Space is a mysterious place where everything exists, from dust to us. Before the Big Bang happened, the space was empty and with nothing. Although when we say nothing, it does not mean that the things surrounding us now define space. Nevertheless, it is the things that occupy the space. So, it is not what we constitute that makes the space, but the space comprises us. This essay, "Exploring Heterotopia in Squid Game, " analyses the series as a heterotopic space within Korea.
Squid Game belongs to the genre of survival drama, where an older man on his deathbed does not know what to do with his money, plans to relive his childhood fantasies by plotting a game with other like-minded people, who are mentioned as VIPs who will grant the money to the last person who will survive through all the six games. The game's contestants are drawn in by a man, in the executives at the metro stations in South Korea, who approaches 456 financially challenged people to participate in this game that will help them obliterate their financial crisis. Seong Gi-Hun is the protagonist of the most-watched Netflix series released during the lockdown period in 2021. He is a heavily indebted gambler chauffeur and drunkard who returns home every day, proving a disappointment to his senile unhealthy mother, who runs the house with the meagre money she gets by running a small stall. Furthermore, Seong Gi-Hun is also a divorced father of a ten-year-old daughter. He is passionate about his daughter and wants her to stay with him when he learns that his daughters' stepfather plans to relocate to the USA. Though Seong Gi-Hun is indebted throughout his life, this "crisis" that prompts him to enter the game.
The contestants are then given a date and time for the pickup. A gas is sprayed when they enter the car, and they all become unconscious. The next they wake up inside the dormitory wearing green and white jumpsuits with 456 random people from different backgrounds. So, from the Car itself to the gaming zone, their usual space is separated into a heterotopic space. Heterotopia as Michel Foucault defines is;
There are also, probably in every culture, in every civilization, real places—places that do exist and that are formed in the very founding of society— which are something like counter-sites, a kind of effectively enacted utopia in which the real sites, all the other real sites that can be found within the culture, are simultaneously represented, contested, and inverted. Places of this kind are outside of all places, even though it may be possible to indicate their location in reality. Because these places are absolutely different from all the sites that they reflect and speak about, I shall call them, by way of contrast to utopias, heterotopias (4).
As the above definition goes by, Squid Game becomes an excellent instance of a heterotopic space. The car consists of people from different backgrounds, all coming together in a single place. The enclosed car is a heterotopic space where they occupy the moment connected with the real world but simultaneously unreal because the moment they step inside the car, the players are made unconscious. This vehicle (Car) literally and metaphorically takes them to the Heterotopia of Deviations and Heterotopia of Illusion.
As the first principle of Heterotopia, there is no culture where there is no Heterotopia. So is in the case of South Korea. Squid Game is conducting its new edition, in which the games are specially curated for the people belonging geographically to South Korea in 2020. It is in episode six, Hwang Jun-ho, the disguised Korean police officer, checks for his brothers' details through the arrays of the past editions of Squid Game; we see the years 2014, 2015 and places like the United States and so on.
A Heterotopia of deviation is a space where one needs not follow normativity compared to the outside space. Quoting Foucault again to exemplify Heterotopia of deviation, it is a place where, those in which individuals whose behavior is deviant in relation to the required mean or norm are placed. (Foucault) Likewise, in Squid Game, the capitalist psychopaths give the deviants a space to redeem themselves. Here the deviants are indebted, illegal migrants, black-market professionals, older men, young women, widowed mothers, and handicapped, all facing the crisis of financial issues. Squid Game hence is hardly a Hell (episode 2 is titled Hell), even though one's life is at stake; yet it is undoubtedly a place set apart that manages and releases the tensions of the life outside of Seong Gi-Hun, Sang-Woo, Kang Sae-Byeok, Oh Il-Nam, Jang Deok-Su, Ali Abdul, Han Mi-Nyeo. It is also why, after the first game (Red Light-Green Light, a traditional Korean children's game), most players vote to terminate the game; player no. 322 says,
Where am I supposed to go?
Out there, I don't stand a chance
I do in here.
No, I've got nothing out there.
I'd rather stay and keep on trying in here
than go back to the bullshit out there (Squid Game 9:36- 10:08)
In addition, it is this awareness of deviance they face in the outside world, and even after quitting the game, all the major characters, including the others, join back. They are treated equally irrespective of their power and positions, and always all of them are equally broke. Since humanity depends on the head value of the number of players being eliminated, nothing matters to the organisers, who enjoy the sheer innocent killings.
Seong- Gi Hun is a deviant because he is a heavy alcoholic who cannot afford a birthday dinner for his daughter and take care of his mother. He divorced because he was not there when his wife was in labor. Also, he cannot afford to pay hospital fees for his mother, who is dying of diabetes Sang-Woo, is also a deviant because he is on the lookout for financial fraud and cannot pay back the massive debt, nor can he confront the world and his proud mother. Player 001 is a deviant because he is an older man with dementia and a growing brain tumour who does not wish to die alone in the cruel outside world where he has no one to look after for. Player 067 wants to rescue her parents from North Korea, build a house, and return her brother from the orphanage. To save money, she pickpockets people. Player 199, Ali Abdul, is an illegal Pakistani migrant worker who is not getting paid for the past six months and is exploited by his boss. After the first game, he attacks his boss, flees away with the money, helps his wife and child board a flight to Pakistan, and goes back to play Squid Game.; and Player 101, named Jang Deok-Su, is a deviant because he is a gangster outside Squid game. He was also associated with Player No 069 and is on an escapade from his debts and ex-bosses that he cheated on.
All of them are on the run to get money to pay off their debts and have a happy life. Nevertheless, the ways they choose outside of this heterotopic space, say, gambling, pickpocketing, illegal organ trafficking, and black-market business, are all not considered as the norms. However, here in this space, there are no rules except for the three rules that they are given at the beginning of the game. Here, they can gamble, kill, and do anything outside morality and ethics to win in their lives. This is why they all return to the game after episode two.
In addition to that, according to the third principle of Heterotopia, it is a place capable of juxtaposing in a single real place several spaces, several sites that are in themselves incompatible (6). In Squid Game, we see this juxtaposition where people from different educational backgrounds, social positions, castes, colour, sex, gender, age, and personalities come together and create a Foucauldian Garden. There is a loud woman, a silent woman, a violent woman patricide, and a sex-obsessive, manipulative woman, all of whom do not adhere to the so-called norms. The heterogeneous Other is brought to this other space within the space. They could not exist in harmony in the outside world because none fit in the normative world and within each other. All of them are foreign to each other.
Likewise, according to the fifth principle of Heterotopia, these places have exclusive entrances and exits. This space is not easily accessible to the public. Only those who have received the visiting card can dial the number and register themselves. Also, this space is not explained by the co-ordinates. There is only one clue: the cars in which the players are taken are from the Moojin port. After that, we do not know the island's name or other details. Providing this detail of the port's name means the island is near the port, but on the contrary, it is not. It is just like the bedrooms Foucault gives an example of. To be a part of this, certain purifications are done to the players. The organisers don red jumpsuits with black masks and AI-generated voices. They are the ones who remove all the personal belongings of the players, including the dresses they have worn. They are changed into homogenous uniforms and given numbers from 1-456, and using of names is not allowed. Before they enter, a unique password must be said to get the entrance.
Lastly, according to Foucault, Squid Game is also a Heterotopia of illusion, which is the sixth principle. It remarkably exposes the frenzied fantasy lives of the players, organizers, and VIPs. After a year of Squid Game, Gi-Hun again gets an invitation card belonging to the company. He is led to this place where he finds the older man on his deathbed. To his shock, he realises this seemingly innocent person is one of the game's masterminds. Here in this scene, there is an opening of the domestic self of the older man to the outside world through the safety valves he had on the premises of the game. His wild aspirations are revealed through the conversation with Gi Hun when he asks why he joined them to play when ultimately if he all wanted was to see them dying, which goes like this,
Oh, well, in my childhood
I always had
so much fun out doing things
with all of my friends.
We'd lose track of time for hours
I wanted to just...
feel something
just one last time before I die.
And you are not going to get that feeling
of you are just going to spectate.
And I desperately wanted that.
(38:48-39:33)
By joining and playing with you
I got that chance to...
feel again.
Thanks to you...
I got to remember
all these thing that I had...
forgotten long time ago.
It had been such a long time...
since I...
was able to have that much fun.
(39:44-40:24)
Several conclusions emerging from the close analysis of this series can be concluded that Squid Game is a Heterotopic space. Playing any game, be it video games or physical games, is escapism from real life. Video games like FPS, racing games, and other genres involve much violence, which is not a norm in the outside game. Hence, one gets to live a life free from the obligations of the real outside world concerning the repercussions of killing and cheating. So is for the players in Squid Game.
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