How far would you go to get yourself out of debt?
LIKE everyone else in the world, I watched Squid Game on Netflix recently. The South Korean survival drama series sees hundreds of people, heavily in debt and struggling to get by, compete in a series of children’s games for the chance to win millions.
The catch? If they break the rules or fail in any of the tasks, they are killed. It’s an amazing programme.
A simple enough premise but with plenty of backstory layered in as well as twists and turns in the plot to keep you guessing what’s going to happen next and who the mysterious figure behind the games is.
I watched it and felt very smug as I thought, “Ah, yes. This is a critique of capitalism.
“The games are a metaphor for the silly ways in which we live our lives, adhering to the rules in order to have enough money to continue living our very expensive lives.”
I looked on Twitter to see if other people had picked up on this as well.
Of course they had. It’s glaringly obvious. What else could it be about?
It left me with the feeling that I am actually quite daft. I
never pick up on subtext in films or books unless it’s spelled out for me.
I try not to use any deep metaphors in my own writing as I simply don’t really know how to do it.
Occasionally someone will message me about a story I’ve written and ask if it was a metaphor for something else.
They’ve normally thought about it long and hard, looking at what the characters have said, how I’ve described their feelings and clothing choices.
I always say aye, even though nine times out of 10 I haven’t meant it. It makes me feel clever, for a wee change.
Squid Game also poses to the viewer the question – how far would you go for a few million quid?
It’s something me and pals would always ask each other in the playground as wee guys.
As it turned out, there wasn’t much we wouldn’t do.
If, like the characters in the show, you were mired in debt to a debilitating extent and desperately needed money to make sure your family were alright, you really would do anything.
If someone came to me right now and offered me the chance to compete in games I played as a wean and if I win them all I’ll have enough money to do anything I want for the rest of my life I’d say aye before they even finished their sentence.
Could I win a game of Kerby knowing if I won, I’d be handsomely rewarded but if I lost, I’d be killed?
Could I be so ruthless as to condemn my opponent to death?
Look them in the eye as the ball sails through the air hoping it bounces back to me with a thwang right at their feet?
I almost certainly couldn’t and would be “eliminated” in the first round.
One of the games sees the competitors play tug of war.
When picking teams for this game, I’d definitely be picked last.
Other players would look me up and down, my skinny frame showing no hint of strength or muscle definition of any sort and decide that there was no chance they’d have me on their team.
Maybe a game of chappy would be more suited to me? A game that I was, however, too feart to play as a wee guy as I vividly remember a guy walking about my bit with a crossbow looking for whoever had chosen to chap his door and run away.
Being killed by a topless man wielding a crossbow has, since that very moment, been quite high up on the list of my deepest fears.
I still wake up in a cold sweat imagining myself as a wee guy again, my scrawny wee fist shaking as I raise it to knock on a door in a close only for it to open before my knuckles made contact with it and staring right down the length of the bolt and into the cold, dead eyes of the man wielding the weapon.
I could maybe throw a teabag into a cup from a decent distance away if that was an option though.
Squid Game is class and I encourage the maybe two people out there who haven’t seen it yet to watch it.
It’ll make you think about your own childhood and what games you’d be good at even if you don’t like the rest of the programme.
It’s exactly the kind of telly I’ve been looking for – high-stakes, intense, funny and thought-provoking.
The creator of the show spent 10 years trying to get it made, getting knocked back by countless studios before finally getting the green light to make it happen.
Maybe the subtext in that tale is that you should never listen to guys in suits telling you your idea is no good.