South Korean Celebration of 'Squid Game' Emmy Wins Subdued

A TV screen show the casting members of Squid Game during a news program at the Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Sept. 13, 2022. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon) THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
A TV screen show the casting members of Squid Game during a news program at the Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Sept. 13, 2022. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon) THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
TT
20

South Korean Celebration of 'Squid Game' Emmy Wins Subdued

A TV screen show the casting members of Squid Game during a news program at the Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Sept. 13, 2022. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon) THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
A TV screen show the casting members of Squid Game during a news program at the Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Sept. 13, 2022. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon) THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

South Koreans shared congratulations on social media Tuesday for the multiple wins by “Squid Game” at the Emmy Awards, but the overall reaction was subdued as the country grows accustomed to its increasingly prominent role in global entertainment.

From K-pop sensations BTS and BLACKPINK to the movie “Parasite” that won four Oscars, South Korean pop culture is now a global phenomenon. While it was big news that “Squid Game” became the first South Korean drama to win an Emmy, many South Koreans weren't as surprised by such triumphs as in the past.

South Korean social media were flooded with messages after the star of the Netflix drama, Lee Jung-jae, won the award for best male actor in a drama series, and its creator, Hwang Dong-hyuk, the award for best drama director on Monday. Both were the first Asians to win in those categories.

President Yoon Suk Yeol congratulated Lee and Hwang, saying the entire nation was celebrating their accomplishments in a show that resonated with viewers around the world.

“(We) hope that (you) will continue to be active with your work and appear in good works that move hearts around the world,” Yoon said in a message to Lee he shared on Facebook.

Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon wrote on Facebook that he was proud that South Korean artists are producing work that is “enthusiastically celebrated and emphasized by the whole world.”

Ordinary citizens also wrote congratulatory messages on social media. But some messages were critical of the drama, and the level of elation was much lower than when Bong Joon Ho’s “Parasite” became the first non-English-language film to win best picture at the Academy Awards in 2020 and won three other Oscars.

The president at the time, Moon Jae-in, and his advisers began a regular meeting by clapping to celebrate the Oscars, and South Korean media extensively played up the news.

Several hours after the Emmy wins by “Squid Game," the news was still on the front pages of the internet editions of major South Korean media outlets, but not at the top, which was dominated by domestic politics.

“People are getting used to (major awards),” film critic Kim See-moo said. “Bong Joon-ho took home four Oscars for ‘Parasite,’ another one of our actors won an Oscar for ‘Minari’ and then Park Chan-wook won best director at Cannes (for ‘Decision to Leave’). South Koreans no longer think there are any entry barriers for these awards, and they think anyone has a shot at winning if they put in the hard work.”

Kim noted that South Koreans are less familiar with the Emmys than the Oscars, partly because Korean dramas previously didn’t have a large presence in the United States.

“South Korean TV dramas have been huge in Asia for years, especially in markets where people share similar emotional sentiments with South Koreans,” Kim said. “‘Squid Game’ became a broader global hit because it tackled the intense global issue that is inequality, but also took a refreshing approach by telling that story through a brutal and deadly competition of children’s games.”

“As a Korean, I’m very proud of (the drama),” Choi Hyun Sik, a 32-year-old office worker, told The Associated Press. “I once again came to realize how popular ‘Squid Game’ was.”

”(Lee) made an award speech in English but at the end he spoke in Korean and highlighted his fans and people in South Korea, so I was really touched by that,” said Jeong Ye-won, a 22-year-old university student.

Squid Game is a brutal survival drama about desperate adults competing in deadly children’s games for a chance to escape debt. In the drama, Lee stars as the show’s protagonist, Seong Gi-hun, a laid-off autoworker coping with a messy divorce and struggling with constant business failures and gambling problems.



Movie Review: 'Eddington' Is a Satire About Our Broken Brains That Might Re-Break Your Brain

 This image released by A24 shows Joaquin Phoenix, left, and Pedro Pascal in a scene from "Eddington." (A24 via AP)
This image released by A24 shows Joaquin Phoenix, left, and Pedro Pascal in a scene from "Eddington." (A24 via AP)
TT
20

Movie Review: 'Eddington' Is a Satire About Our Broken Brains That Might Re-Break Your Brain

 This image released by A24 shows Joaquin Phoenix, left, and Pedro Pascal in a scene from "Eddington." (A24 via AP)
This image released by A24 shows Joaquin Phoenix, left, and Pedro Pascal in a scene from "Eddington." (A24 via AP)

You might need to lie down for a bit after "Eddington." Preferably in a dark room with no screens and no talking. "Eddington," Ari Aster's latest nightmare vision, is sure to divide but there is one thing I think everyone will be able to agree on: It is an experience that will leave you asking "WHAT?" The movie opens on the aggravated ramblings of an unhoused man and doesn't get much more coherent from there. Approach with caution.

We talk a lot about movies as an escape from the stresses of the world. "Eddington," in which a small, fictional town in New Mexico becomes a microcosm of life in the misinformation age, and more specifically during the pandemic and the Black Lives Matter protests, is very much the opposite of that. It is an anti-escapist symphony of masking debates, conspiracy theories, YouTube prophets, TikTok trends and third-rail topics in which no side is spared. Most everyone looks insane and ridiculous by the end, from the white teenage girl (Amélie Hoeferle) telling a Black cop (Michael Ward) to join the movement, to the grammatical errors of the truthers, as the town spirals into chaos and gruesome violence.

Joaquin Phoenix plays the town sheriff, a soft-spoken wife guy named Joe Cross, who we meet out in the desert one night watching YouTube videos about how to convince your wife to have a baby. He's interrupted by cops from the neighboring town, who demand he put on a mask since he's technically crossed the border.

It is May 2020, and everyone is a little on edge. Joe, frustrated by the hysterical commitment to mandates from nowhere, finds himself the unofficial spokesperson for the right to go unmasked. He pits himself against the slick local mayor Ted Garcia (Pedro Pascal), who is up for reelection, in the pocket of big tech and ready to exploit his single fatherhood for political gain. At home, Joe's mother-in-law Dawn (Deirdre O'Connell) spends all day consuming internet conspiracy theories, while his wife Louise (a criminally underused Emma Stone) works on crafts and nurses unspoken traumas.

Joe's eagerness to take on Ted isn't just about masking. Years ago, Ted dated his now-wife, a story that will be twisted into rape and grooming accusations. Caricatures and stereotypes are everywhere in "Eddington," but in this world it feels like the women are especially underwritten - they are kooks, victims, zealots and the ones who push fragile men to the brink. But in "Eddington," all the conspiracies are real and ordinary people are all susceptible to the madness.

In fact, insanity is just an inevitability no matter how well-intentioned one starts out, whether that's the woke-curious teen rattled by rejection, or the loyal deputy Guy (Luke Grimes) who is suddenly more than happy to accuse a colleague of murder. Louise will also be swayed by a floppy-haired internet guru, a cult-like leader played with perfect swagger by Austin Butler.

The problem with an anarchic satire like "Eddington," in theaters Friday, is that any criticism could easily be dismissed with a "that's the point" counterargument. And yet there is very little to be learned in this silo of provocations that, like all Aster movies, escalates until the movie is over.

There are moments of humor and wit, too, as well as expertly built tension and release. "Eddington" is not incompetently done or unwatchable (the cast and the director kind of guarantee that); it just doesn't feel a whole of anything other than a cinematic expression of broken brains.

Five years after we just went through (at least a lot of) this, "Eddington" somehow seems both too late and too soon, especially when it offers so little wisdom or insight beyond a vision of hopelessness. I wonder what world Aster thought he'd be releasing this film into. Maybe one that was better, not cosmically worse.

It's possible "Eddington" will age well. Perhaps it's the kind of movie that future Gen Alpha cinephiles will point to as being ahead of its time, a work that was woefully misunderstood by head-in-the-sand critics who didn't see that it was 2025's answer to the prescient paranoia cinema of the 1970s.

Not to sound like the studio boss in "Sullivan's Travels," trying to get the filmmaker with big issues on the mind to make a dumb comedy, but right now, "Eddington" feels like the last thing any of us need.