Exception: Unless the subject is South Korea’s smash hit show Squid Game.
While the dystopian Squid Game is the No. 1 show on Netflix in 90 countries, its not a big hit in North Korea, where the show is slammed as a “sad reality of a beastly South Korean society.”TMZ is reporting that the pro-North Korea website Arirang Meari is the source of the sour review, and it apparently didn’t get the memo on the show’s fictional nature. To Arirang Meari, the show “gained popularity because it exposes the reality of South Korean capitalist culture.”That’s the least of its barbs. The show depicts “a world where only money matters — a hell-like horror,” and celebrates a society where “corruption and immoral scoundrels are commonplace.”Squid Game, for the uninitated, shows people with unpayable debts competing in a strange winner-take-all contest that will instantly wipe out their slate.That’s not good, according to its critics.
“It is said that it makes people realize the sad reality of the beastly South Korean society in which human beings are driven into extreme competition and their humanity is being wiped out,” whined Arirang.
Just where North Korean society watches Squid Game is a mystery. Western media is forbidden and those caught with it risk prison.
