Billy Oduory on why Squid Game: The Challenge misses the whole point of Squid Game…
Netflix is set to continue capitalizing on its hit South Korean drama Squid Game having renewed the spinoff reality show Squid Game: The Challenge for a second season. The renewal coincided with the ending of the reality show’s first season which, despite registering record viewership numbers, felt nothing like the original to most fans as seen in reviews on Reddit and other messaging platforms. As a reality show, The Challenge still ticks many boxes, but as far as many fans of the original show are concerned, it misses the whole point of Squid Game.
With games like Circle of Trust and Die Test, Jack in the Box, and Allegiance Test determining the fates of most players in The Challenge, the show feels more like a popularity contest. It was biased against certain players from the start, with non-camera-ready participants becoming the earliest victims. Surviving beyond most games largely depended on how liked a player was in the dorm, and, as proved by the voting out of the poor old guy in Jack in the Box, most players never stood a chance.
The reality show is still entertaining because the reinvention of the games makes it unpredictable. The personal interviews delving into each player’s psyche also endear the players to viewers, as every player is humanized, unlike the original show which only focused on a few key characters. However, despite proving that all the players deserve a chance to win the money, the show doesn’t give them an equal chance, which goes against the spirit of Squid Game.
Why does Squid Game: The Challenge miss the point?
Despite being the depraved creation of voyeuristic capitalists, Squid Game was presented as a real second chance at financial freedom for the participants in the Korean drama. The Challenge couldn’t replicate most of the horrifying aspects of the original show, but it could have given each player a fair chance to win, at the very least, because an equal chance is the principle rule of the game. Instead, the reality show took the fates of the players out of their hands at almost every stage. Allegations of unfair treatment of participants on set and rigging also haunt the reality show, turning it into the very evil product of capitalism condemned by the original show.
While eliminating other players is the point of the game, it was never meant to be based on how popular they were with the rest of the players. Squid Game was supposed to be a test of a player’s mental endurance and moral steadfastness especially when money is on the table, as well as their skills and strategy.
Unfortunately, from the first episode, The Challenge focuses on players with TV-favorable stories, with some games seemingly designed to cut out the unpopular faces that didn’t fit in with the crowd. Jack in the Box delivered the first heartwrenching elimination when player 229, who got the chance to eliminate three competitors, voted out an old man, which, to most fans of the original show, felt like old Oh Il-nam getting betrayed all over again.
Then came the Allegiance Test, which sought to cut the number of participants to 20, but then it went against the principles of Squid Game as favoritism and a gender war ensued. The game, which required players to choose the player they would like to proceed with to the next stage, saw the rise of a girl-power alliance, followed by a clear bias as an all-male group of 11 players got eliminated, some for the pettiest of reasons such as not having spoken to some of the players.
The reality show also managed to ruin the infamous Glass Bridge where players who draw lower numbers from the lot face the highest risk of elimination as they are first to go on the bridge. in The Challenge, players were required to give the random number they drew to a player of their choice, leading to the least popular players in the group getting most of the unfavorable numbers.
To further trim the numbers as the final round approached, The Challenge introduced the Die Test, where rolling a six on the dice meant elimination. However, the game also allowed players to nominate opponents before rolling the dice, leading to the Mai vs. Ashley dogfight, which made one of the most intense scenes in the show. Luckily, all players nominated by others were not eliminated as each of the three that rolled a six had nominated themselves.
Circle of Trust is another game in Squid Game: The Challenge that allows players to choose who to eliminate by placing a gift box in front of them. However, it ended up feeling a lot more like the original show’s marble as most players were forced to betray their closest friends. However, since players who were given the gift box could still eliminate whoever nominated them if they were strategic enough, Circle of Trust became fair in its own right because blind loyalty is what got most players eliminated in the end.
While down to three players, the button test was introduced. At this stage in the original show, Gi-Hun, Sae-byeok, and Sang-woo were given knives, seemingly expected to turn on each other. The button test was, therefore, a huge relief as players were only required to press a button and whichever color the button turned would determine their fate. Sam ended up eliminating himself when the button turned red, leaving Mai and Phil as the finalists. However, this is the stage that most fans feel could have been rigged.
Does Squid Game: The Challenge have a villain?
While Squid Game: The Challenge isn’t supposed to have any villains, several players emerged as inherently ruthless, mean, or non-team players at different stages. However, the player that stood out the most was Ashley Tolbert (Player 278) who refused to cooperate with the plan hatched by the rest of the players for Glass Bridge. The players had agreed that everyone would take a leap on a fresh pair of panels on the bridge to give everyone a 50/50 chance but Ashley, who was number 5, refused to leap when it was her turn, forcing Player 301 to take an extra leap which led to his elimination.
Ashley was labeled a villain by most fans during the episode because her behavior was likened to Jang Deok-su, the violent dormitory villain of the scripted series who refused to move on the bridge. However, Ashley got redeemed in the next episodes as she cooperated with other players and also survived the Die Test after Mai maliciously nominated her for elimination while rolling the dice.
Ashley (a civil rights investigator) later claimed her innocence in an interview saying she never agreed to the plan in the first place. As far as she was concerned, she did what was right for her. She also said that she later took a step on the bridge, which would make up for her mistake. She was eventually eliminated in Circle of Trust when she failed to successfully guess the player who had given her the gift box.
Another player who irked the audience was Dylan (Player 065), whose refusal to agree with his partner in Marbles got both of them eliminated. Dylan utterly dismissed every compromise his partner tried to come up with in the game, and eventually, after agreeing to a simple throw contest, refused to concede defeat after clearly losing.
Bryton (Player 432) also became a villain when he was recorded threatening violence against another player. Bryton told Player 198 that he would have “put his hands on him” if they were not on camera because 198 had called him an offensive name. Unfortunately, he was caught up in one of the sinking ships during Battleship.
Mai Whelan is another player who irked some fans towards the end of the game. Despite presenting the image of a cool-headed, compassionate, and loyal leader, Mai went against her principles in Die Test and took a swing at Ashley, which backfired terribly as it led to the elimination of her friend Chad (Player 286) instead. She also betrayed Roland (Player 418), her last friend on set, by giving him the gift box during Circle of Trust, knowing he would never suspect her. However, most fans saw her move as the required sacrifice for self-preservation in Squid Game, and it eventually paid off because she went on to win it.
What are the controversies surrounding Squid Game: The Challenge?
Netflix and the two production companies in charge of Squid Game: The Challenge (Studio Lambert and The Garden) have been accused of keeping participants in inhumane conditions during the production of the reality show. All participants were required to sign NDAs, but that hasn’t stopped some members of the cast from suing Netflix and the production companies involved for injuries they suffered on set.
The set of Red Light, Green Light (the first game in the show) has been sighted as the source of most injuries as players had to spend over 30 minutes in a frigid airplane hanger during filming. Some players apparently had to be stretchered off, while others complained of suffering from hypothermia and nerve damage. Being forced to stay in the thin Squid Game tracksuits instead of warmer jackets is one of the reasons believed to have worsened the situation.
Further complaints raised both publicly and anonymously emerged, with one player claiming that some participants were forced to use lubricated condoms to soothe their lips due to the shortage of chapsticks. The producers have since been accused of prioritizing entertainment over the safety of players, likening them to the shadowy sponsors of the original show. However, the streaming company dismissed all these allegations.
“We care deeply about the health of our cast and crew, and the quality of this show. Any suggestion that the competition is rigged or claims of serious harm to players are simply untrue. We’ve taken all the appropriate safety precautions, including aftercare for contestants – and an independent adjudicator is overseeing each game to ensure it’s fair to everyone,” Says Netflix’s response to the allegations.
Netflix has also been accused of failing to fairly compensate Hwang Dong-Hyuk, the author of the original Squid Game, who sold all intellectual rights to the franchise and waved any claim on royalties. The author was experiencing near-similar circumstances to the characters in the show while writing the script as he was forced to live with his mother and grandmother and even sold his laptop to raise money.
Hwang unsuccessfully tried to sell the Squid Game script to local film producers for over a decade before Netflix came along. While Netflix paid the writer handsomely, it was a one-off payment, and his benefits are not nearly comparable to the huge returns that the original show earned, not forgetting the subsequent reality series. With such controversy facing the franchise that started off criticizing the evils of capitalism, it feels paradoxical.
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Billy Oduory
