‘Squid Game’ wins Emmy Award again

Following the success of K-pop and K-movies, Korean drama has set a new record in the history of Emmy Award. Actor Lee Jung-jae and director Hwang Dong-hyuk of the Netflix’s dystopian hit series “Squid Game” won the prizes for Outstanding Lead Actor and Outstanding Directing, respectively, in a Drama Series at the 74th Emmy Awards in Los Angeles on Monday. It is the first time that a non-English drama series received the prestigious award for artistic and technical merit in the television industry. After the award ceremony, the New York Post praised “Squid Game” for becoming a “huge winner” in the 74th year of the award.

Including its previous winning of four awards in the categories of the Outstanding Guest Actress, Special Visual Effects, Stunt Performance and Production Design on September 4, “Squid Game” grabbed six trophies at this year’s Emmy Awards. Unfortunately, the drama series fell short of winning the awards for Outstanding Drama Series and Best Original Screenplay, but its nomination itself proved the rising power of K-content.

The Emmy Awards for “Squid Game” carry great significance as the series earned empathy from global audiences by poignantly pointing to universal problems — such as polarization and inequality — our modern society faces. Instead of relying on fandom of a certain actor and actress, the series made a global hit solely based on its strength. Not to mention its unique originality and world-class performance of actors and actresses, the series showed top-caliber art, music and stunts to the world.

The Emmy Awards are basically awarded to television programs produced in the United States. The feat of “Squid Game” owes much to the dramatic lowering of national borders thanks to the over-the-top (OTT) media services. After produced as a drama series of Netflix, it was simultaneously released to more than 190 countries, on September 19 last year.

The horizon of K-drama is expanding fast due to the revolutionary changes in broadcasting. Since the sensation of “Squid Game,” not only Netflex-made series like “Hellbound” and “All of Us Are Dead,” but also locally-produced dramas like “Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha” and “Extraordinary Attorney Woo” attracted global attention. After the hits of BTS and popularity of Korean films at Cannes and the Academy Awards, K-drama is joining the mainstream.

We should pay attention to how to sustain the remarkable development of K-content. First of all, we must build a rational habitat for creative works given the unfair sharing of profit, as seen in a recent push by famous movie directors to revise the Intellectual Property Rights Act. We applaud actors and the production staff of “Squid Game” again.