Editor’s Note: This article is a review and includes subjective thoughts, opinions and critiques.
Below is a screenplay excerpt of a scene towards the end of the last episode of Season One from “Squid Game”:
Zoom out to picture Seong Gi-hun, Sang-woo’s mom and Cheol. Gi-hun’s hand is on the boy’s shoulder, the other hand holding a suitcase.
Gi-hun: Take care of him, please.
Sang-woo’s mom: Okay. It’ll be nice to have a little extra company around for dinner for a change. Don’t worry about me. Have a good trip.
Gi-hun walks away.
Sang-woo’s mom to Cheol: Cheol, have you had dinner yet?
Cheol shakes his head.
Sang-woo’s mom: Here, come. Come and take a seat. Come on now. Have a fish bun.
Oh goodness! That jacket is way too light for this cold. Wait, don’t you have a warmer jacket?
[Opens the bag Gi-hun has handed to her and stares at the heaps of money.]
To anyone who follows popular culture, the faux reality drama “Squid Game” is a familiar name. And for that exact same audience, the above scene from the first season of the show is wildly implausible.
When the protagonist, Seong Gi-hun, bequeaths half his prize money — $22.8 billion won — to the mother of another dead player, Cho Sang-woo, he throws in a bonus: the orphaned tween brother of a third deceased player.
The scene is striking, perhaps especially to women, because it rests so heavily on multiple assumptions. First: that Sang-woo’s mother, who was only looking for the return of her grown son, would readily accept the role of mothering this stranger instead. Second: that she would use this huge amount of money only to raise the child. And third: that she would accept an unknown child in lieu of her dead son. However, Sang-woo’s mother takes to the role like a fish to water, immediately fussing over the boy, feeding him and generally — mothering him.
The show has made a name for itself by shattering other tired television tropes and providing a successful critique on capitalism and social hierarchy. It uses deceptively innocuous children’s games and accompanying rhymes to hide the sinister undercurrents of death and organ trade. However, in its portrayal of women and unidimensional motherhood, the show borders on misogynistic.
The show is full of female characters, such as Kim Jun-hee and Cho Sang-woo’s mother, who have only one dimension: motherhood. For mothers in the world of the show, their roles of motherhood are presented as inherently sacrificial, requiring generosity and reinforcing a “mother to one, mother to all” trope. This trope has been explored before in characters such as Molly Weasley in “Harry Potter” and Morticia Addams in “The Addams Family.”
And amidst the pantheon of sacrificial mothers who inhabit the “Squid Game” universe, Cho Sang-woo’s mother stands out as a striking example. She is a mother whose entire identity is her son’s accomplishments, leaving her with no individuality.
Her identity is so attached to this role that the show does not even name her.
She mothers not only her son but also Gi-hun, giving him food and counseling him in the beginning of season one when he is unmoored and broke.
Despite losing her son at the end of season one, her identity as a mother remains intact when Gi-hun leaves Cheol with her. She immediately adopts him as one of her own, with the identity of the child almost rendered irrelevant.
And then there are the mothers within the game.
One might argue that the mothers who are actually part of the game are more driven and focused on their individual goals. While this is true, their main identity is still their motherhood.
Jang Geum-ja, who enters the games to rid her son of his debt, exemplifies this idea. She embodies both the creative and destructive roles of the Great Mother archetype perfectly. This Jungian archetype argues that a mother can nurture, protect and create a life. She is depicted in myths and stories as a “symbol of the feminine principle.” On occasion, to protect, she can also turn destructive.
When Geum-ja kills her own son to protect the newborn in the game, it is not only because she is doing the right thing — protecting the new life and simultaneously preventing her son from committing the grave crime of murder — but also because she sees a younger version of herself and her son in the new mother and child. Geum-ja’s son is, at that moment, as helpless as the newborn. However, Geum-ja chooses the newborn’s future over her own son’s survival because it represents the chance at a do-over.
By killing her son, she has destroyed her role as a mother, therefore erasing her purpose in life and resulting in her death. Before committing suicide, she fulfills the “universal mother” requirement by ensuring that she transfers care of the newborn child to Gi-hun.
Motherhood is presented as inherently sacrificial. Fatherhood, however, is unreliable. Even though Gi-hun’s character as a father matures over the seasons — from an irresponsible, gambling man who is unable to provide for his daughter to one who sacrifices his life to ensure the survival of the newborn — he does not ensure that there will be someone to care for the baby after his death.
An inability to break free from a limited view of motherhood means that it is viewed as sacrosanct. While this places them on a pedestal, it also imprisons them by being reductive: the only facet of their personality that is rendered relevant is their motherhood.
Fatherhood, for Gi-hun, is also only one aspect of his life; for the mothers, it is the only aspect.