By Breitbart News Network | Created at 2024-12-21 17:05:22 | Updated at 2024-12-22 06:14:35
15 hours ago
In 2021, the South Korean dystopian drama Squid Game became a worldwide hit, and as it prepares for season two, the show’s creator is bringing on a transgender character in hopes of creating more sympathy for “the LGTBQ community” in his country.
Series creator Hwang Dong-hyuk has already generated controversy by casting actor Park Sung-hoon — a man with no confusion as to his sex — as the transgender character Hyun-ju.
Hyun-ju, aka Player 120 (Park Sung-hoon), joins the dangerous game to win the prize so he can use the cash to fund gender reassignment surgery.
Director and writer Hwang crowed about how wonderful the character is, taking a moment to bash his own country for not being very trans-friendly.
“The people who come to join the games in Squid Game are usually marginalized or neglected from society, and not just financially speaking, but people who would belong to marginalized groups,” Hwang explained through a translator during last week’s press conference about season two.
“In season one, the representative character for that was Ali, who was a foreigner working in Korea, which is one of the most representative minority groups in Korea,” the director explained.
But then he took a swipe at South Korean society for not being welcoming to gay and trans people.
“Currently today, unfortunately, in the Korean society the gender minority is a group that is not as accepted widely within society. I wanted to create a character that would represent that,” he said.
“In Korea, when you are a gender minority, it is not as widely accepted yet, unfortunately, and you are still seen to be very much out of the norm,” he continued. “And so by creating a character like Hyun-ju, through her choices, her actions, and the way she carries herself in the game, I hope that that could raise awareness of these issues that we face today.”
Hwang went on to say that he had to hire a straight actor because there really aren’t any trans actors in South Korea.
“I was thinking of doing an authentic casting of a trans actor,” Hwang said, but added, “When we researched in Korea, there are close to no actors that are openly trans, let alone openly gay, because unfortunately in the Korean society currently the LGBTQ community is rather still marginalized and more neglected, which is heartbreaking … It was near impossible to find someone who we could cast authentically.”
Hwang insisted that he had “complete trust” in the actor he cast for the role.
The series became a massive hit for streaming service Netflix after its debut in September of 2021. Not only was it number one in viewership in the U.S.A., it achieved that same status in 94 other countries and quickly racked up 1.65 billion viewing hours in its first four weeks alone.
The series follows a divorced father whose life has spiraled into gambling addiction and debt, but who is given a chance to erase his debt by joining a game that has a large cash prize. However, once becoming involved, he discovers that this game is a sadistic and dangerous affair in which losing players are mercilessly murdered in strange and unusual ways.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Facebook at: facebook.com/Warner.Todd.Huston, or Truth Social @WarnerToddHuston
