2022

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Browsing 2022 by Author "Iqra Butt"

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    Ascertaining pessimistic post-modern man and society in the Netflix original series squid game
    (UMT, Lahore, 2022) Iqra Butt
    Squid Game is a popular Netflix original series created by Hwang Dong-hyuk that looks at a harsh fictionalized reality of a world where human beings are treated as disposable players chiefly for entertainment purposes. The series holds up a dark mirror of reality projecting extremism, survival, and lust for power and money through the players, treated as a capitalist commodity. The series explores how individuals attempt to make their lives significant enough by pursuing an ultimately worthless material-oriented life over which they have no control. The storyline revolves around the characters' desire to pay off their immense debts by jeopardizing their lives for the entertainment of the wealthy and sadistic elite. This research examines the degrading existential crisis of post-modern man and society in the context of Arthur Schopenhauers’ Pessimism. The pessimist attitude serves as a backdrop for physical and psychological enslavement. With its qualitative investigation, this study critically analyzes the text (i.e the show) while delving into the ideas of pessimism in relation to the exploited post-modern man's condition. The series is treated as a form of ‘text’ discussing underlying symbols, characters’ dialogues, insatiable suffering through action and is interdisciplinary with film studies (a structural-text based film analysis). The textual analysis of the series employs theoretical underpinnings of Arthur Schopenhauer’s ‘Pessimism’ as a framework, while majorly focusing on ‘desires’, ‘suffering’, ‘pain’, ‘boredom’ and ‘pessimist nihilism’. The implementation of these ideas is further visible in the deteriorating condition of the contemporary post-modern man depicted through the series. The modernization has brought with it a pessimist attitude that has contaminated the mindset, where humanity has been thrust towards achieving an absurd monetary goal that seems promising yet is ultimately futile.