Daily Archives: October 13, 2021

OPINION: Social media accounts of wildlife returning to cities went viral on social media a full week before New Zealand went into lockdown for the first time on March 23, 2020.

The most famous image purportedly showed swans and dolphins in the canals of eerily deserted Venice. The posts were a tonic for those looking for a bright side of the unprecedented shuttering of commercial and public life, of renewal out of despair.

Like a blooming wildflower, the next year also saw a reappraisal of the importance of government and institutions. The political nihilism of the 21st century, essentially the hackneyed line that it doesnt matter who you vote for, the government always gets in repackaged in meme form, started to fall away.

The difference between leaders, governments and national institutions became very clear in their respective responses to the pandemic. No-one could seriously maintain that Boris Johnson, Donald Trump and Jacinda Ardern were interchangeable in 2020.

READ MORE:* Covid-19 vaccines: Call for the Government to 'ramp up' communication about roll-out* Coronavirus: 'Huge risk' people won't trust Covid-19 vaccines

With that came a renewed optimism about the ability of the state to do good. Only the state could call a lockdown; only the state could beat Covid. Only the state could keep business afloat with billions of dollars by turning on the money printers. Big government was back.

Before any of this had happened, though, the Venetian swans and dolphins had been debunked. The frolicking creatures were photographs from different Italian towns, and predated the pandemic.

WPA Pool/Getty Images

No-one could seriously maintain that Boris Johnson, Donald Trump and Jacinda Ardern were interchangeable in 2020, writes Ben Thomas.

It took slightly longer for big government to be brought back to earth. But if the first year of the pandemic demonstrated the importance and the power of the state to do good, then the second year has certainly delineated its limits.

First, the swift transmission of the Delta variant presented a physical and biological problem that perhaps no amount of political will could solve, particularly as it passed on in communities now grouped together as hard to reach and outside the influence of mainstream political persuasion.

Then, as the slow vaccine rollout accelerated to a frenzy, numbers began to hit the wall of a much wider group of hard to reach populations, particularly Mori.

Chris McKeen/Stuff

Ben Thomas: The Government is woefully ill-equipped for the task of persuading vaccine-hesitant or disengaged people, for whom relationships are crucial.

This was in part due to poor decisions and lack of preparation, more akin to the continued and mystifying operational and policy failures to introduce saliva testing than an ineffable truth about the nature of government. But it also speaks to the latter.

Authorities described last years August outbreak, centred on the suburbs of Mt Albert and Mt Roskill, as a cluster in West Auckland. Its a minor detail that nonetheless amply illustrates the disparity of knowledge between planners in the capital and those on the ground.

If Wellington-based policy analysts struggle to find two prominent Auckland neighbourhoods on a map, is it any wonder that a strategy to reach remote small towns on the East Coast has to be made up on the hoof?

Even if the Government had adopted a census-style model earlier, to map vaccination or lack thereof, it is still by nature woefully ill-equipped for the task of persuading vaccine-hesitant or disengaged people, for whom relationships are crucial. The government can storm the gates of a city, but it cannot fight house to house.

Mori healthcare providers and iwi/hap, on whose shoulders the last mile to a large extent falls, have complained of the exhausting compliance and reporting required to, for instance, access government funds to fit out a mobile vaccination clinic.

There are clearly good reasons for meticulous accountability in spending public money, but making primary healthcare organisations spend valuable weeks in an outbreak filling out paperwork for relative peanuts, when the first wage subsidy handed out $13 billion in a few weeks on trust, seems bizarre.

The truth is that, in a game where you only win by getting every person vaccinated, we are much more a team of five million than in 2020, essentially a team of 20 and a country full of cheerleaders.

STUFF

It is necessary to grit teeth and deal with gang leaders in order to ensure their members keep themselves, their families and their communities safe.

It is necessary to grit teeth and deal with gang leaders in order to ensure their members keep themselves, their families and their communities safe. It is necessary to provide whatever resources trusted providers say they need.

Its also necessary for other sectors to stand up and play their part many farm workers living far from towns are just as hard to reach as the gang members and rough sleepers who occupy the public imagination, and yet the farming lobbies have been allowed to absent themselves from the conversation in a way local hap and iwi could never dream of.

Its good news, then, for the big-government fans and their sceptics. Only communities can achieve what we want, but they need the governments help. Its eerily similar to the vision of the third way promised at the end of the 20th century. Nature is healing.

Ben Thomas is an Auckland-based public relations consultant and political commentator. He was previously a National government press secretary.

See the article here:

Covid has shown the limits of big government - Stuff.co.nz

Some masterpieces of cinema are simply doomed at the box office and destined to be savaged by critics. Very often the culprit is bad timing, or a weak marketing effort, or internal disputes at the studio. All three of those played a role in the brutal reception that greeted John Carpenters The Thing (1982), which is today recognized as one of the most effective, shocking, and suspenseful horror movies of all time.

I saw this movie at far too young an age (thanks, Mom and Dad!), and I was puzzled to find that the TV Guide description gave it a measly two out of four stars. In the ensuing years, I learned that the failure of this film left the brilliant Carpenter almost completely disillusioned with Hollywood, which drastically altered his career trajectory. Both the snooty film critics and the major horror magazines of the time decried The Things nihilism and barf bag special effects. The sci-fi magazine Cinefantastique posed the question, Is this the most hated movie of all time? Christian Nyby, the director of the 1951 version, bashed Carpenters remake. Even the beautiful minimalist score by Ennio Morricone was nominated for a Razzie.

I realize that everyone had their stated reasons for not liking the film at first, but here is my grand unified theory to explain their massive error in judgment: the film was just too effing scary. It hit all of the major pressure points of fear, tweaking the amygdala and triggering a response so palpable that many viewers could only look back with disgust. And if that were not enough, The Things meditation on despair was simply too much for audiences and critics. Its bleak, uncertain ending, a harbinger of death on a scale both small and large, was too much to handle. I cant think of another mainstream blockbuster that even attempted such a thing, before or since.

It took a long time, a lot of introspection, and a lot of grassroots enthusiasm to rehabilitate the films reputation. Now that weve all had a chance to gather ourselves and process whats happened, here are some of the key elements of horror that work a little too well in The Thing. Spoilers are ahead, obviously, but 2022 marks the fortieth anniversary of the film, so its well past time to knock this one off your list.

Fear of the Unknown and the Incomprehensible

The Thing opens with an absurd image, with no explanation or context. A helicopter flies over a wintry landscape, chasing a husky as it sprints across the snow. A man leans out of the side of the chopper, firing at the dog with a rifle. He desperately shouts in Norwegian to the pilot, imploring him to keep following. Panting, the husky arrives at an American research outpost, where the scientists and the support staff are baffled by the commotion. The weirdness escalates when the chopper lands, and the rifleman continues to chase the dog, firing wildly and screaming in what sounds to the Americans like gibberish. He tries to toss a hand grenade, but his errant throw destroys the helicopter, killing the pilot. Seconds later, a security officer shoots and kills the Norwegian, and the inhabitants of the camp gather round the body, confounded by what theyve witnessed. In the background, the husky behaves like a normal dog.

Right from the beginning, we are trapped in a state of bewilderment alongside the characters. Rather than pursuing a mystery after a crime takes place, the mystery is thrust upon us. And from there, the unknown mutates into the incomprehensible. Later that night, we see the dog in its true form: a shape-shifting creature from the worst nightmares of cosmic horror. Gelatinous, gooey, tentacled, pulsing, and asymmetrical. A completely alien organism that can mimic other living things that it touches.

When we see the alien parasite moving from dog to human, a new kind of terror emerges. The half-formed imitations have an uncanny valley quality to them, forcing us to stop and try to grasp what were looking at. In one of many scenes cut from network TV airings of the film, the character Windows (Thomas G. Waites) enters a room to find Bennings (Peter Maloney) half-naked, covered in a viscous fluid, and wrapped in squirming tentacles. Whether this is an emerging clone or a person being digested is left to the viewers imagination. Later, the crew catches up with the Benning-thing. He unfolds his arms to reveal two pulpy stalks, while emitting an eerie howling noise. Horrified, the men burn the creature alive.

Oh, but it gets even worse. We discover that the cloned bodies can adapt when threatened. A mans chest bursts open to reveal a gaping, fanged mouth. Another mans head splits apart, forming a pincer-like weapon. Granted, there are a few shots in which the otherwise brilliant effects by Rob Bottin look fakeyet even those images still trigger our revulsion. They remind me of a similar scene in Aliens (1986), when the facehuggers try to latch onto Ripley and Newt. One of the spider-like creatures is tossed aside, only to flip right-side up again. It looks like a toybut it works! Its a broken toy from hell that keeps juddering about even after the batteries have been pulled!

Many fans of The Thing blame its box office failure on Steven Spielbergs E.T., which dominated 1982. The friendly alien in that movie resembled a child, with its big eyes and dopey grin. In contrast, The Thing toyed with the incomprehensible. To this day, I wonder: how many people ended up watching it simply because E.T. was sold out? Those viewers must have been the most appalled.

Fear of the Other

Im writing in 2021, which requires me to compare our current real-world predicament with The Things depiction of infection, quarantine, and paranoia. The critic Gene Siskelwho defended the movie against his colleague Roger Ebertnoted the Cold War mentality of the script, with its fears of infiltration and assimilation. Both are on display in a scene in which the head scientist Blair (Wilford Brimley) runs a computer simulation showing how quickly the alien could mimic the entire crew, which places a ticking clock on the action.

Yet as grim as this movie gets, the humans do not outright betray one another. Nor does anyone go Full Brockman, conceding defeat to curry favor with the enemy. Ironically, the people who go too far to fight the Thing are Blair, the smartest guy in the room, and MacReady (Kurt Russell), the films protagonist by default. In some ways, MacReadys actions are similar to the drastic unilateral decisions that Ben has to make in Night of the Living Dead (1968). In his desperation to survive, MacReady assumes control by threatening to destroy the entire camp with dynamite. From there, he establishes a mini-dictatorship, with round-the-clock surveillance of the crewmembers, along with a blood test to prove who is infected and who is safe. When the gentle Clark (Richard Masur) tries to resist, MacReady shoots him dead, only to discover later that the man he killed was still human. By then, MacReady is so focused on the task at hand that he moves on, shoving poor Clark out of his mind, his own dehumanization complete. And despite that effort, MacReadys plan goes sideways when the test succeeds in revealing the Thing. Now exposed, the creature reverts to its transitional form, killing a member of the crew. After all of that sacrifice, all that setting aside of morality and trust, they achieve nothing.

Suspense: a sidenote

While many of the scares come as a shock, the aforementioned blood test builds the tension slowly in a scene that is a masterwork in suspense. While cornered, desperate, and fighting off hypothermia, MacReady uses a flamethrower to keep the others at bay. He forces them to cut themselves with scalpels and drain some of their blood into petri dishes. One by one, he applies a hot needle to each dish. His theory is that the blood of the Thing will react when threatened, thus revealing the host. The red-hot needle touches the first dish, and the blood squelches the heat. As MacReady works his way through each of the samples, we grow accustomed to the squeaking sound it makes each time, accompanied by the howling wind outside.

As we allow ourselves to hope that we might make it through the scene without any further mayhem, Carpenter misdirects our attention by having Garry (Donald Moffat)the outposts security officerstart an argument with MacReady. This is pure nonsense, Garry says. Doesnt prove a thing. With the needle in one hand, and a petri dish in the other, MacReady reminds Garry of why hes the most suspicious person in the group. Well do you last, MacReady says. Which makes us anticipate the moment when we can finally prove that Garry is the Thing.

And then the needle touches the sample, belonging to an eccentric but relatively quiet man named Palmer (David Clennon). And all hell breaks loose. The blood instantly turns into a bloody tentacle, squealing in agony as it tries to escape the heat. Palmer mutates into what could be described as a giant walking mouth, its teeth snapping like a bear trap, while MacReady and Windows scramble to burn him with their flamethrower. But its too late. By the time they dispatch him with fire and explosives, another person is dead, another wing of the outpost is destroyed, and the paranoia intensifies.

Fear of Isolation

Heres another reason why watching The Thing in 2021 may be tough. The characters are stuck together in close quarters and cut off from the rest of the world. Even before the mayhem begins, we catch glimpses of how the routine is slowly becoming unbearable. MacReady destroys a computer chess game when he loses, claiming that the computer somehow cheated. Many of the characters self-medicate, with J&B Whiskey as the painkiller of choice. Others have been watching VHS tapes of the same TV shows over and over, apparently for months on end. It helps that Carpenter prefers to shoot in a widescreen format, which allows him to cram more people into the frame, making some of the interior shots downright claustrophobic.

The walls close in tighter once the danger becomes real. Blair, who realizes early on that they are all doomed, destroys the communication equipment and sabotages the vehicles. No one can leave, and no one can call for help. The remaining crew is on their own, holed up in a building that will be their tomb. With no Netflix!

In a strange bit of dark humor, we see Blair again after his meltdown, and after the crew has locked him a separate building. Im all right, he insists. Im much better and I wont harm anybody. While he rambles, a hangmans noose dangles behind him. No one comments on it. Its just there to remind us that Blair the rational scientist has carefully weighed his options while isolated in this meat locker.

Fear of Nature

Even if it had no alien in it, The Thing reminds us of how powerless we are in the face of nature. A major plot point involves a storm pummeling the outpost. Despite the weather, the characters insist on taking their chances indoors. I can easily imagine them many months earlier, sitting through some tedious orientation for their jobs, in which a trainer explains to them all the ghastly ways that hypothermia and frostbite can shut down their bodies and scramble their minds.

There are other ways in which the film invokes our fears of the natural world. On several occasions, the Thing mimics the animals that have terrorized our species. The petri dish monster strikes outward like a viper. A severed head sprouts legs and crawls about like a spider. Near the climax of the film, the Thing takes on a shape that resembles a snake or a lizard. The original script and storyboards included an even more elaborate final boss, which would incorporate several icky animals. Part squid, part insect, part rabid dog. The films budget would not allow it. But by then, it makes no difference. A mere glimpse of the monster is enough to conjure more frightening shapes lodged in our imagination.

And Finally, Fear (and Acceptance) of Certain Doom

The Thing is the first of Carpenters Apocalypse Trilogy, which continues with Prince of Darkness (1987) and concludes with In the Mouth of Madness (1994). All three films combine Lovecraftian cosmic horror with late twentieth-century concerns about societal breakdown and World War III. Together, these themes and images explore the erosion of order and identity, leading to the end of all things. The Thing can be said to represent the unstoppable forces of the universe that have no concern for human well-being. As many critics have noted, it is never made clear what exactly the Thing wants. It may in fact be such a mindless, viral organism that it doesnt even know its an alien once the imitation is complete. No one can bargain or plead with such an entity, in the same way we cannot reason with the forces that may lead to our extinction.

At the end of the film, the hopelessness of it all leaves the lone survivors, MacReady and Childs (Keith David), sharing the bleakest drink in the history of cinema. Though the monster has seemingly been defeated, the entire camp is left burning, and neither man knows if the other is infected. As they both acknowledge, they are in no condition to fight anymore. Their best bet is to doze off as the fires burn out and never wake up again. Why dont we just wait here for a little while, see what happens? MacReady suggests. What else can they do?

As they take their last sips of J&B, Morricones score begins again, with a piece titled Humanity, Part II. The thudding sound resembles a heart beating. Is this a defiant assertion of humanity, or the final pumps of blood? Or are we hearing an imitation, mimicked by an incomprehensible force that has no regard for human life?

A Legacy of Fear

Nostalgia for 1980s popular culture has certainly helped to renew interest in films like The Thing. Still, theres something special about this particular movie, something that helped it rise from the ashes of its initial failure. While a film like The Day After (1983) was scary enough to change our defense policy, its specificity to the nuclear arms race makes it more of an artifact of that era. In contrast, the fears invoked by The Thing are figurative, visceral, and universal, and can be applied more easily to any point in history, from the Cold War to the pandemic and political strife of the 2020s. In another generation, I expect people to rediscover it once more, applying it to whatever keeps them up at night. And they will continue the debates about which characters were infected when, whether the infected characters even know that theyre the Thing, and whether the alien is truly dead or merely hiding in that final scene. In the end, the film leaves its paranoia with us. Were infected, and the safe world weve tried to build for ourselves will never look the same.

Robert Repino (@Repino1) grew up in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania. After serving in the Peace Corps in Grenada, he earned an MFA in Creative Writing at Emerson College. He works as an editor for Oxford University Press, and occasionally teaches for the Gotham Writers Workshop. Repino is the author of the middle grade novel Spark and the League of Ursus (Quirk Books), as well as the War With No Name series (Soho Press), which includes Mort(e), Culdesac, DArc, and Malefactor.

Originally posted here:

What Makes John Carpenter's The Thing So Effing Scary? - tor.com

Fashion Prize Finals

The six finalist fashion designers compete at the Fashion Prize Finals Friday, September 24, at SciPort Discovery Center.

Henrietta Wildsmith, Shreveport Times

Sci-port's second floor recently transformed into a fashion runway surrounded by little bistro tables for the 'Fashion Prize 2021: Back on the Runway!' event. With colorful spotlights andenticing music, the models strutted across the stagestopping in front of the three judges,Carmen Ortiz, Alison Parker, and Taryn Rose.

That night, thetop 6 designers,Sara Kluss, Catalina RamirezVarela, Jules Ecklekamp, Brittani Shabazz, Jessica Hall, and Donna Strebeckeach showcased their final collection of 5 looks on the runway.

This was Jessica Hall's first year to compete and when she heard her name being called as the winner andthe $2,500 check being put into her hands she was shocked. "It was a surreal moment when I heard my name called, a wave of gratitude washed over me," she said.

Hall had started her collection in 2020 but COVID-19 delayed her plans to join Fashion Prize. Hall intended her collection to be more 'Glam' but as 2020progressed she found it leaning towards a different direction, "The almost Dystopian feel of the global climate pushed me towards a more edgy and punk feeling. The disenfranchisement of the youth in England in the '70s felt relatable in a new way with the parallels of nihilism in 2020".

It was not a total stretch for the designer to go to punk. After all, when she was eight years old sheturned her Barbie dolls into punks with mohawks. She remembers always enjoying playing with the vintage fabrics found around her aunts' house.

Anothersource of inspiration for Hall is her models. Seeing them walk the runway that night gave her a feeling of "pure joy".

Emily Hamann loves to model on runways but oftenfeels that she is not the right shape or size. She knew so many people working on the Fashion Prize and had knownHall for years, which made her feel comfortable saying yes when asked to model for thisshow. "I loved being her model, she worshipped everything Curve, respected my comfort and constantly gassed me up. Shes very good about making me feel beautiful," Hamann said.

Fashion Prize founder Katy Larsenfeels this year'swin is well deserved, "Jessica Hall has been working in fashion and sewing for quite some time now. She has done everything from Mardi Gras, wedding, costuming, film attire, to historical dresses."

As the owner of Agora Borealis, a local artist marketplace, Larsen wanted to exposelocal talent, "Istarted fashion shows here in Shreveport because people were not buying handmade wares from local designers. I wanted to give exposure to that nitch in the art world... and it just grew and grew and now sits under the umbrella of the Prize family."

Forthose hoping for achance tosee their designs in the 2022 Fashion Prize, they can contact Larsen atKaty@prize.foundation.

Read this article:

Curves and punk, Fashion Prize, winner Jessica Hall talks about her journey to the runway - Shreveport Times

The internet is a living ecosystem that sometimes swallows us whole. Its an active, contradicting quandary. Gone are the days of slow, dial-up collections that could get severed by answering the house phone. We are connected with our phones, tablets, smart devices, and everywhere in between. This wild west abundance of digital space and information can serve as a great unifierfor example, TikTok and teens creating dances to the latest catchy pop song. Theres also a dark underbelly, where things like the Momo challenge and Slenderman Creepypasta can morph into something inauspicious. We are more in tune with peoples emotions and options than ever before, but in a cruel stroke of irony, we are less united in a physical sense. That detachment isnt exactly healthy.

Director/writer Jane Schoenbruns Were All Going To The Worlds Fair begins with an opening shot of a girl named Casey (Anna Cobb). Shes in her attic alone with her laptop, projecting a glassy stare into the webcam. In a script-like fashion, Casey declares she will partake in the Worlds Fair challenge. What does a Worlds Fair challenge comprise exactly? State a declaration of going to the Worlds Fair three times, prick your finger, and show it to the computer screen. After which, a bright strobe light consumes her and the room like a site of pseudo-transportation. In this world, various young people embrace the challenge, but with varying degrees of afflictions. One person says that they can no longer feel their body. Another person claims they are turning into a plastic mold. One more is convinced their body is rotting. With the spirit of community considered, all are displaying their transformations through videos.

The little that Schoenbrun shows us about Caseys home life notes that its not in the most fantastic shape. Her relationship with her father is almost nonexistent, and shes often left alone to her own devices hanging out in graveyards and recalls her tendency to sleepwalk. The only comfort we see her have is when she sleeps in a garage to an ASMR video. So, the horror that Schoenbrun artistically displays is weighted loneliness. Is it possible that The Worlds Fair challenge has some sinister, metaphysical undertone to it? It could be possible, but it is most likely a figment of the imagination of young teens who dont have many strands of societal fraternity around. As this game goes on, Caseys behavior becomes more cryptic and somewhat frightening. She often alludes to her fathers gun and indulges herself in infinite nihilism.

Schoenbrun introduces another character with the username JLB (Michael J. Rogers) with an urgent message that urges Casey to the possibility that she might be in danger. On the other side of that keyboard is an older man with a beautiful living arrangement. There, the story turns to an even darker tone. When he urges Casey to keep making videos for him to know shes safe, its when Casey ultimately lets go of the bits of sanity she has left. Whatever The Worlds Fair mystique is, its thoroughly washed over her like a tidal wave. Theres a bit of muck to know that a substantially aged man is keeping tabs on an adolescent girl, further muddying the waters of what this game is. Worlds Fair tragedy lies in searching for something tangible and the many fashions that can rip you apart like metaphorical shark teeth.

So, we are with the deadpan frigidness that entangled Caseys expression at the films conclusion. Schoenbruns narrative shines a light on people who crave togetherness, but notes that the easiest way to find this feeling might also be the riskiest. Corporeality is reality indeed, but is a portal untamed when it has nothing to anchor itself to.

Original post:

Nightstream Review: 'We're All Going To The World's Fair' Illustrates the Dark Coccoon of the Internet's Rabbit Hole - Substream Magazine

Well, it didnt until the arms race of 1970s when some evil genius thought: I know, why dont we wet the ball first.

Not only did this make the ball go faster but, for reasons known only to science, it made the ball leave welts that lasted for weeks.

I repeat the name. It wasnt called, Lets happily tag each other with a gently thrown tennis ball in order to improve our throwing skills. The game was called brandings, presumably inspired by a Texan cattleman trying to prove ownership of an ox.

In one version, you were at least allowed to run around. In another, the group would stand against a brick wall, lined up like the victims of an execution squad, while whoever was it took aim.

Once branded, you would then become it and have the chance to wreak revenge, as if in celebration of the notion of a perpetual blood feud.

Not all our games were physically violent. Some were more emotionally gruelling.

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Like the competitors in Squid Game, we played the odd round of marbles. Youd take a shoebox which had contained your Bata Scouts (with built-in compass!), and cut out a series of arches, each arch marked with the reward which would be given should a fellow student manage to power their marble through the hole.

Impossibly tight doorways were marked with big rewards, the figure written in Texta above the hole. More forgiving entry points might see a return of the original marble, plus one extra.

If a tycoon had been trying to create a gateway drug for gambling addiction, schoolyard marbles was it. We all had our stalls lined up, in what felt like a crowded marketplace, Please, try your luck here, my odds are very good, the arches are very large.

Some days, youd win. Often, youd lose badly. Normally, youd blame yourself for miscalculating the size of the arches. It certainly made Year 5 more gruelling than it needed to be.

Who is writing this stuff? Jean-Paul Sartre in a fit of nihilism? Extinction Rebellion trying to make a point about global warming?

My games tended to be with the boys, but the girls had it worse. Whether it was hopscotch or jump rope, each contest came with a built-in rhyme:

My bonnet is blue/ My heart it is true/ And I dare not be seen with such rubbish as you.

Or: Roses are red/ Violets are blue/ Smelly socks/ Remind me of you.

Not all rhymes involved personal attacks; others were merely bleak. Here, for instance, is one quoted by June Factor in her book Real Keen Baked Bean!, a compendium of Australian schoolyard rhymes:

Ladybird, ladybird/ Fly away home/ Your house in on fire/ Your children all gone.

Who is writing this stuff? Jean-Paul Sartre in a fit of nihilism? Extinction Rebellion trying to make a point about global warming?

But back to Squid Game. Its true that some viewers find the South Korean series hard to watch, due to its scenes of hardcore violence, designed to illustrate the bleak horror at the heart of human existence.

But its different for those of us who grew up in an earlier Australia. For us, Squid Game is just a rather jolly trip back to our childhood.

See the rest here:

Squid Game: violent madness or a trip back to the old schoolyard? - Sydney Morning Herald