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Lee Jung-jae, (above left), winner of the best drama acting Emmy for Squid Game, and Hwang Dong-hyuk, winner of the best drama directing Emmy for the Korean Netflix series, backstage at the awards show in Los Angeles on Monday. Photo: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images/TNS

‘Squid Game captured the zeitgeist’: Emmys history maker benefited from good timing, Korean social media says of show’s awards

  • The first non-English-language show to earn a major Emmy award, Squid Game took home the best drama series actor and director awards in Los Angeles
  • Reaction in Korea was mostly positive, with social media posts noting the show had overcome its subtitling and had a story that fitted the global mood

Squid Game didn’t just have a big night at the Emmys. It had a historic one.

After earning 14 nominations in July, as well as prizes from the Screen Actors Guild and Critics’ Choice Awards earlier this year, Netflix’s brutal blockbuster capped off its run on Monday by becoming the first Korean series, and the first TV series not in English, to win a major Primetime Emmy Award.
While it lost to Succession for best drama series, the Korean show, about a deadly game of survival in which contestants with money troubles compete for a cash prize, earned series creator Hwang Dong-hyuk the Emmy for drama series directing, Squid Game’s first prize of the night. He is the first Asian and first South Korean to take home the award. He was also nominated for writing.
Lee Jung-jae received the best drama acting Emmy for his lead performance as Seong Gi-hun. Earlier in the night, Jung Ho-yeon lost out to Ozark’s Julia Garner for supporting actress, while supporting actor nominees Park Hae-soo and Oh Yeong-su were defeated by Succession’s Matthew Macfadyen.
Lee Jung-jae holds his trophy for best actor in a drama series backstage at the Emmys. Photo: Reuters
Monday night’s haul added to the four Emmys Squid Game picked up at last weekend’s Creative Arts ceremony: special visual effects in a single episode; stunt performance; production design; and guest actress Lee You-mi for her memorable performance as contestant Ji-yeong.

One of Netflix’s most-watched shows, Squid Game has already been greenlit for a second season, so it will have a chance to increase its Emmy take in future.

Korea’s Yonhap News Agency noted that the show had “overcome the 1-inch barrier of subtitles as Parasite did”, referring to that film’s 2020 Oscars best picture win.

Koreans on Twitter had mixed reactions to Squid Game’s Emmys success. Most posted their congratulations, but some asked whether the awards for the show represented tokenism.

Writing in Korean, one Twitter user asked: “How did Squid Game win the best director award, beating shows such as Severance, Succession, Ozark and Yellowjackets?

Hwang Dong-hyuk accepts the Emmy for directing a drama series. Photo: TNS

Among Korean users who retweeted the post, one wrote: “I truly congratulate the series for winning, but … it seems the Emmys took advantage of it to counter their reputation as ‘the most racist’ awards.”

Another commenter felt good timing and its good storytelling were behind its Emmy wins.

“There are a lot of series better than Squid Game. But Squid Game captured the zeitgeist. It was lucky to some extent that a series which depicted [a hellish Korea] received funding and spread throughout the world when the world was also entering that hellish life.”

Whether Monday’s honours open the door for other foreign-language series to receive Emmy love remains to be seen, though recent years have seen no shortage of acclaimed contenders, including HBO’s adaptation of Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels, My Brilliant Friend; Apple TV+‘s lush, multilingual Pachinko, and the French-language Netflix hits Call My Agent! and Lupin.
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