A New York State school banned students from wearing Halloween costumes inspired by the Netflix series, Squid Game.
In an interview with USA Today, Dr. Craig Tice, the Superintendent for the Fayetteville-Manlius school district, said he made the decision to ban costumes related to the Netflix series after it was reported that students had been "mimicking" the show's violent games during recess. As reported by Deadline, The district includes three elementary schools.
"Some of our younger students are talking about and mimicking aspects of the show/game at school," Tice said in a statement. "Parents and guardians … have the opportunity to speak with their children themselves about it and reinforce the school message that games associated with violent behavior are not appropriate for recess."
Squid Game is rated by Netflix for Mature Audiences, meaning the series may not be "suitable for ages 17 and under," and the first episode comes with a content warning for "language, violence, sex, nudity, suicide, smoking." Netflix said in a statement regarding the issue that "Squid Game is rated TV-MA and intended for mature audiences." The spokesperson continued to say, "We offer parents a wide variety of parental controls to make the appropriate choices for their families."
Fayetteville-Manlius isn't the only school district experiencing Squid Game-related issues among its students. Schools in the Panama City-area Bay district in Florida recently warned parents via a Facebook post that some students had been attempting to "replicate show scenes at school." The post continued to not that "what sounds harmless (who didn't play Red Light/Green Light as a kid?) is not actually harmless" because the version of Red Light/Green Light in Squid Game ended in the fatal elimination of hundreds of people. "We are seeing kids trying to actually hurt each other in the name of this 'game.'," the statement said.
Again, these aren't the first warnings parents have received regarding children attempting to recreate the games scene in the Netflix series, wherein childhood games become cutthroat affairs in a larger commentary on class violence and poverty in South Korea. Earlier in September, groups throughout the United Kingdom attempted to warn parents and teachers of an alarming trend in which children inflict physical violence upon one another in order to replicate the stakes featured in the series, particularly when playing Red Light/Green Light.
Squid Game quickly became a sensation upon its release, garnering more than 1.4 billion hours viewed within 23 days. According to reports from Netflix, two-thirds of users completed the series within 23 days, racking up 142 million views over its first 28 days of release, surpassing Bridgerton as the streaming platform's most popular series launch of all time.
According to creator Hwang Dong-hyuk, he created Squid Game with the intention to "target a global audience" by using children's games as a premise, saying, "And since the games are so simple, the viewers don't need to focus on trying to understand the rules. They can instead focus on the inner feelings and the dynamics between the characters a lot more, and then they can get immersed into the whole experience, cheering for and empathizing with the characters."
Source: Deadline
0 Comments