앞날을 바라봐도 밝은 희망은 안보이는, 좌절에 빠져있는 젊은이들이 집값 상승과 직업의 불안정으로 걱정이 많은 한국의 젊은이들이 절규하는 모습을 그린 넷플릭스가 전세계적으로 힛트를 치고 있어, 그영향이 미국을 비롯한 전세계의 시청자들이 큰 관심을 갖고 지켜보고 있다.
이기사를 뉴욕타임스에서는 Economy Section에서 크게 조명하고 있었다.
일명 'Squid Game'게임으로 불리는, 절망적인 삶을 살아가는 456명의 얘기를 주제로 다루고 있는데, 이들은 심각히 쌓여가는 부채, 경제적으로 절망속에서 살아가는 내용을 그리는 영화인데, 꼬마들이 38백만 달러의 상금을 타가기위해 치열한 경쟁을 하는 모습을 그린내용이라고 밝히고있다.
일본에서도 화제고, 유럽에서도 인기를 끌고있고....
처절한 경쟁의 삶을 묘사한 이연속극은 9회까지 공개되고있는데, 전세계적으로 센세이션을 일으키고 있다. "오징어게임" 극은 현재 미국에서 톱랭키을 차지하면서 Netflix에서 보여주고 있다. 현재 streaming써비스의 역사상 가장 인기를 끌고있는 쑈중의 하나가 됐다고 한다.
"아마도 지금까지 한번도 겪어보지 않은 커다란 쑈가 될 찬스가 매우높다" 라고 의 공동소주 Ted Sarandos씨가 비즈니스 콘퍼런스에서 밝히고 있다.
도대체 어떤 내용들이기에 이렇게 전세계적으로 인기를 끌고 있는지? 나도 한번 그쑈를 보고 싶다는 생각이 강해진다.
대한민국의 치부를 전세계에 알려주는 챙피함? 아니면 요즘과 같이 많이 발전한 IT기술의 결과물이라고 봐야 할지? 잘 알지도 못하면서 이러쿵 저러쿵 멘트를 한다는게 매우 조심스러울 뿐이다.
https://www.chosun.com/international/japan/2021/10/08/G3IK45BYMJB7HC5F4ZNME6O73Y/
The dystopian Netflix hit taps South Korea’s worries about costly housing and scarce jobs, concerns familiar to its U.S. and international viewers.
SEOUL — In “Squid Game,” the hit dystopian television show on Netflix, 456 people facing severe debt and financial despair play a series of deadly children’s games to win a $38 million cash prize in South Korea.
Koo Yong-hyun, a 35-year-old office worker in Seoul, has never had to face down masked homicidal guards or competitors out to slit his throat, like the characters in the show do. But Mr. Koo, who binge-watched “Squid Game” in a single night, said he empathized with the characters and their struggle to survive in the country’s deeply unequal society.
Mr. Koo, who got by on freelance gigs and government unemployment checks after he lost his steady job, said it is “almost impossible to live comfortably with a regular employee’s salary” in a city with runaway housing prices. Like many young people in South Korea and elsewhere, Mr. Koo sees a growing competition to grab a slice of a shrinking pie, just like the contestants in “Squid Game.”
Those similarities have helped turn the nine-episode drama into an unlikely international sensation. “Squid Game” is now the top-ranked show in the United States on Netflix and is on its way to becoming one of the most-watched shows in the streaming service’s history. “There’s a very good chance it will be our biggest show ever,” Ted Sarandos, a co-chief executive at Netflix, said during a recent business conference.
Culturally, the show has sparked an online embrace of its distinct visuals, especially the black masks decorated with simple squares and triangles worn by the anonymous guards, and a global curiosity for the Korean children’s games that underpin the deadly competitions. Recipes for dalgona, the sugary Korean treat at the center of one especially tense showdown, have gone viral.
Like the “Hunger Games” books and movies, “Squid Game” holds its audience with its violent tone, cynical plot and — spoiler alert! — a willingness to kill off fan-favorite characters. But it has also tapped a sense familiar to people in the United States, Western Europe and other places, that prosperity in nominally rich countries has become increasingly difficult to achieve, as wealth disparities widen and home prices rise past affordable levels.
“The stories and the problems of the characters are extremely personalized but also reflect the problems and realities of Korean society,” Hwang Dong-hyuk, the show’s creator, said in an email. He wrote the script as a film in 2008, when many of these trends had become evident, but overhauled it to reflect new worries, including the impact of the coronavirus. (Minyoung Kim, the head of content for the Asia-Pacific region at Netflix, said the company was in talks with Mr. Hwang about producing a second season.)
“Squid Game” is only the latest South Korean cultural export to win a global audience by tapping into the country’s deep feelings of inequality and ebbing opportunities. “Parasite,” the 2019 film that won best picture at the Oscars, paired a desperate family of grifters with the oblivious members of a rich Seoul household. “Burning,” a 2018 art-house hit, built tension by pitting a young deliveryman against a well-to-do rival for a woman’s attention.
South Korea boomed in the postwar era, making it one of the richest countries in Asia and leading some economists to call its rise the “miracle on the Han River.” But wealth disparity has worsened as the economy has matured.
“South Koreans used to have a collective community spirit,” said Yun Suk-jin, a drama critic and professor of modern literature at Chungnam National University. But the Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s undermined the nation’s positive growth story and “made everyone fight for themselves.”
The country now ranks No. 11 using the Gini coefficient, one measure of income inequality, among the members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the research group for the world’s richest nations. (The United States is No. 6.)
As South Korean families have tried to keep up, household debt has mounted, prompting some economists to warn that the debt could hold back the economy. Home prices have surged to the point where housing affordability has become a hot-button political topic. Prices in Seoul have soared by over 50 percent during the tenure of the country’s president, Moon Jae-in, and led to a political scandal.
“Squid Game” lays bare the irony between the social pressure to succeed in South Korea and the difficulty of doing just that, said Shin Yeeun, who graduated from college in January 2020, just before the pandemic hit. Now 27, she said she had spent over a year looking for steady work.
“It’s really difficult for people in their 20s to find a full-time job these days,” she said.
South Korea has also suffered a sharp drop in births, generated partly by a sense among young people that raising children is too expensive.
“In South Korea, all parents want to send their kids to the best schools,” Ms. Shin said. “To do that you have to live in the best neighborhoods.” That would require saving enough money to buy a house, a goal so unrealistic “that I’ve never even bothered calculating how long it will take me,” Ms. Shin said.
“Squid Game” revolves around Seong Gi-hun, a gambling addict in his 40s who doesn’t have the means to buy his daughter a proper birthday present or pay for his aging mother’s medical expenses. One day he is offered a chance to participate in the Squid Game, a private event run for the entertainment of wealthy individuals. To claim the $38 million prize, contestants must pass through six rounds of traditional Korean children’s games. Failure means death.
The 456 contestants speak directly to many of the country’s anxieties. One is a graduate from Seoul National University, the nation’s top university, who is wanted for mishandling his clients’ funds. Another is a North Korean defector who needs to take care of her brother and help her mother escape from the North. Another character is an immigrant laborer whose boss refuses to pay his wages.
The characters have resonated with South Korean youth who don’t see a chance to advance in society. Known locally as the “dirt spoon” generation, many are obsessed with ways to get rich quickly, like with cryptocurrencies and the lottery. South Korea has one of the largest markets for virtual currency in the world.
Like the prize money in the show, cryptocurrencies give “people the chance to change their lives in a second,” said Mr. Koo, the office worker. Mr. Koo, whose previous employer went out of business during the pandemic, said the difficulty of earning money is one reason South Koreans are so obsessed with making a quick buck.
“I wonder how many people would participate if ‘Squid Game’ was held in real life,” he said.
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