• Flyberius [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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    10 months ago

    Yeah this popped up on the BBC and as usual it was just “video from years ago”, “appears to show” and then some quotes from defectors saying “they shoot you if they catch you watching squid game”. Just hilarious levels of make-believe.

      • RedCat@lemmygrad.ml
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        10 months ago

        I never watched Squid Game (because I am a little contrarian) but is the show really pro-DPRK or just anti occupied Korea?

        • zed_proclaimer [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          10 months ago

          The North Korean defector character cannot answer and remains silent when asked whether it would have been better to stay in North Korea. In South Korea it’s illegal to share any opinion on TV that shows DPRK positively, so this is literally the most pro-DPRK they could be without breaking the law.

          • TechnoUnionTypeBeat [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.net
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            10 months ago

            In addition, the North Korean character is shown pretty explicitly as being abused by a South Korean group focused on “helping detectors”. She is financially extorted for even more money to bring the rest of her family to South Korea, while iirc also being SA’d by the guy who’s supposedly helping

            • Trudge [Comrade]@lemmygrad.ml
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              10 months ago
              story spoiler

              Also she gets killed by a financial capitalist in the end. She was winning the games with her strength and the intelligence with the sacrifices of her comrades, but the capitalist breaks the “rule of law” and “fair competition” to kill her. He doesn’t get punished but rewarded with advancement to the next round.

              Having this sequence of actions happen to the North Korean character isn’t coincidental. The whole show is a giant critique of capitalism but there’s layers and layers of it until the end.

          • RyanGosling [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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            10 months ago

            She wasn’t asked if it was better to stay in North Korea. She was asked if South Korea was any different than North Korea and she didn’t reply.

            The implication is that whatever people think the north is, the south is no better or even worse because of the lies it peddles about freedom from oppression.

            Of course I only watched the subs. Perhaps they libbed it up compared to the actual script, but so far I haven’t seen anyone claimed the Korean dialogue was mistranslated.

        • Trudge [Comrade]@lemmygrad.ml
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          10 months ago

          Just anti capitalist Korea. It’s illegal to show support for DPRK in the South. There’s been policing actions as recent as 2019 over displays of Kim Il Sung.

          Realistically, it’s as much pro-DPRK as it can get before the writer gets summoned for police/CIA questioning.

        • RyanGosling [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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          10 months ago

          It’s not pro DPRK lol. The girl was asked if South Korea was any better or different than the north. She remained silent. That’s not praise of North Korea, that condemnation of the south for being as bad or worse than whatever people imagine the north to be.