Interesting commentary, thanks for confirming my initial feeling that its essentially not worth watching. To me it seems so depressing to watch such a dystopia, knowing that its representation of the shitty world we live in now (as you also mention). So i’m trying to find more positive movies and shows to watch, but they are very hard to find.
Yes, it’s so hard to find good shows and movies. I watch a lot of “old” stuff because of this.
What “old” things specifically do you watch that you’d recommend?
A lot of Soviet movies I grew up with, our comedies were HILARIOUS: Приключения Шурика (Операция Ы, Кавказская пленница, и т.д.), 12 Стульев, Джентльмены удачи, Иван Васильевич меняет профессию). My favourite Soviet drama as of late is Свой среди чужих, чужой среди своих, it’s soo good 😭 I also enjoy early-ish J-horror (mid 90s-early 00s), the classics: Ringu, Ju-on, Dark Water, Tomie, etc. We watch quite a few European kinda art house-ish movies (mostly, horror). For the 90s nostalgia, we watch the X-files, lol.
I find sci-fi books tend to be a lot better for inspirational content. For example, I really enjoyed The Ministry for the Future where KSR lays out a plausible vision for humanity dealing with the climate crisis and finally overcoming capitalism in the process.
While Squid Game itself is dark and largely derivative, its international popularity makes it a useful tool. We need to build a critical mass of people who realize that capitalism needs to be abolished in order to move forward. Shows like Squid Game provide a great context to have discussions about the ills of capitalism with the people in the mainstream creating an opportunity to pull them left.
