Fans of Netflix’s hit South Korean series Squid Game are divided over Season two’s transgender character, played by an actor who is not confused about his sex in real life.
As Breitbart News reported, Season two of Squid Game initially sparked backlash among LGBTQQIAAP2S+ activists after actor Park Sung-Hoon — a man who doesn’t have any confusion about whether he is a man or woman — was cast to play a man who thinks he is a woman.
Squid Game returned to Netflix for its second season on Thursday, leaving fans unsure of how they felt about Park’s character, who joins the deadly game in the show to fund his so-called gender transition surgery.
While fans were first upset over a non-transgender actor playing a trans character, some are now irritated over the trans character not doing enough in the show, according to a report by Pink News.
“The trans character in Squid Game gets so little to do lol,” one fan complained. “For the first four episodes [he] just kind of walks around quietly while other characters make jabs at her. It’s the kind of mealy-mouthed ‘representation’ that does nothing for anyone other than check off a box.”
Others fans, however, disagreed, expressing that they found the transgender character “surprisingly” well-written.
“It’s the way this show put an old woman, a pregnant woman, and a trans woman together and outright said they are all valid as women moved me to tears,” one fan remarked, adding, “Holy fucking shit.”
“Watching the new season of Squid Game and I absolutely adore the trans character, the writers wrote [him] with so much love and care,” another wrote.
Earlier this month, Squid Game director and creator Hwang Dong-hyuk said he couldn’t “authentically” cast a transgender actor to play Park’s character because South Korea is too bigoted.
“I was thinking of doing an authentic casting of a trans actor,” Hwang said, adding, “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 said.
Alana Mastrangelo is a reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on Facebook and X at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.
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