My TakeIs Hong Kong politics becoming like Squid Game?
- Both sides of the political divide have found comparisons and inspirations from the highly acclaimed Korean TV series, but unsurprisingly, have drawn very different conclusions
If counterpoint is a musical composition that plays two or more contrasting themes together, and the Hegelian concept of synthesis (Aufhebung) is the integration of opposites, then Squid Game is the television version that has magically mixed many different genres and tropes into a brilliant coherent whole.
And so, the anti-government yellows and the pro-China/establishment blues – the two opposing extremes of local politics – have found in the TV series a representation of each other’s predicaments, and Hong Kong’s.
In yellow online platforms, many discussions have likened Hong Kong to the Korean children’s games that look innocent from the outside but whose outcomes are the killings of many and the survival of the very few.
The blues, however, have compared how the show’s game players betray, trick, kill, and conspire against each other to the unscrupulous behaviour of anti-government/China rioters and protesters.
“The show’s portrayal of human nature is more terrifying than any of the gore and violence in it,” said Wat Wing-yin, the influential, bluest of the blues commentator in a video blog.