The second season of Squid Game has dropped on Netflix. It's pretty good, if incomplete without the third and final season, which is coming out next year.
As in season 1, we're introduced to a group of contestants who have chosen to participate in the deadly Squid Games for a chance to dig themselves out of crippling debt. One of the standout characters is Cho Hyun-ji, a trans woman who was fired from the military after she started to transition. She's torn between voting to remain in the games so she can pay off her debts and pay for surgeries, and voting to leave so other contestants won't be put at risk: remember that if you don't win in the Squid Games, you die.
Beware SPOILERS for Squid Game season 2 incoming
Cho Hyun-ji participates in the rebellion against the Squid Game organizers at the end of the season; she knows how to use a gun and is cool in a crisis, so she's invaluable to that effort. All told, she's one of the more interesting characters introduced this season. She is also, as a trans woman, bound to stir up controversy online, where mere mention of a trans people existing reliably starts up a new battle in the culture wars.
“I did anticipate such discussions to arise from the first moment I began creating the character Hyun-ju,” Squid Game creator Hwang Dong-hyuk told TV Guide. Also controversial is the fact that Cho Hyun-ji is played by cisgender actor Park Sung-hoon. “In the beginning we were doing our research, and I was thinking of doing an authentic casting of a trans actor,” Hwang explained. “When we researched in Korea, 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. And that led us to the decision to cast Sung-hoon. I have watched his work ever since his debut, and I had complete trust in him that he would be the right person in terms of talent in portraying this character."
Some people have an issue with a trans character like Cho Hyun-ji being played by a cis actor. I don't personally know much about South Korean society, but if Hwang Dong-hyuk says that the climate is so hostile to people from the LGBTQ+ community that it's prohibitively difficult to find a trans actress to play the character, I'm inclined to believe him, particularly given that the show portrays Cho Hyun-ji as sympathetic and multifaceted. I don't think there's any reason to believe this wasn't an honest compromise struck.
Cho Hyun-ji and the other characters from Squid Game season 2 will return whenever the third season drops in 2025; Hwang hopes it will be in the summer or fall. So we won't waiting nearly as long for the third and final season as we did for the second.
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h/t New York Post