‘Squid Game’: The Korean show taking the world by storm
Squid Game (2021). Siren Pictures Inc.
Squid Game is the show that everyone is talking about, it’s on track to be Netflix’s biggest original series.[1] I personally haven’t watched the show, nor do I intend to, but something that a TikTok by Youngmi Mayer called attention to caught my interest: the show has a poor translation of character dialogue to English ‘subtitles.’ So what does this mean for an English speaking audience?
In her TikTok, fluent Korean speaker Youngmi Mayer highlighted the poor translation of Korean nuances and dialogue to English subtitles, claiming that ‘if you don’t understand Korean, you didn’t really watch the show’.[2]
She draws particular attention to the character Mi-nyeo, whose script was especially mistranslated. In one example where Mi-nyeo attempts to recruit others to play the game with her, she supposedly says ‘I’m not a genius, but I can work it out,’ where her actual line is something closer to ‘I’m very smart, I just never got the chance to study’.[3] While this may seem like a minor difference in the speech, the English-speaking audience misses out on a major Korean trope of the role of wealth in education.
The English audience not only loses the premise of Mi-nyeo’s whole character, but they also miss invaluable cultural context to the show. As one might expect, conspiracy theories have circled about whether it was an intentional mistranslation by Korean authorities in an attempt to silence anti-capitalist messages. In my opinion this seems far-fetched. Make of it what you will, the consequences are essentially the same.
Squid Game (2021). Siren Pictures Inc.
It should be noted that in a later TikTok, Mayer addressed that she had in fact meant closed captions and not subtitles, the difference being that subtitles are designed to aid someone with foreign dialogue and closed captions aid those that are hard of hearing.[4] Therefore, the closed captions that she was referring to most likely had been computer generated and not as a result of a translator.
At this point you may be inclined to think that this whole blunder is excusable, but that only brings me to another issue: why should hard of hearing people have to miss the entire ideology of the show? Logistically there are some constraints, for example the number of characters in a subtitle and the length of time it can be displayed for. However, I’d be inclined to say that longer subtitles are preferable to ones that are, effectively, for a different show.
It must also be mentioned that the dubbing and actual subtitles are closer to the correct translation, but still not entirely accurate. It’s common in foreign media translations for idioms and nuances to be replaced with ones that fit the culture that the audience identifies with. Therefore, in the case of Squid Game, the Korean cultural relevance that is vital to the director’s vision of the show is lost.
It undoubtedly is disappointing to the English speaking audience, to find out that they didn’t really watch the show that they signed up to watch. But on a wider scale, it’s incredibly disappointing that the culturally significant and progressive characters crafted by Hwang Dong-hyuk are silenced, intentionally or not.
Morgan Neville, Liberal Arts, Religion and Theology Pathway, Year 1
[1] Hwang Dong-hyuk, Squid Game (Netflix, 2021).
[2] Youngmi Mayer (@youngmimayer, 30 September 2021) , ‘#squidgame translations are sooo wrong here’s a little example’, (TikTok), <https://vm.tiktok.com/ZM8LSkCRK/> [accessed 23 October 2021]
[3] Ibid.
[4] Youngmi Mayer (@youngmimayer, 2 October 2021), ‘Reply to @youngmimayer this going viral has been rough y’all’, (TikTok), <https://vm.tiktok.com/ZM8LBKPsx/> [accessed 23 October 2021].