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    'Squid Game,' the Netflix Hit, Taps South Korean Fears

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    The dystopian Netflix hit taps South Korea’s worries about costly housing and scarce jobs, concerns familiar to its U.S. and international viewers.In “Squid Game,” the hit dystopian television show on Netflix, 456 people facing severe debt and financial despair play a series of deadly children’s games to win a $38 million cash prize in South Korea.Koo Yong-hyun, a 35-year-old office worker in Seoul, has never had to face down masked homicidal guards or competitors out to slit his throat, like the characters in the show do. But Mr. Koo, who binge-watched “Squid Game” in a single night, said he empathized with the characters and their struggle to survive in the country’s deeply unequal society.Mr. Koo, who got by on freelance gigs and government unemployment checks after he lost his steady job, said it is “almost impossible to live comfortably with a regular employee’s salary” in a city with runaway housing prices. Like many young people in South Korea and elsewhere, Mr. Koo sees a growing competition to grab a slice of a shrinking pie, just like the contestants in “Squid Game.”Those similarities have helped turn the nine-episode drama into an unlikely international sensation. “Squid Game” is now the top-ranked show in the United States on Netflix and is on its way to becoming one of the most-watched shows in the streaming service’s history. “There’s a very good chance it will be our biggest show ever,” Ted Sarandos, a co-chief executive at Netflix, said during a recent business conference.Culturally, the show has sparked an online embrace of its distinct visuals, especially the black masks decorated with simple squares and triangles worn by the anonymous guards, and a global curiosity for the Korean children’s games that underpin the deadly competitions. Recipes for dalgona, the sugary Korean treat at the center of one especially tense showdown, have gone viral.A shop in Seoul selling “Squid Game”-themed dalgona.Heo Ran/ReutersLike “The Hunger Games” books and movies, “Squid Game” holds its audience with its violent tone, cynical plot and — spoiler alert! — a willingness to kill off fan-favorite characters. But it has also tapped a sense familiar to people in the United States, Western Europe and other places, that prosperity in nominally rich countries has become increasingly difficult to achieve, as wealth disparities widen and home prices rise past affordable levels.“The stories and the problems of the characters are extremely personalized but also reflect the problems and realities of Korean society,” Hwang Dong-hyuk, the show’s creator, said in an email. He wrote the script in 2008 as a film, when many of these trends had become evident, but overhauled it to reflect new worries, including the impact of the coronavirus. (Minyoung Kim, the head of content for the Asia-Pacific region at Netflix, said the company was in talks with Mr. Hwang about producing a second season.)“Squid Game” is only the latest South Korean cultural export to win a global audience by tapping into the country’s deep feelings of inequality and ebbing opportunities. “Parasite,” the 2019 film that won best picture at the Oscars, paired a desperate family of grifters with the oblivious members of a rich Seoul household. “Burning,” a 2018 art-house hit, built tension by pitting a young deliveryman against a well-to-do rival for a woman’s attention.The masked guards in “Squid Game” mete out violence during the competitions.NetflixSouth Korea boomed in the postwar era, making it one of the richest countries in Asia and leading some economists to call its rise the “miracle on the Han River.” But wealth disparity has worsened as the economy has matured.“South Koreans used to have a collective community spirit,” says Yun Suk-jin, a drama critic and professor of modern literature at Chungnam National University. But the Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s undermined the nation’s positive growth story and “made everyone fight for themselves.”The country now ranks No. 11 using the Gini coefficient, one measure of income inequality, among the members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the research group for the world’s richest nations. (The United States is ranked No. 6.)As South Korean families have tried to keep up, household debt has mounted, prompting some economists to warn that the debt could hold back the economy. Home prices have surged to the point where housing affordability has become a hot-button political topic. Prices in Seoul have soared by over 50 percent during the tenure of the country’s president, Moon Jae-in, and led to a political scandal.“Squid Game” lays bare the irony between the social pressure to succeed in South Korea and the difficulty of doing just that, said Shin Yeeun, who graduated from college in January 2020, just before the pandemic hit. Now 27, she said she had spent over a year looking for steady work.“It’s really difficult for people in their 20s to find a full-time job these days,” she said.South Korea has also suffered a sharp drop in births, generated partly by a sense among young people that raising children is too expensive.“In South Korea, all parents want to send their kids to the best schools,” Ms. Shin said. “To do that you have to live in the best neighborhoods.” That would require saving enough money to buy a house, a goal so unrealistic “that I’ve never even bothered calculating how long it will take me,” Ms. Shin said.Characters in the show receive invitations to participate in the Squid Game.Netflix“Squid Game” revolves around Seong Gi-hun, a gambling addict in his 40s who doesn’t have the means to buy his daughter a proper birthday present or pay for his aging mother’s medical expenses. One day he is offered a chance to participate in the Squid Game, a private event run for the entertainment of wealthy individuals. To claim the $38 million prize, contestants must pass through six rounds of traditional Korean children’s games. Failure means death.The 456 contestants speak directly to many of the country’s anxieties. One is a graduate from Seoul National University, the nation’s top university, who is wanted for mishandling his clients’ funds. Another is a North Korean defector who needs to take care of her brother and help her mother escape from the North. Another character is an immigrant laborer whose boss refuses to pay his wages.The characters have resonated with South Korean youth who don’t see a chance to advance in society. Known locally as the “dirt spoon” generation, many are obsessed with ways to get rich quickly, like with cryptocurrencies and the lottery. South Korea has one of the largest markets for virtual currency in the world.Like the prize money in the show, cryptocurrencies give “people the chance to change their lives in a second,” said Mr. Koo, the office worker. Mr. Koo, whose previous employer went out of business during the pandemic, said the difficulty of earning money is one reason South Koreans are so obsessed with making a quick buck.“I wonder how many people would participate if ‘Squid Game’ was held in real life,” he said.Seong Gi-hun, the show’s protagonist, entering an arena for one of the games.Netflix More

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      California Lost 175,000 ‘Creative Economy’ Jobs, Study Finds

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Coronavirus OutbreakliveLatest UpdatesMaps and CasesRisk Near YouVaccine RolloutNew Variants TrackerAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyCalifornia Lost 175,000 ‘Creative Economy’ Jobs, Study Finds“There is no economic recovery in our area unless a working creative engine is driving it,” said Representative Karen Bass of California.The Broad Museum in Los Angeles. Job loss in the “creative economy workforce” reached 24 percent in Los Angeles County, according to a report released Thursday by the Otis College of Art and Design.Credit…Marcio Jose Sanchez/Associated PressFeb. 25, 2021, 4:44 p.m. ETArts advocates and elected officials in California called on Thursday for additional government spending to avert what one organization leader called a “pending cultural depression” brought on by the pandemic.“There is no economic recovery in our area unless a working creative engine is driving it,” Karen Bass, a U.S. Congresswoman representing part of Los Angeles, said in a video prerecorded for a panel discussion.“Congress must provide additional assistance to the creative economy and its million of employees,” she continued, saying that her district could not fully recover unless the arts community there led the way.The calls for more aid were aired during a video conference hosted by Otis College of Art and Design, which released a report it commissioned on the creative economy. Two economic impact surveys Thursday by the advocacy group Californians for the Arts were also discussed.The Otis College report said that between February 2020 and December 2020, total job loss in the “creative economy workforce” reached about 13 percent statewide and 24 percent in Los Angeles County.During that period, the state lost 175,000 jobs in that economy, which was said to include architecture and related services, creative goods and products, entertainment and digital media, fashion and fine arts, the report said.The Coronavirus Outbreak More

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      How 8 Countries Have Tried to Keep Artists Afloat During Panemic

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Coronavirus OutbreakliveLatest UpdatesMaps and CasesA Future With CoronavirusVaccine InformationF.A.Q.TimelineAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyHow 8 Countries Have Tried to Keep Artists AfloatGovernments around the world have tried to support the arts during the pandemic, some more generously than others.While South Korea largely contained the spread of coronavirus last year — “The Phantom of the Opera” in Seoul closed for only three weeks — the government still provided some $280 million in pandemic relief for cultural institutions.Credit…Woohae Cho for The New York TimesJan. 13, 2021Updated 5:23 a.m. ETIn December, owners and operators of theaters and music halls across the United States breathed a sigh of relief when Congress passed the latest coronavirus aid package, which finally set aside $15 billion to help desperate cultural venues. But that came more than six months after a host of other countries had taken steps to buffer the strain of the pandemic on the arts and artists. Here are the highlights, and missteps, from eight countries’ efforts.FrancePresident Emmanuel Macron of France was one of the first world leaders to act to help freelance workers in the arts. The country has long had a special unemployment system for performing artists that recognizes the seasonality of such work and helps even out freelancers’ pay during fallow stretches. In May, Mr. Macron removed a minimum requirement of hours worked for those who had previously qualified for the aid. He also set up government insurance for TV and film shoots to deal with the threat of closure caused by the pandemic. Other countries, including Britain, quickly copied the move.GermanyGermany’s cultural life has always been heavily subsidized, something that insulated many arts institutions from the pandemic’s impact. But in June, the government announced a $1.2 billion fund to get cultural life restarted, including money directed to such projects as helping venues upgrade their ventilation systems. And more assistance is on the way. Germany’s finance ministry intends to launch two new funds: one to pay a bonus to organizers of smaller cultural events (those intended for up to a few hundred people), so they can be profitable even with social distancing, and another to provide insurance for larger events (for several thousand attendees) to mitigate the risk of cancellation. Germany is not the first to implement such measures; Austria introduced event insurance in January.BritainIn July, the British government announced a cultural bailout package worth about $2.1 billion — money that saved thousands of theaters, comedy clubs and music venues from closure. In December, several major institutions, including the National Theater and the Royal Shakespeare Company, were also given long-term loans under the package. Even with the help, there have already been around 4,000 layoffs at British museums alone, and more in other sectors.The National Theater in London was one of several major institutions to receive a long-term loan from the British government in December.Credit…Lauren Fleishman for The New York TimesPolandEuropean cultural aid hasn’t been enacted without controversy. In November, Poland announced recipients of a $100 million fund meant to compensate dance, music and theater companies for earnings lost because of restrictions during the pandemic. But the plan was immediately attacked by some news outlets for giving money to “the famous and rich,” including pop stars and their management. The complaints prompted the culture minister to announce an urgent review of all payments, but the government ultimately defended them, and made only minor changes.The Coronavirus Outbreak More

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      A ‘Great Cultural Depression’ Looms for Legions of Unemployed Performers

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best ComedyBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest MoviesBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyA ‘Great Cultural Depression’ Looms for Legions of Unemployed PerformersWith theaters and concert halls shuttered, unemployment in the arts has cut deeper than in restaurants and other hard-hit industries.Soon after the pandemic struck, a year’s worth of bookings vanished for the acclaimed violinist Jennifer Koh, who found herself streaming concerts from her apartment.Credit…Elias Williams for The New York TimesDec. 26, 2020Updated 5:32 a.m. ETIn the top echelons of classical music, the violinist Jennifer Koh is by any measure a star.With a dazzling technique, she has ridden a career that any aspiring Juilliard grad would dream about — appearing with leading orchestras, recording new works, and performing on some of the world’s most prestigious stages.Now, nine months into a contagion that has halted most public gatherings and decimated the performing arts, Ms. Koh, who watched a year’s worth of bookings evaporate, is playing music from her living room and receiving food stamps.[embedded content]Pain can be found in nearly every nook of the economy. Millions of people have lost their jobs and tens of thousands of businesses have closed since the coronavirus pandemic spread across the United States. But even in these extraordinary times, the losses in the performing arts and related sectors have been staggering.During the quarter ending in September, when the overall unemployment rate averaged 8.5 percent, 52 percent of actors, 55 percent of dancers and 27 percent of musicians were out of work, according to the National Endowment for the Arts. By comparison, the jobless rate was 27 percent for waiters; 19 percent for cooks; and about 13 percent for retail salespeople over the same period.In many areas, arts venues — theaters, clubs, performance spaces, concert halls, festivals — were the first businesses to close, and they are likely to be among the last to reopen. “My fear is we’re not just losing jobs, we’re losing careers,” said Adam Krauthamer, president of Local 802 of the American Federation of Musicians in New York. He said 95 percent of the local’s 7,000 members are not working on a regular basis because of the mandated shutdown. “It will create a great cultural depression,” he said.The new $15 billion worth of stimulus aid for performance venues and cultural institutions that Congress approved this week — which was thrown into limbo after President Trump criticized the bill — will not end the mass unemployment for performers anytime soon. And it only extends federal unemployment aid through mid-March.The public may think of performers as A-list celebrities, but most never get near a red carpet or an awards show. The overwhelming majority, even in the best times, don’t benefit from Hollywood-size paychecks or institutional backing. They work season to season, weekend to weekend or day to day, moving from one gig to the next.The median annual salary for full-time musicians and singers was $42,800; it was $40,500 for actors; and $36,500 for dancers and choreographers, according to a National Endowment for the Arts analysis. Many artists work other jobs to cobble together a living, often in the restaurant, retail and hospitality industries — where work has also dried up.They are an integral part of local economies and communities in every corner of rural, suburban and urban America, and they are seeing their life’s work and livelihoods suddenly vanish. Terry Burrell, an actor and singer in Atlanta, saw the tour of her show “Angry, Raucous and Gorgeously Shameless” canceled after the virus struck.Credit…Lynsey Weatherspoon for The New York Times“We’re talking about a year’s worth of work that just went away,” said Terry Burrell, whose touring show, “Angry, Raucous and Gorgeously Shameless,” was canceled. Now she is home with her husband in Atlanta, collecting unemployment insurance, and hoping she won’t have to dip into her 401(k) retirement account.Linda Jean Stokley, a fiddler and part of the Kentucky duo the Local Honeys with Monica Hobbs, said, “We’re resilient and are used to not having regular paychecks.” But since March hardly anyone has paid even the minor fees required by their contracts, she said: “Someone owed us $75 and wouldn’t even pay.”Then there’s Tim Wu, 31, a D.J., singer and producer, who normally puts on around 100 shows a year as Elephante at colleges, festivals and nightclubs. He was in Ann Arbor, Mich., doing a sound check for a new show called “Diplomacy” in mid-March when New York shut down. Mr. Wu returned to Los Angeles the next day. All his other bookings were canceled — and most of his income.Mr. Wu, and hundreds of thousands of freelancers like him, are not the only ones taking a hit. The broader arts and culture sector that includes Hollywood and publishing constitutes an $878 billion industry that is a bigger part of the American economy than sports, transportation, construction or agriculture. The sector supports 5.1 million wage and salary jobs, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. They include agents, makeup artists, hair stylists, tailors, janitors, stage hands, ushers, electricians, sound engineers, concession sellers, camera operators, administrators, construction crews, designers, writers, directors and more. “If cities are going to rebound, they’re not going to do it without arts and cultural creatives,” said Richard Florida, a professor at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management and School of Cities.Steph Simon, a hip-hop artist from Tulsa, had been booked to perform at South by Southwest when the virus hit and eliminated the rest of his gigs for the year. Credit…September Dawn Bottoms/The New York TimesThis year, Steph Simon, 33, of Tulsa, finally started working full time as a hip-hop musician after a decade of minimum-wage jobs cleaning carpets or answering phones to pay the bills.He was selected to perform at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas, played regular gigs at home and on tour, and produced “Fire in Little Africa,” an album commemorating the 1921 massacre of Black residents of Tulsa by white rioters.“This was projected to be my biggest year financially,” said Mr. Simon, who lives with his girlfriend and his two daughters, and was earning about $2,500 a month as a musician. “Then the world shut down,” he said. A week after the festival was canceled, he was back working as a call center operator, this time at home, for about 40 hours a week, with a part-time job at a fast-food restaurant on the weekends.In November, on his birthday, he caught Covid-19, but has since recovered.Performers on payrolls have suffered, too. With years of catch-as-catch-can acting gigs and commercials behind her, Robyn Clark started working as a performer at Disneyland after the last recession. She has been playing a series of characters in the park’s California Adventure — Phiphi the photographer, Molly the messenger and Donna the Dog Lady — several times a week, doing six shows a day.“It was the first time in my life I had security,” Ms. Clark said. It was also the first time she had health insurance, paid sick leave and vacation.In March, she was furloughed, though Disney is continuing to cover her health insurance.“I have unemployment and a generous family,” said Ms. Clark, explaining how she has managed to continue paying for rent and food.Many performers are relying on charity. The Actors Fund, a service organization for the arts, has raised and distributed $18 million since the pandemic started for basic living expenses to 14,500 people.“I’ve been at the Actors Fund for 36 years,” said Barbara S. Davis, the chief operating officer. “Through September 11th, Hurricane Katrina, the 2008 recession, industry shutdowns. There’s clearly nothing that compares to this.”Higher-paid television and film actors have more of a cushion, but they, too, have endured disappointments and lost opportunities. Jack Cutmore-Scott and Meaghan Rath, now his wife, had just been cast in a new CBS pilot, “Jury Duty,” when the pandemic shut down filming.“I’d had my costume fitting and we were about to go and do the table read the following week, but we never made it,” Mr. Cutmore-Scott said. After several postponements, they heard in September that CBS was bailing out altogether.Many live performers have looked for new ways to pursue their art, turning to video, streaming and other platforms. Carla Gover’s tour of dancing to and playing traditional Appalachian music as well as a folk opera she composed, “Cornbread and Tortillas,” were all canceled. “I had some long dark nights of the soul trying to envision what I could do,” said Ms. Gover, wholives in Lexington, Ky., and has three children.She started writing weekly emails to all her contacts, sharing videos and offering online classes in flatfoot dancing and clogging. The response was enthusiastic. “I figured out how to use hashtags and now I have a new kind of business,” Ms. Gover said.But if technology enables some artists to share their work, it doesn’t necessarily help them earn much or even any money.The violinist Ms. Koh, known for her devotion to promoting new artists and music, donated her time to create the “Alone Together” project, raising donations to commission compositions and then performing them over Instagram from her apartment.The project was widely praised, but as Ms. Koh said, it doesn’t produce income. “I am lucky,” Ms. Koh insisted. Unlike many of her friends and colleagues, she managed to hang onto her health insurance thanks to a teaching gig at the New School, and she got a forbearance on her mortgage payments through March. Many engagements have also been rescheduled — if not until 2022.She ticks off the list of friends and colleagues who have had to move out of their homes or have lost their health insurance, their income and nearly every bit of their work.“It’s just decimating the field,” she said. “It concerns me when I look at the future.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More