This paragraph was a part of the weekly newsletter sent home from our son’s elementary school last week:
Squid Games: We were recently informed that some students were replicating games in the popular Netflix series Squid Games. While the games themselves in their purest form are harmless and were played by many of us as youngsters, the area of concern is the discussion and replication of the elimination of players. Students are reportedly pretending to shoot others when they have been eliminated. Please discuss with your student and inform them the latter is unacceptable.
______________________________
The students in my son’s school range in age from kindergarten through fourth grade, which led me to ask, with all sincerity:
What the hell is wrong with people?
Why are children watching Squid Game?
Are parents incapable of saying no to their children?
Last week, while sitting at home, recovering from surgery, I decided to watch an episode of Squid Game to see what this hype was all about. When I was finished watching the episode, I knew two things:
- This show is incredibly, gratuitously, and indiscriminately violent.
- No child should ever watch this show.
When I say “I knew two things,” I mean I know these two things as absolute, undeniable facts.
The show is indisputably violent. This isn’t to say that the violence is inappropriate or negative on face value. I’m not opposed to the depiction of violence in film and television. It’s just a fact that this particular show depicts violence in an incredibly gruesome way.
Also, it’s indisputable that children should not watch this show. There is no way in hell that any child in my son’s elementary school should watch this show.
If a parent has allowed their child to watch this show, I can only assume that one of these things happened:
- The parent in question lacks sound judgment of any kind.
- The parent in question possesses sound parental judgement but are incapable of saying no to their children for one of a multitude of tragic reasons.
- The parent in question has not established adequate safeguards to ensure that their children can’t watch this show unsupervised.
It’s disturbing beyond measure that children in my son’s school may have watched this show. I really can’t believe it. I’m hoping that this message from my son’s school is addressing the behavior of an infinitesimally small group of children who somehow managed to watch the show without their parent’s knowledge.
Or maybe the children didn’t watch the show at all but picked up on the plot by overhearing conversation from people much older than themselves.
It would still be a disastrous outcome, but it’s the best one I can envision.
For the record, I don’t think I’ll be finishing Squid Game. While I am admittedly curious about how the show plays out, I also found the indiscriminate, gratuitous violence of the first episode slightly disturbing.
Perhaps I’ll read the Wikipedia summary of the show to satisfy my curiosity.
