Squid Game on Netflix is a bloody series a child should not watch

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At present ‘Squid Game’ is the most popular television series on Netflix in Norway, ahead of Chestnut Mand, Maid, Sex Education and The Guilty, according to Flix Patrol. The series is also the most watched Netflix series in the United States and several other countries.

The story goes that people who are burdened with debt and have violent money collectors after them, join a game where they can win an incredibly large amount of money. What they don’t know is that if they lose, they get shot, and it is the game.

The picture at the top of this article shows a scene in which participants are drugged and transported to a hangar where they wake up and have to stay until the games start.

In the first episode, 200 people are shot, trapped in an arena, completely defenseless. And the filmmakers show how blood splashes out of the back, chest and skull when one after another dies.

In some violent computer games, the characters are not entirely human and thus can create a certain distance to blood and gore. But Squid Game is a TV series about people, and you get to know many of the characters before they get shot.

There are also other horrific and bloody violent incidents in which people kill by chopping with a knife.

Kids and Media has seen the first two episodes. The series is from South Korea (2021), and at first the play may look like foreign for Norwegians. It is somewhat silent film-like, where facial expressions and body positions are exaggerated. When an actor is to show that he is surprised, he shows a grimace similar to Edvard Munch’s ‘Scream’ painting. Initially, this may give a tiny distance to violence, but gradually the play becomes more like we are used to in the West. The massacre in the arena is not at all something children should see.

The dead are placed in coffins with burned furnaces that can give associations to Nazi concentration camps during World War II. Some half-dead people try to get out of the coffins, but the lids are nailed. ‘Squid Game’ has a long set of mainstream dialogue scenes that don’t offer violence, threats and carnage. The dialogue scenes make up a lot of the series, but then there are long-running scenes of violence.

Leaving aside the violence, the series engages in the same way as when watching reality shows in which a group of people compete to win a prize. Viewers wonder who wins in the end, and from episode to episode one can follow who helps each other, or tricks each other, towards the goal. Will the anti-hero Seong Gi-hun be left as the last person?

The series may remind the problematic reminiscent of the Hunger Games.

Netflix recommended age limit: 16 years

On Netflix, the series has recommended an age limit of 16 years. The organization Common Sense Media in the United States is similar to Barnevakten (Kids and Media) in Norway. In the US, more film violence is often accepted than in Europe, which accepts more nudity. The organization recommends an age limit of 16 years and refers to ‘Squid Game’ as follows: «K-thriller has extreme violence, sex, some moral lessons.»

The organization allows parents to leave their own reviews  as well as vote on what it should be the appropriate age limit. At the time of writing, 21 American parents have left comments and they have landed at 16 as the appropriate age limit. (Update 7 October: The average parental recommendation has now increased to 17+.)

Common Sense Media also allows children to leave comments  and vote on the appropriate age limit. It is not uncommon for children to vote at a lower age limit than their parents do. After 83 children have left their vote, the average age limit is 14 years.

One of the children writes:

“Please don’t watch unless you are 14+. I started watching this because it was really popular and my friends were talking about it. The first three episodes were OK, but the 1st and 3rd had people getting shot, which I just about tolerated as a 13-year-old. However, the fourth episode was much worse, it not only had people dying, but it showed someone having their eyeball taken out, a man being kicked to death, and a very graphic fight scene. I stopped watching at that point and had no idea that the violence would get that bad.”

In Korea, the series has been rated 19 years.  The age limits in Korea range from zero to eighteen years, but there is also a class called «Restricted screening» with an age limit of 19 years, this applies to particularly horrible films. The text that follows  the age limit system  states: “considered a highly bad influence to universal human dignity.”

It also seems that if a movie or television series has been given this high age limit, it is not allowed to show during the daytime in Korea.

YouTube is flooded with Squid Game clips

It’s easy to tell your child to stay away from Squid Game on Netflix. But the worse is to keep your child away from all the clips and features from the series that appear on social media sites like TikTok and YouTube. The actors have also millions of social media followers.

In addition, there are many people who film themselves and their friends playing with the same toys as in the TV series, without fatal outcomes of course. Someone makes parodies or just talks about the TV series. The toys and games that unfold in the series have also appeared in Roblox, but as simple characters that do not look like living people. It’s hard not to hear people talking about the series at all.

Some advice in connection with Squid Game

A common advice is that parents should not mention specifically what they do not want their children to watch, because then they may introduce something that the child was not already familiar with, and the curiosity of the child is triggered. Often it is better to ask the children themselves to tell what they are seeing online at the moment or what they hear a lot of talk about. If the child then mentions Squid Game, one should have a chat about what they may have seen and what they think about it. If the children have only heard about the series or seen clips from it on social media, it should be clear that this series is not suitable for children and tell them about the age limit the series has been given.

(Written 6 october 2021. Translated from Norwegian to English 19 october 2021 by Ratan.)

If you read Norwegian, you can get more information at our page «Startside om Squid Game».