the most upsetting series I’ve ever seen, and it also may be the most globally popular series in modern times. The less a person knows about Squid Game, the better for their enjoyment. Or, um, the intensity of their waking nightmares after watching. (Good luck to all of us the first time we hear “red light” again.) But here’s a brief primer: The series, which can be watched on Netflix in Korean with English subtitles or dubbed in English, comes from South Korean director and writer Hwang Dong-hyuk. A down-on-his-luck gambler with a mountain of debt, Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae), is recruited by a mystery man to participate in an ambiguous game that he promises would allow Gi-hun to settle his finances and start his life over. He arrives at a secret venue to find 455 other contestants—he is number 456—all in similarly dire straits, confused about what they’ve gotten into but tantalized at the prospect of a cash prize. Once they sign a strangely sparse contract, it is explained to them that if they make it through six games without being eliminated, they will win 45.6 billion won, or what amounts to $38.7 million. At first, these seem like childhood games, like Red Light, Green Light. (Squid Game, for example, is a variation on tag.) But the contestants soon learn—to their horror and the reason I may never sleep soundly again—that “being eliminated” means being killed. Anecdotally, I’ve noticed different reasons that people have become Squid Game evangelists. There’s a certain thrill to being as shocked and as horrified as the characters in each episode of the series. (The cliffhanger-happy series once ended an episode in the middle of such a tense moment that I impulsively yelled, “Fuck you!” at the TV. And then clicked play on the next one.) That’s intoxicating, even if it is rooted in such darkness, and people want to share that high. A more sinister extension of that is payback. Someone convinced me to traumatize myself with this show, so now I’m going to pass that on, until we’re all collectively disturbed together. More than one person has described the show to me as “fun,” which is absolutely wild. Watching the nine episodes is an intense experience. I think there’s a certain appeal in watching something that is so meticulously drawn. From the way the set pieces are laid out, the framing of certain (spectacular) shots, and the music cues, there is a morbid whimsy purposefully injected into the show. It’s black comedy at its bleakest, a tonal juxtaposition that is to be admired. I think it’s so effective, especially in a genre that is so extreme in its gore, that it masquerades as “fun.” Then there’s the age-old reason: Curiosity kills the cat—or, in this case, the human spirit, which no longer exists after watching. Everyone is talking about it. Especially as it’s caught fire this last week, Netflix has dutifully made sure it shows up on as many home screens as possible. Who wants to feel like they missed out? (As someone who finished the season and may never smile again, maybe it’s OK to miss out!) Watching Squid Game is such a visceral experience, but in a way that we’re not used to when it comes to television. We all have memories of the TV scenes that are so sad that just the thought of them makes you cry. (In fact, that was a [viral meme on Twitter this week](.) But the feelings I can conjure more explicitly are the times I watched something so upsetting that I nearly vomited—and in one case did. The hanging fake-out scene at the beginning of [Handmaid’s Tale season two](. The beach scene [in Years and Years](. Now, any number of Squid Game sequences join the list. It’s funny how little patience we seem to have for things that make us feel good. The [Schitt’s Creek final season]( into [Ted Lasso season one admiration]( was short-lived to the point of receiving intense backlash this year over [shows that are “too nice.”]( We keep finding our way back to the things that are disturbing. What’s interesting is who feels it intensely, and who arrives at it from a remove. The show is everywhere. It’s arrived on TikTok, where the hashtag #squidgame already had [over 11 billion views]( earlier this week. People are having a blast making jokes about how they’d pose during “Red Light, Green Light.” That particular game’s giant porcelain villain is already achieving [gay-icon status](. The series has been meme’d countless times. The instinct to mine the series’ darkness for comedy is fascinating to me—or maybe that’s just an inevitability in today’s social-media world. Comparisons between Squid Game and both The Hunger Games and Battle Royale are obvious. One friend asked me why someone would want to watch something that’s like The Hunger Games, but more realistic. For a lot of people, that’s exactly why they’re so attracted to the series, which I think says a lot about us as a society. On the other hand, that’s also what makes the show so effective and its impact so undeniable. There is only one thing that I will slightly spoil, and it’s not the biggest plot point, but it’s important for talking about why the show works. Yes, an arena-style death match has been done before in pop culture. But what sets Squid Game apart is agency. The contestants choose to be there in the first place. And once they found out about the deadly repercussions, they were allowed to leave—and did. Then they came back. This isn’t government corruption and abuse as bloodsport. It is desperation as bloodsport. It is an indictment of the class divide that they become willing participants, twice. The stakes outside of the lethal games are as severe as the ones there. I think we’re in the first wave of conversation/fascination over Squid Game’s unprecedented popularity. (I certainly am only in the first wave of NEVER SHUTTING UP about how traumatized I was by it.) It’s a foreign-language series that became an almost instant hit, at a time when Americans, whose pop-culture tastes have been notoriously xenophobic, are becoming more and more excited by global content. [Like Parasite](, it uses genre as a Trojan horse for discussions about capitalism and class. We’re a culture attuned to hyper-violence, but the series manages to show it in a way that you never become desensitized. What does that mean? (That’s not to mention how much we need to debate the ending, which I didn’t love…) When it comes to talking about and dissecting Squid Game, we’ve only just heard “green light.” Spoiler Alert!: I Am the Next James Bond I wondered if anything sounded like more of an interminable drag than the two-hour-and-43-minute running time of [the new James Bond film]( No Time to Die, “[the most emotional 007 movie ever](.” (What fun!) But then, before the movie even opened in theaters, we were gifted something even more annoying than the people who feel the need to tell you “actually, a martini should never be shaken and always stirred” whenever someone quotes the famous drink order. The insufferable race for who will be the next Bond is already starting again. [Alternate text] It was 2015 when Daniel Craig famously said [he’d “rather slash my wrists”]( than play James Bond again after his fourth go in Spectre, meaning that, thanks to his bait-and-switch by agreeing to star in No Time to Die, it’s been six years of this damn conversation. It’s all kicking back into high gear thanks to my new nemesis, epically-named 007 producer Barbara Broccoli, [who, I recently learned](, descends from the Broccolis of Carerra—the literal inventors of the broccoli vegetable, who then named it after themselves. (Why are we not talking about that?!) This icon of the vegetable community [told BBC Radio 4]( that the hunt for Craig’s replacement will officially begin next year. The internet, however, thought, “Why wait?” and has already started going on and on about it. Just as they have, with little rest, for the last six years. It’s always the same serious answers. Did you know that a lot of people think Tom Hiddleston or Idris Elba should do it? There’s bitching that Clive Owen never did it. Then the people who think they’re funny by suggesting random-ass Brits. (“The next 007 should be… Prue from Great British Bake-Off lololol!”) There are those who, rightfully, say, “It’s time that James Bond be inclusive!” and then ruin the whole gesture by suggesting, like, a dog. Every gay on social media posts a photo of Melissa McCarthy in Spy. There are those jokes, but the real reason why this is all so irritating is that so many people take it so seriously. There are betting odds for it. People make the case for their picks as if they’re writing a manifesto for a newly-formed government. People still treat what should seem like very logical replacements—the suave and sexy Idris Elba or Regé-Jean Page—as provocative. (I remember once an editor who rarely weighed in on entertainment news proclaimed, “We should publish a piece saying Idris Elba should be Bond,” like we were taking the next great stand for democracy.) And it’s because the purists who feel that the character should look as described in the novels and as he’s been on screen ever since are in such large numbers and so vocal—which is to say, vaguely racist—that such casting becomes a legitimate concern. Part of the guessing game is fun, sure. Fantasy casting always is. But it’s also exhausting and, as we’ve seen, can perpetuate the systemic failings of Hollywood and society. Plus, what are we, if not kidding ourselves? Every time there’s a new famous Brit who is handsome, suddenly he’s the frontrunner to be the next Bond. Current “contenders” like Bridgerton’s Page and his co-star Jonathan Bailey were not even on the radar when then-It Boys Damian Lewis and Tom Hardy were being talked about as favorites. It’s all so silly. So, sure, we’ll just respond to the question of who should be the next Bond like every other gay does: The 12 TV Minutes That Changed My Life (For Good) The [Tony Awards were on Sunday](, which I realize is about a decade in news cycles. But I haven’t been able to stop thinking about them. Coming right after the MTV VMAs and [the Emmy Awards](, there was a bit of award-show fatigue. But I watched them anyway, partly because when you’re a gay man, there’s always a lingering fear that if you don’t watch them, GLAAD will send Patti LuPone to your house to personally berate you. The way they were presented boggled the mind. They took place across four hours, and you had to watch across two different streaming services—or one streaming service and then regular broadcast TV, or one streaming service and then pay for a more expensive tier of the streaming service to see the rest—a gesture of inaccessibility that flies directly in the face of the idea that the Tony broadcast is meant to bring Broadway theater to the masses who can’t make it to New York. And it was less an advertisement to attract tourists and patrons back to Broadway now that the shows are reopening, something the industry sorely needs, than it was a nostalgic celebration. The songs were lovely. Jennifer Holliday performed “And I Am Telling You…” and it blew the rafters off the Winter Garden Theater with such force you could hear the explosion in L.A. (No full video exists online. [How come, Chief Willoughby?]() But the messiness and frustration aside, there was a roughly 12-ish minute stretch near the end that may be some of the most magical television I’ve watched this year. Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel reunited to [perform “For Good” from Wicked](. They cried. I wept. Anthony Rapp and Adam Pascal [did their big duet](, “What You Own,” from Rent. And then the finale: vocal powerhouses Audra McDonald and Brian Stokes Mitchell sang “Wheels of a Dream” from Ragtime. In reaction shots, people from the audience were in tears and shaking, they were so moved. By the time the duo belted the song’s bridge, the hairs on my arm, which had long been standing at attention, leapt off my body and through the ceiling, on their way to the moon. Especially after so long without live musical theater, the emotion of it all was so much, so visceral. The performance was ebullient. It really struck me. [Here’s a video of it]( so that you, too, can join me in watching it 45 times a day. That “Motherf--ker” Denzel Washington and Guacamole I couldn’t decide what was my favorite thing that a celebrity said this week, so I chose two, which means together at last in the same thought are Ellen Pompeo and T-Pain. [Pompeo made headlines this week]( after revealing on her podcast that she got in a little tiff with Denzel Washington when he directed an episode of Grey’s Anatomy. He got mad at her for giving a direction herself, and she replied, “Listen, motherfucker, this is my show. This is my set. Who are you telling?” Opinions are all over the place on this one. Is she a fierce boss who asserted her worth on the set she’s reigned over for 16 years? Did she disrespect the greatest actor of our generation? I kind of lean toward the former, mostly because I am in awe of a person who has Denzel Washington in their presence and without blinking can say, “Listen, motherfucker…” That’s confidence. I peed myself a little just reading about it. Then there’s my other favorite quote of the week, which is, of course, T-Pain describing why he doesn’t like guacamole [in the Grub Street column](. [Alternate text] Give Cher’s Twitter Account a Pulitzer Already Not since Brenda Webb (RIP) was told to “[keep your eyes open bitch](” has a person been so spectacularly [roasted by Cher](. I may never stop thinking about “TAKE A TYLENOL.” I want it on a T-shirt. This exchange is from 2020, but, thanks to journalist [Evan Ross Katz’s Instagram](, it just came into my life this week, when I needed it most. [Alternate text] [Alternate text] - Maid: The next Netflix drama that could/should be an awards contender. (Fri. on Netflix) - The Guilty: Ninety minutes of Jake Gyllenhaal is always a “watch,” never a “skip.” (Fri. on Netflix) - Ghosts: Wise-cracking ghosts haunt a couple’s new mansion. Sure! (Thurs. on CBS) - Titane: A woman has sex with a car. It won Cannes. Do with that information what you will. (Fri. in theaters) [Alternate text] - Diana: The Musical: Just wait for Spencer. And The Crown. (Fri. on Netflix) - The Many Saints of Newark: Our critic called The Sopranos prequel “dry macaroni with no gravy.” (Fri. in theaters and on HBO Max) Advertisement [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [Instagram]( © Copyright 2021 The Daily Beast Company LLC 555 W. 18th Street, New York NY 10011 [Privacy Policy]( If you are on a mobile device or cannot view the images in this message, [click here]( to view this email in your browser. To ensure delivery of these emails, please add emails@thedailybeast.com to your address book. If you no longer wish to receive these emails, or think you have received this message in error, you can [safely unsubscribe](.