This article contains spoilers for Squid Game season 2.
There are a lot of great characters in this season of Squid Game. With all players but Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) dying in last season’s games, series creator Hwang Dong-hyuk had the lofty task of coming up with a whole new cast of contestants, in addition to new supporting characters like Captain Park, Choi, and all of the mercenaries Hwang Jun-ho (Wi Ha-joon) has hired to try to find the island. But even though there are many compelling new faces this season, Cho Hyun-ju a.k.a. Player 120 (Park Sung-hoon) is definitely the MVP.
Hyun-ju is a trans woman who joined the games to help pay for her gender-affirming care. Before her transition, she was a sergeant first class in the ROK Special Forces, but lost her job and her friends just because she wanted to live her life as her true self. Even though she does vote to stay in the games against her group’s wishes during a crucial vote, it’s clear that she’s torn about the decision, and does what she can to help them all survive the next game.
She sticks up for her teammates and fellow contestants when it really matters. She encourages them throughout the Six-Legged Pentathlon game, ensuring their victory in the final mini-game Jegi. But most importantly, she is the only woman that helps with Gi-hun’s rebellion. She takes out the security cameras in the players’ quarters, she leads the charge to gather the soldiers’ weapons and ammo, and she shows them all how to operate the guns efficiently.
Hyun-ju is the only one brave enough to follow Dae-ho (Kang Ha-neul) after he fails to return from collecting more ammo. As more soldiers breach the players’ quarters in the season’s final moments, she prepares to use the ammo Dae-ho gathered and take a stand against them on her own. The only reason she doesn’t is because Jang Geum-ja (Kang Ae-shim), who has become a mother figure of sorts for several players, urges her not to, wanting her to hopefully have the chance to live another day.
Despite how badass and heroic Hyun-ju is when it truly matters, it’s unfortunate that she has to risk her life in these games in order to afford gender-affirming care. The cost has to be substantial for her to willingly vote to stay after learning how deadly these games are. As an American, it isn’t terribly shocking to see someone put themselves through literal hell in order to afford the healthcare they need, especially a type of healthcare that is currently under undue scrutiny here in the States.
South Korea has yet to legalize same-sex marriage, and their Supreme Court has only recently ruled that same-sex relationships are entitled to the same healthcare benefits as heterosexual relationships. Hyun-ju not only reflects this lack of acceptance with her story in the show, but also in the actor who plays her.
Hyun-ju is played by cisgender male actor Park Sung-hoon. Even though he does an incredible job at portraying this character as the compelling woman she is, the show has faced scrutiny for not casting a trans actor in the role. And rightfully so. One of the main arguments used by TERFs (trans-exclusionary radical feminists) and other anti-trans groups are that trans women are just men who want to dress as women to “invade our spaces.” This is far from the truth of trans women’s experiences, but casting cis men in trans roles doesn’t do much to help this harmful stereotype.
That being said, Squid Game creator Hwang Dong-hyuk did intend to portray this role as authentically as possible when the role was first being created. Hwang told TV Guide that his search proved more challenging than he expected, and it was “near impossible” to find a trans actor who could play the role. “When we researched in Korea, there are close to no actors that are openly trans, let alone openly gay,” he says. “Because unfortunately in the Korean society, currently the LGBTQ community is rather still marginalized and more neglected, which is heartbreaking.”
As easy as it is to say “well maybe he just didn’t look hard enough,” it’s also important to recognize that the U.S. is in a different place when it comes to seeing the trans experience portrayed accurately on screen. And while we seem to be ahead of South Korea in this regard, we’re still nowhere close to where we should be. Even though both the U.S. and Korea still have a long way to go in terms of trans representation on screen, seeing an otherwise unproblematic trans character feature so prominently in Netflix’s most popular series is arguably a very good thing, and I can’t wait to see Hyun-ju’s story continue in season 3.
All seven episodes of Squid Game season 2 are available to stream on Netflix now.
The post Player 120 Hyun-ju Is the Real MVP of Squid Game Season 2 appeared first on Den of Geek.
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