The real-life violence that inspired South Korea’s ‘Squid Game’
AFP/APP
Seoul: A factory turned into a battlefield, riot police armed with tasers, and an activist who spent 100 days atop a chimney the unrest that inspired Netflix’s Squid Game bears all the hallmarks of a real-life TV drama.
This month marks the release of Squid Game‘s second season, a dystopian show in which desperate individuals compete in deadly versions of children’s games for a massive cash prize.
Though the show is a work of fiction, its creator, Hwang Dong-hyuk, has revealed that the experiences of the main character, Gi-hun a laid-off worker were inspired by the violent strikes at Ssangyong Motor in 2009.
Hwang explained that he wanted to depict how any ordinary middle-class person could fall to the bottom of the economic ladder overnight. In May 2009, Ssangyong, a troubled South Korean carmaker, announced it would lay off over 2,600 workers, nearly 40% of its workforce.
This triggered a 77-day strike, during which factory workers clashed violently with riot police armed with rubber bullets and tasers. Many union members were beaten, some jailed, and tensions only deepened with protracted legal battles.
Five years later, union leader Lee Chang-kun staged a 100-day sit-in on top of the factory’s chimney to protest the legal actions taken against strikers.
Lee was supplied with food by supporters, but the isolation and stress led him to experience hallucinations, while workers continued to face severe physical and psychological tolls. In total, around 30 individuals from the strike, including workers and their families, died from suicide or stress-related illnesses.
Lee recalled the extreme violence faced by the workers: “Police kept beating us even after we fell unconscious this happened at our workplace, and it was broadcast for so many to see.”
He expressed disappointment that, despite the global attention generated by Squid Game, such discussions have not translated into meaningful social or political change for South Korean workers.
“I wish the show had spurred real-life change,” Lee said. “Despite being widely discussed, it is disappointing that we have not channelled these conversations into more beneficial outcomes.”
The success of Squid Game Netflix’s most-watched series of all time catapulted South Korea to cultural prominence, alongside other global phenomena like Parasite and K-pop.
However, as South Korea faces severe political turmoil under President Yoon Suk Yeol, who recently attempted to impose martial law, there are concerns about how political violence and social inequality continue to permeate the country’s culture.
Vladimir Tikhonov, a professor of Korean studies at the University of Oslo, observed that many of South Korea’s most successful cultural exports, including Squid Game, reflect themes of state and capitalist violence.
“It is a noteworthy and interesting phenomenon we still live in the shadow of state violence, and this state violence is a recurrent theme in highly successful cultural products,” he said.
As Squid Game returns for a second season, it serves as a stark reminder of the unresolved tensions in South Korea’s labor relations and the enduring impact of past violence on the nation’s psyche.
