At the center of its world, the U.S. empire forgets itself: Squid Game and the Hollywood press’ melodramatic gaze

Abstract

This article calls attention to a novel form of Orientalist gaze that I call “melodramatic,” characterized by the looking subject’s excessive desire to identify with the looked-at object and to depict itself as the virtuous victim-hero. Analyzing U.S. journalistic commentaries on Squid Game that prescribe Americentric reception of the foreign media text, I argue that the U.S. empire’s melodramatic “main character syndrome” manifests as not only affect but also an imperialist mode of story-telling that assuages its historical guilt and accountability.