A year after the global success of the Netflix K-drama Squid Game, it has reappeared in the spotlight for the wrong reasons. As fans know, the K-drama focused on a broken capitalist society as over 400 contestants fight to the death for a chance at a grand prize. While MrBeast created a live-action version of the K-drama, Netflix developed Squid Game: The Challenge. But the competition series faces immense backlash over unsafe, inhumane, and outlandish conditions.
Contestants fight for one of TV’s largest cash prizes on ‘Squid Game: The Challenge’
The competition reality series was ill-advised from the start. Hwang Dong-hyuk’s storyline originated from hardships in the creator’s life. Squid Game explores what it means to live in a society ruled by money and social status. Squid Game skyrocketed to success thanks to Hwang’s riveting portrayal of childhood games that turned into life-threatening battles of death. For what? Four hundred fifty-six players who are bankrupt, on the brink of falling off, and down on their luck fight to win millions.
By the Squid Game finale, fans soon realize humanity’s broken facets and willingness to destroy others with no regard and for entertainment. The overall storyline and the Games appear as the worst of the worst of society. But Netflix decided to take hold of the K-drama’s popularity and developed the real-life Squid Game: The Challenge.
Like the drama, 456 contestants join a real-life Squid Game series of challenges. The grand prize is a whopping $4.56 million. Each round will lead to a series of eliminations until the final player wins it all. Unlike the real deal, there is no bloody death or heinous betrayals. Or so people thought. Squid Game: The Challenge is under fire as emerging reports state the conditions of the series were “inhumane.”
Former contestants claim the series led to fatal close encounters and call it the ‘Rigged Games’
Squid Game: The Challenge seems to keep to the K-drama’s theme of absolute chaos and fight to make it through. Former participants are coming clean about the horrendous conditions they endured on the series. According to Vanity Fair, one contestant claims it was the “cruelest” thing they have ever experienced. “We were a human horse race, and they were treating us like horses out in the cold racing and [the race] was fixed,” said the contestant.
In a report to Rolling Stone, the ‘Red Light, Green Light’ game was a thing of nightmares. In sub-freezing cold temperatures, many players collapsed. “One alleges that medics took ages to reach the players because producers were worried about the camera shots being ruined,” said the report. Their solution was to have the Squid Game pink jumpsuit guards use the black coffins to block the view of paramedics working on players.
Players reported, “The conditions were absolutely inhumane.” To make matters worse, the players call out Squid Game: The Challenge for being “rigged.” Many players claim that the series was more concerned with giving TikTokers and influencers more screen time than the actual outcome of the games. According to the New York Post, plane tickets home were bought for players before being eliminated.
It is one thing for a K-drama to display inhuman morality in society. It is another to subject everyday people in a series for a grand prize and streaming numbers. Some players were left scarred for life seeing others in peril, “Obviously, you would jump and help — that’s what our human nature is for most of us. But absolutely, it’s a social experiment. It played on our morals, and it’s sick. It’s absolutely sick.”
Netflix responded to the accusations of the series’s unsafe environment
Since the accusations, Netflix has issued a public response and claims the participants were warned. According to Deadline, Netflix and producers Studio Lambert and The Garden responded, “while it was very cold on set – and participants were prepared for that – any claims of serious injury are untrue.” They also stated that they took every necessary safety precaution for Squid Game: The Challenge.
Some players are considering taking legal action against the production studios for what they and other players endured and for “safety violations, negligence, and false pretenses.” One contestant explained that many had an all-or-nothing mentality with the idea that the grand prize would change their lives. “I think the producers wanted that. They wanted people to not think about their health, to not care about their safety,” said the contestant.
The question remains if the winner of Squid Game: The Challenge will find themselves in the same moral dilemma as Seong Gi-hun did in the finale.
