Remember the VIPs from “Squid Game”? White Western men (and a woman) wearing black-and-gold masks, lounging on sofas with glasses of champagne as they watch impoverished Koreans kill each other for money. The characters came across as grotesque, almost caricatures, even though the director may not have intended to make a political statement about racial superiority, or perhaps did so only gently. Primarily, the series highlighted the anonymity of money and how wealth transforms the suffering of others into a spectacle. Nevertheless, such crude stereotypes sparked debate, and the grotesque portrayal acted like a mirror held up to the audience.
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