Photo: DFree / Shutterstock / Instagram
The entire premise of the show is anti-capitalism.
By Nia Tipton — Written on Nov 17, 2021
Chrissy Teigen is facing some heat after hosting a "Squid Game” themed party with many fans of the show calling it "tone deaf."
Teigen held a party at her Los Angeles home based on the hit Netflix show, along with her husband John Legend.
The couple decorated their home with the help of a party planner, perfectly replicating the show’s set, which included the bunk beds, piggy banks filled with cash, and the maze staircase.
Teigen, Legend, and their guests, which consisted of high-profile celebrities like Jesse Tyler Ferguson, and Shay Mitchell, dressed up as characters from the show.
“Where do I even begin!! What an absolutely epic night,” Teigen wrote on Instagram. “My dream came true of watching my friends fight to the death! Dunk tank, musical chairs, hide and seek followed by a very riveting final game of pin the tail on the donkey.”
However, people on social media were quick to point out the issue of Teigen hosting a party based on the South Korean show, with people branding her "tone deaf."
Chrissy Teigen's 'Squid Games' party misses the point of the popular show.
The Netflix show is about 456 players who have been chosen based on their need for money to pay off the overwhelming amount of debt that they are in.
The players are drugged and taken to a remote island where they compete in six-games of actual life or death, to win a cash prize of over 38 billion dollars in South Korean Won.
The entire premise of the show is almost a social commentary on the relentless effects of capitalism.
It shows that people will go through extreme lengths to become rich, as each player is poverty-stricken and drowning under the capitalist system.
'Squid Games' probes wealth inequality.
The creator of the show, Hwang Dong-hyuk, even opened up about his intentions for the series, saying he’d written it during a particularly difficult time in his life where he was struggling financially.
“I wanted to write a story that was an allegory or fable about modern capitalist society, something that depicts an extreme competition, somewhat like the extreme competition of life,” Dong-hyuk said.
This isn’t the first time that Teigen has received backlash of the same capacity.
At the beginning of 2020, Teigen had tweeted out her enjoyment of the movie ‘Parasite,’ which follows the same anti-capitalist premise as ‘Squid Game’ does.
Immediately, people were calling out the irony of someone as rich as Chrissy Teigen loving a movie that ultimately roasts the upper-class.
Of course, Teigen is not the only celebrity who recreated the show.
YouTuber, Mr. Beast announced that he is in the process of creating his very own ‘Squid Game,’ subsequently revealing the amount of money that he’s spending on the set design.
Mr. Beast, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson, disclosed that he had spent around $2 million in building and producing, and an additional $1.5 million in prizes.
Again, people on Twitter were quick to point out that Donaldson had missed the entire point of the show.
There is an irony of rich people hosting and creating their own version of ‘Squid Game’ when the entire premise of the show is to show how dangerous the rhetoric of ‘hustle culture’ is and how living in a society that is ruled by capitalism can be detrimental.
It’s even more telling when you realize that many of the people who follow Chrissy Teigen as well as Mr. Beast are not even close to the 1%, further proving the disconnect.
Nia Tipton is a writer living in Brooklyn. She covers pop culture, social justice issues, and trending topics. Follow her on Instagram.