I’m not here to disappoint you by failing to provide yet another poor quality cartoon drawn by hand on the back side of a reused paper sheet.
I don’t know why Squid Game was released when it was released, but I know that its release – and immediate rise to popularity – coincided with me beginning my postgraduate degree at the University of Brighton.
With all the easter eggs hidden in the show, multi-layered characters, and complex relationships and metaphors, there is a huge outpouring of “analysis” and “break down” type videos on YouTube that focus on Squid Game‘s plot and characters.
So I find myself watch weeks go by while most of what I’ve been doing is in-depth study of Sae-byok, Ji-yeong, Gi-hun, Il-nam and other characters that made the show. No, don’t worry, I did not take up learning Korean – I gave it a go a few months ago after watching Romance is a bonus book (which shares a main character with Squid Game!) – and since I’m not fluent in Korean by now, I don’t think I ever will unless I move to South Korea.
So, really, the above shows me in black-and-white, pen-on-paper. I’ll colour it in later, but I don’t feel obliged to colour it in since I’m not a geographer anymore, so why would I? (I’m kidding; obviously, I am still a geographer. You don’t recover from it that quickly).
Did you watch Squid Game? Are you as much into breaking it down as I am? I think it’s super exciting, and brings media and film studies to the front of popculture pages, which is, you have to say, a good thing. Critical analysis is much better than gossip about who-said-what, who-wore-what, celebrity weddings, divorces, and crushes. Isn’t it?
kotersey 