Squid Games: the real-life crisis that inspired hit Netflix show

South Korean politicians are using the success of Netflix show Squid Game to put social inequality on the agenda ahead of next year’s presidential election.

The “hyper-violent South Korean thriller” is on its way to becoming Netflix’s most streamed show, reported The Telegraph, and “has been seized upon by the country’s politicians squabbling to be elected” as a means by which to discuss “an unequal society”.

The plot follows a group of poor Koreans who are pitted against one another in deadly challenges to win a cash prize. One election candidate has suggested that “a similar contest was going on between the country’s conservatives”, the paper continued.

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Lee Jae-Myung, the governor of Gyeonggi Province and a candidate to stand for the centre-left Democratic Party, dubbed the election a “5 billion-won game”. This was a “thinly veiled reference” to a “controversy that the son of a conservative politician received 5 billion won (£3.2m) for leaving a junior position at an asset management company”.

The sum paid to the son of a right-wing lawmaker would typically be “awarded as severance to top executives leaving major companies”, The Washington Post said, prompting claims that the payment was instead a form of “bribe”.

The show’s plot has “resonated deeply with South Koreans frustrated with rising income inequality in one of Asia’s richest countries”, the paper continued. Areum Jeong, a Korean film expert at Sichuan University-Pittsburgh Institute, said that young people in South Korea “feel discouraged and pessimistic about the unemployment rate”.

Since its release in mid-September, “the series has been deployed as a metaphor by likely contenders in next March’s presidential election to attack each other”, the Post added, while “the public has used the show to talk about the brewing scandal”.

Huh Kyung-young, a politician who has previously stood on a populist platform, has “also used the show for his election campaign”, The Telegraph said, suggesting that he would “introduce a ‘game’ in its honour”.

He hinted that the “game” would see “South Koreans receive roughly £65,000 in a one off payment if he wins more than half the votes” next March.

“Squid Game is representative of the mind-set of Korean people today,” he said. “Ostracisation, devastation, precarity, enemies on every side. [The contestants] are in a position where they have no way out, and the last option seems to be Squid Game.”

Netlifx does not release viewing figures, so the exact number of people that have watched the show is unknown.

However, SK Broadband, a South Korean internet provider, is suing Netflix “to pay for costs from increased network traffic and maintenance work because of a surge of viewers”, according to Reuters.

A spokesperson for the company told the news agency that “Netflix’s data traffic handled by SK jumped 24 times from May 2018”. This prompted a Seoul court to say that Netflix should “reasonably” pay something in return to the internet service provider.

SK Broadband has claimed that the US streaming giant owes around “27.2 billion won [£17m]” for the spike in viewers during 2020, before Squid Game was available on the platform, Reuters added.

Netflix, however, has hit back, claiming that it “contributed to the creation of about 16,000 jobs in South Korea stemming from about 770 billion won [£480bn] in investments”.