The Squid Game: Implications to Faith

           “The Squid Game” begins with a recollection from childhood, friends playing the Squid Game.  It’s a running around game, something integrating elements of ‘Tag’, of ‘British Bulldog’, something to be remembered fondly.  That opening sequence is probably the only part that I would suggest that kids watch.  Because this show is brutal.

          It is also compelling, original in its brutality, and very well done.  From one article I read, it is apparently even better in the Korean in which it was written and produced.

          Okay, SPOILERS AHEAD.  Four hundred and fifty six people, all in desperate need of money, are selected, screened for their acceptance of physical assault in pursuit of money, and then thrust into an arena to compete for a fortune.  It’s a variation on the gladiatorial games.  It hearkens back, for me, to Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome-the final movie in the franchise BEFORE the reboot.  There was the arena-Thunderdome-and the chant.  “Two men enter, one man leave.”

          In this case, four hundred and fifty six enter, one leaves.  And it is not a combat arena.  Rather, the contestants are subjected to kid’s games, like “Red Light Green Light” (and a very disturbing doll) or playing with marbles and so on.  But to lose is to die.  If the game is not rigged to kill you, the anonymous guards will do it, shot and executed.

          It’s a tale of what money will drive people to.  One of the more horrifying moments comes when, after the first game, after the deaths of half their number, they have an option, by majority rule, to end the game.  Which they do-the contestants do, without retribution.  But after some time in the ‘real’ world of their former desperation, the vast majority, when given the opportunity, return.

          It is not just a tale of what money will drive people to do when they do not have it.  We meet the VIP’s, the rich and bored of the 1% who gather to bet on these games.  They have money to do anything they want and they derive pleasure from watching the poor fight one another.  It is the boredom of the rich that pays for this entire enterprise-but that is one twist I will not spoil here.  It got me.

          Okay Pastor, why do you watch stuff like this, Pastor?  Is it to see how the faith is portrayed?  Well, there are a few moments where Christianity (which is the dominant faith in South Korea) is focused upon, and it does not come off well. 

          The more I watched this, the more the beginning of Ecclesiastes echoed in my mind.  “Meaningless!  Meaningless!  Utterly meaningless!  Everything is meaningless.  What do people gain from all their labors at which they toil under the sun?” (New International Version)

          This book of ‘wisdom’ carries a theme that the pursuit of the pleasures of life are ultimately useless in and of itself.  And the author, according to the introduction to the book, is King Solomon, the richest and the ‘wisest’ king of Israel’s history.  (Yes, the book does not mention him by name but verse 1 beings “The words of the Teacher, son of David, king in Jerusalem…”

          Why is “The Squid Game” so popular?  It is the latest manifestation of that ultimate burden of life and wealth.  It is meaningless.  People will die to get it.  People who got it will watch them dying to gain distraction.  Audiences will watch ever more brutal and violent portrayals of what ‘could happen’, like a world in which “The Squid Game” occurs, for the same reason.

          As I said, while Christianity takes its lumps in this vision of who we might be, that was not the emotional gut punch for me.  No, that came with the married couple among the contestants.  And the game with marbles.  I will not spoil what happens, except to say that that this was the moment when the pursuit of money swept over even love and affection. 

          In a world of boredom and desperation…I can hear the narrator speaking those words in a deep bass tone.  This is where real faith is so necessary.  “The Squid Game” is well done, very well done.  It touches something deep in the culture of the world.  I have to admit that the only thing that truly let me down was their attempt at a hopeful conclusion.  It struck me as a rather forced hook for Season Two.

          So what do we do about this?  Wake up.  Realize how the ‘important’ things in life have been defined for us by the culture around us-the sinful culture around us.  There is an “AHA” moment in this for me.  Sunday’s service is based in the second half of John 14 as our Scripture lesson.  While not the focus of the sermon, there is one line in there, spoken by Jesus, “I cannot talk to you much more, because the ruler of this world is coming.  But he has no power over me.”  Obvious reference to the devil, I would think.

          Consider this.  “The Squid Game” portrays the world as it becomes under the present ruler of the world.  Consider the twisted, malevolent, evil guiding the culture of the world that gets audiences to be transfixed by this ‘what if’ possibility.  Consider how much we need to plumb the depths of our Christian faith, of the love and peace and forgiveness we are taught by Jesus to stand up to that ‘reality’.