The politics of representation in Squid Game and the promise and peril of its transnational reception

Abstract

This article introduces the special forum on representations and transnational reception of Squid Game. The purpose of the forum is to draw together two groups of scholars into dialogue. The first are Korea experts in communication and cognate fields, who consider the politics of representation in the show against the backdrop of neoliberal capitalist precarity, and the second are scholars of audience reception, who point to the ways Squid Game’s overseas reception is marked by power—hegemonic power that reifies dominant ideological meanings at the site of reception and resistive power for marginalized groups at the site of reception, who produce Squid Game-related paratexts to imagine inter-racial, affective connection.