Nothing really changes...

Squid Games 2 (Korean; 2024)

Miniseries, E1-E7.

Continuing with Season 1, Squid Game (SqG) moves into a new set of games featuring a fresh group of players. Admittedly, SqG 2 is not as captivating as its predecessor. The storyline is predictable, and viewers can easily discern who will survive and which characters will likely be eliminated.

 

Nevertheless, while engrossed in the miniseries, I noticed that the entire storyline symbolises the challenges Malaysia's thinking voters face regarding democratic governance under their duly elected government.

To provide context, the games in SqG2, much like those in SqG1, involve teamwork and lethal consequences for the losers. An amendment was made to the clause allowing players to vote on whether to proceed to the next game. After each match, the accumulated betting money increases. If the players, by majority, choose to discontinue, the funds would be divided equally, and the games would be halted. Humans, being inherently human, are rarely satisfied with their earnings and are perpetually convinced of their invincibility, leading the majority to vote in favour of continuing. Despite the awareness that death is imminent and high probability with dwindling numbers of players, they do this. Not only are the losers killed, but players also engage in combat against one another to maximise their returns.

Most players are aware of their futility. Still, the lure of wealth and their hopelessness in solving various personal monetary issues push them further into the game's abyss.

 

After the shock of discovering 1MDB and the brazen ways the ruling elite manipulated the nation's wealth and sovereignty, Malaysians took to the streets to change the status quo. They believed they had the best candidate in Malaysia's disgraced former deputy Prime Minister. Citizens with differing ideologies on how a country should be governed united to oust Goliath from his throne. In this struggle, natural prey and predators joined forces. The prey wished their predators would turn vegetarian, while the predators hoped their food could live another day.

 

Thus, individuals with various financial issues were lured into the Squid Game as players. They convinced themselves they would only partake in this dangerous game until they had sufficient money. Once that was achieved, they would return to their everyday lives. Only when the moolah began rolling in did they reveal their true colours. Some are inherently malevolent, but the rest tolerate them. When push came to shove, their true forms manifested in full glory.

In Malaysia, once power started coming into their hands, the newly elected leaders, who were supposed to be flagbearers of the new dawn, recoiled into the malaise of their predecessors. Like the pigs in Animal Farm, they soon appeared as bipeds, forgetting their usual struggle to stay aground on all fours. The pigs use the same lingo, address the issues in the same manner, and continue the same oppressive laws. The intoxicating plunge into power gives our leaders the compulsion to stay in power forever, using whatever is available at their disposal, race, religion, distorted history, money or the convincing nod from the divine powers.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Shortcomings and trimmings...

Unless you have living in shell away from the evils of social media, you should be aware of the brouhaha of late of the cyber display of the advertisement publicizing '2014 Penang's International Nude Sports'. Let us leave the merits and appropriateness of flaunting one's modesty for others to judge to theologians and esteemed philosophers to argue it out. I was  particularly intrigued by some of the comments posted by supposedly learned members of the public. Some criticized not because of their brazen differing morality standards but rather because they were not impressed with what they saw. They commented that it is an embarrassment when they exhibit their seemingly unimpressive bodies, visually unappealing.
We, as a society, seem to have brain washed into believing that the human body is supposed to look like what is seen on the celluloid screens of Hollywood and Bollywood. Anything disproportionate to that standard is unacceptable. Period. Not fit to be recorded.
Welcome to the real world. Yes, the human body is not meant to be in perfect symmetry. Yes, it is meant to sag, have unsightly blemishes, cellulite, wrinkles and scars. Yes, life goes on after mastectomy, double mastectomy and disfigurement of birth defect or burns. Yes, they also come in various shades - white, pink, yellow ochre, shades of brown and ebony. There is no need to feel green or feel blue. Only the yellow will chicken out with reality.
For your information, most Hollywood stars have than one double - one for each part of close-up shots of their body part. A Malaysian had the dubious honour of having his calf used as 'leg double' of Brad Pitt's puny ones, unbefitting of the role of Achilles that he played in the 2004 movie, 'Troy'!

All kiasu? Nobody wants to be the sucker!

The Golden Ball, a British game show is said to be able to show the conniving nature of humanity. In the last round of the show, the remaining two contestants face a face-off to win the jackpot money (lots of it). They are given two golden balls with either split or steal written on it. If both contestants choose split, the prize money would be split between them. If both choose steal, both go back with nothing. If one chose steal and the other chose split, the one who chose split will end up as the stupid fellow goes back empty-handed whilst the steal goes with the lion's share of the loot.
So the rush is for the contestant not to be the stupid fellow who is slouched in the chair disappointed! In the previous shows, even the girl-next-door goody two shoes looking blue eyed dumb looking blondes had taken their opponents for a ride and mean looking tattooed and moustachioed dudes had failed.
This guy, Nick had a final round face off with Ibrahim below. Nick's strategy was that he was adamant that he was to go for steal and see we played with emotions and managed to make everybody happy.

In the snippet, Ibrahim said that his father had told him not to trust anyone. The irony is that he grew up without a father. The money finally went for charity.

Soon men will be wiped out?

There was a time when members of the fairer sex were expected to stay that way - stay fair skinned, at least for the high heeled, away from the melanocytic activity enhancing UV light and powdering themselves smoothly pretty. They confined to the spectator pen to add splendour to the event but not as contestants. Their participation in international sporting events were only sanctioned by the governing bodies as late as early 20th century.

From then on, female contestants competed amongst themselves till some of them actually perform better than their average male counterpart. In 2012, the number of female contestants equal that of the male in the Olympic Games.

Fast forward to the 21st century...

A new breed of reality based competitions have emerged. A competition where men and women can compete as equals without any handicap given. One competition that I had the chance of viewing was Wipeout. It is a very outdoors physical intensive kind of competition which involves hard knocks, thumping falls and slippery poles. Despite all this hurdles, the ladies still come up tops standing tall above the men!
But of course, we all know that reality TV is anything but real. After the game show fiasco to improve rating and advertisements, it is hardly surprising that the TV would stoop low to anything and everything to sex up their shows!