As the South Korean drama series “Squid Game” explodes in popularity across the world, people are finding dystopian parallels with the current government and its failed policies, calling it the “Moon Jae-in Game.”
“Squid Game” is a dark and brutal drama about a group of people on a secluded island playing a series of children’s games. The winner takes home a 45.6 billion won ($38 million) prize and every other player is killed. The series, which was released on September 17 and stars Lee Jung-jae and Park Hae-soo, became the top-rated show on Netflix in many countries, including the United States.
One online user compared the show to how people in South Korea must survive under the Moon Jae-in administration. It starts off with the host of the game, Moon Jae-in saying, “You all elected me voluntarily and were not forced to do so, and this is the game that you all wanted to play.” In the actual drama series, 456 people desperate to win money due to their disastrous financial situation were given the choice to join the survival game. The user’s post read as follows:
<The first game is a tax increase. People with multiple homes who cannot afford the tax will be eliminated. The second game is a housing price increase. People with no home who cannot afford the price will be eliminated. The third game is the social distancing policy. Small business owners who cannot afford to deal with the policy will be eliminated. The fourth game is consumer price inflation. Low-income people who cannot afford the inflation will be eliminated. The fifth game is transitioning contract workers to full-time positions. Jobseekers who cannot afford the situation will be eliminated.>
The post ends with, “Are you still alive? The final game begins in March next year.” South Korea will hold its presidential election in March 2022.
Many others are comparing the current reality of South Korea to “Squid Game” online. One online user compared a scene in the drama where game organizers provide a limited number of boiled eggs to the participants with the government’s stimulus check policy. In the drama, some people were unable to receive their food, as a few others received the eggs more than once.
One scene was subtitled so that a character in the drama says, “How am I supposed to survive with just this [one egg]?” A game organizer responds, “It is the president that you elected. Just deal with it.” It appears to be making fun of the government’s decision to provide just 250,000 won ($211) per person.
A person who did not receive his stimulus check runs up to the game organizer and asks, “Why am I not getting anything?” The organizer answers, “You belong to the top 12 percent [income] bracket so you are not eligible for it.” The person asks, “Then, how am I able to survive?” The organizer says, “We will give you a sense of pride instead.” In July, South Korean Prime Minister Kim Boo-kyum told people that “We can give people who are not qualified to receive the next round of stimulus checks a sense of pride that they have been contributing to society.”
Another meme targeted the government’s social distancing policy. “This is so unfair, let’s hold rallies!” it reads. “Sorry, rallies are not permitted during quarantine. You will be eliminated.”
Meanwhile, a new survey showed that the approval rating of the main opposition People Power Party (PPP) rose to its highest level since the last few months of the Park Geun-hye administration, when it was being investigated for allegedly meddling with state affairs. According to Realmeter on September 27, the approval ratings of the PPP rose 0.5 percentage points from the previous week to 40.5 percent. The PPP’s approval ratings surpassed the 40 percent level for the second consecutive month.
The approval rating of the ruling Democratic Party (DP) remained unchanged at 32.5 percent during the same period. The gap with the PPP’s figure increased to 8 percentage points, which is well above the 2.5 percentage points of the margin of error.
President Moon Jae-in’s approval rating also remained unchanged at 40.2 percent. The percentage of people who said he is doing “very well” was 23.3 percent and “fairly well” was 16.9 percent. A total of 55.9 percent of survey respondents gave a negative assessment of Moon. Among them, 42.3 percent said he is doing “very bad” and 13.6 percent said he is doing “fairly bad.”
Other survey results that came out on the same day showed a similar trend but was not as rosy as the PPP might have expected. According to Korea Research International, 47.1 percent of the respondents said the candidate from the opposition party should be elected as the next president, while 41.6 percent said one from the ruling party should be.
However, the survey showed that Gyeonggi Governor Lee Jae-myung, frontrunner in the DP primaries, is leading all other key candidates from the PPP. The approval rating of Lee was 27.8 percent, which is higher than the 17.2 percent recorded by former Prosecutor General Yoon Seok-youl and the 16.3 percent recorded by Rep. Hong Joon-pyo. When asked about the possibility of each candidate being elected, Lee’s figure was the highest with 42.4 percent. This was followed by Yoon with 20.7 percent and Hong with 12.6 percent. Governor Lee appears to be more popular than the DP mainstream represented by the Moon faction and its troubling vision for South Korea.
