Commodified Death as the Ultimate Outcome of Social Inequalities: An Analysis of the Squid Game Discourse.

This paper explores how death is represented in the popular Netflix television series Squid Game. While death is an overarching theme in this series, there is one feature of its storytelling that sets it apart from other fictional deadly games' televisual or cinematic franchises. Indeed, Squid Game depicts players implicitly consenting to die if they lose the game. This narrative is centered on the deep vulnerabilities that come from social inequalities and create conditions in which death can be staged as merchandise to be sold or bought for entertainment purposes. This paper describes and analyzes how the implicit consent to death was portrayed as the ultimate outcome of social inequalities, as a commodity, and as an object of leisure. We will conclude the paper by discussing the implications of exposure to this discourse during leisure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]