Nina Metz: ‘Squid Game’s’ blunt critique of capitalism has been great for Netflix’s pursuit of capitalism. Never mind the irony!
One of the key things wealth can buy is the ability to make decisions and change your circumstances. Money gives you options and choices. For everyone else in the vicinity of Just Getting By (or worse), choice is often little more than an illusion. Most of us fall into the latter category and perhaps that’s one of the reasons the Netflix Korean series “Squid Game” has become such a global phenomenon since premiering last month, with its brutal critique of capitalist imperatives and the traps therein.
The premise: Hundreds of people in dire financial straits are brought to an unknown location, where they play a series of schoolyard games in the hopes of winning a massive cash prize. Naturally, there is a catch: If you lose at any point, you are eliminated — in the most literal sense of the word. As in, dead.
The show falls
