Hwang Dong Hyuk.
Presley Ann/Getty Images for NetflixSquid game creator Hwang Dong Hyuk Explains why a cisgender actor Park Sung Hoon He was cast as transgender character Hyun Joo in the second season.
Hwang, 53, who wrote and directed both seasons, knew some fans would expect to see a transgender woman play Hyun Joo, a former special forces officer who enters the South Korean series' deadly competition to earn money for gender confirmation surgery. .
“I expected such discussions to arise from the first moment I started creating Hyun Joo’s character,” Hwang said. TV guide Earlier this month. “Initially, we were doing our research, and I was thinking about casting a transgender actor.”
However, Hwang soon discovered that “there were no openly transgender actors” in South Korea.
“Unfortunately, in Korean society right now, the LGBTQ community is still marginalized and more neglected, which is heartbreaking,” he explained.
After determining that it would be “almost impossible to find someone we could consider authentic” as a trans woman, Squid game The team settled on Park, 39.
Park Sung Hoon in the movie Squid Game.
Okay Joe Han/Netflix“I have watched his work since his debut, and I had complete confidence in him that he would be the right person in terms of talent to portray this character,” Hwang said of Park.
The director's decision to include a transgender character in season two aligns with the message of season one, which premiered on Netflix in 2021.
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“I've seen people come to join the games Squid game “As people we are often marginalized or neglected by society, and not just financially,” Huang said. Decision maker On Friday, December 27th. “Today, unfortunately, in Korean society, the sexual minority is a group that is not widely accepted within society, which is why I created the character Hyun Joo as a male-to-female transgender woman.”
Trans actors playing trans roles are a relatively new development even in the United States, but trans activists argue that casting cis actors in trans roles perpetuates the harmful belief that trans people are simply wearing a costume. Annette Beningwhose son Stephen Ira Beatty He is transgender, he explained the concept during a 2020 interview with Telegraph.
“The important thing that I'm really starting to understand about this issue is that people sometimes look at transgender people as (giving) some kind of performance,” Benning, 66, said. “But actually this is a mistake, it is a misunderstanding.”
Despite facing some criticism for Park's casting, Hwang hopes Hyun Joo's character will be entirely positive.
“By creating a character who is very similar to Hyun-ju and through her choices, her actions, and the way she deals in the game, I hope it will raise awareness of these issues that we face today,” he told Decider.
Season 2 of Squid jamIt was released on Netflix on Friday, December 26. The dystopian thriller series follows participants in a life-and-death game as they compete to win billions of dollars.
