Violence inspired by "Squid Game": "The position of adults will be particularly important"

The Squid Game series, broadcast on Netflix, is fast becoming a social phenomenon.

YOUNGKYU PARK Netflix / AFP

Text by: Joris Zylberman Follow

7 mins

Social critic with ultra-violent scenes, the South Korean series "Squid Games" is banned at least 16 years old, A ban that does not weigh heavily today with all possible access for children.

However, in France, as in other countries, the series is sometimes taken in the first degree in the courses of the colleges, sometimes causing violence.

Should we be concerned about this phenomenon?

Patrice Huelle, child psychiatrist and author of the book

(Nathan editions), answers RFI's questions.

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RFI: In Toulouse, a schoolboy was beaten up after a game inspired by the series: one of his comrades had proposed to “beat up” the participants who would move when the game requires being stationary.

In a secondary school in Seine-et-Marne, pupils of 3rd have stuck in a corridor of the “little ones” of 6th ... How do you view this violence?  

Patrice Huelle

: I think that this violence in the playgrounds between schoolchildren unfortunately has always existed. If I appeal to my memory of a former college student too. But the forms that this violence takes evolve according to the context of the moment. There, there is this pretext to stage a potentially violent situation. This is nothing new. On the other hand, the way in which we attribute the responsibility for everything that happens to such and such an image or to such and such a phenomenon in the media at the moment, I believe that is excessive. The role of adults will be to intervene, preventively, insofar as this "game", this series is now known to all. we will have to alert on the fact that this is a fiction, and that there is no question of attending school, college, high school,in the playground or elsewhere to any replica of this game. The position of the adults is going to be particularly important. And then, if there are transgressions, if there is violence which is exerted on such or such, and well like any violence which is exerted, it must not only be condemned, but also sanctioned.

► To read also: "Squid Games", a South Korean dystopian thriller which is a hit

Isn't this kind of series precisely with ultra violent passages risky with new technologies and easier access for children to all this?

In my daily practice, I see above all that the access restrictions are purely, simply bypassed for the most part, if only by going to an older friend's house, or by hearing people talk in the playground, we want to also look etc ... On this, we will not be able to stem the access. So, of course, we can regret access to violent, pornographic images from the end of primary school. That is a first observation. But what does that imply? This implies that the adult positioning of parents in the first place has evolved. We can no longer say to ourselves: "

" or "

”. There are chances that children will encounter images inappropriate for their age, so we have to do prevention without obviously showing them what could be shocking otherwise. Parents should explain to their children that if one day they stumble by chance or not, on images that shock them, they do not hesitate to talk about it with the parents so that they can discuss the inadequacy of these images by compared to their age, the difference between the fictions which are in these images and reality.

You are the author of a book on the importance of play in children, and how do you think about this incursion of violence through films, video games, into play and then in the schoolyard, in light of this example from this South Korean series?

When there is violence, we no longer talk about gambling, precisely. The game is when there is a possible distance with a situation, an event, a thought ... and that we are not in a direct system of direct exercise of aggression. There, there is no more play, as the children say: "

". So this issue of acquiring sufficient play ability in children makes the difference as they grow older. There are those who will be able to quite easily distinguish between fiction and reality ... As the children say "

". There are therefore those who will know it well and will therefore be able to accept in a certain way images, including a little shocking ones, without falling too much into the trap, because they know that this is not reality. Others will not have been able to build up this skill, this ability to play in the first days of their lives: they will then take full force of the impact of these images. Those to unload what they will have possibly undergone in a traumatic way while viewing certain images will exert them on others. Having been, for decades, a legal expert for violent and delinquent adolescents, or criminals, we can see how, in those ages, we will often get rid of the trauma that we have suffered by exerting it on others. ,like abusive parents who are often former abused children.

Learning to play, in your opinion, is it part of the education of children or of the educational community to dissociate play from violence?

Yes. For me, this is a fundamental element that should be put forward more in family pedagogical practices, of course, but also in educational pedagogy, from the first stages of life until around 6-7 years at least. Let it be the game that drives learning ... Besides, we learn much better when we do it while having fun, by being interested because we have curiosity. So that is really, I think, the model we knew in kindergartens. This is somewhat erased in nursery schools where play was really a tool in the service of the socialization of early learning. But little by little, the idea that to learn well, to grow well quickly, you have to be serious took hold. The game is now possible within the time dedicated to games.Play is transversal to human activities and can be a formidable engine for learning. And there is a real contemporary misunderstanding.

And this misunderstanding is also at the origin of the distortion of the game in violence?

Yes, because children who have not been able to acquire this skill sufficiently will take literally the words that are spoken, a mockery, a gesture, a look.

I saw it in certain expertises: "

", and hop a punch goes away, without having this play in the relation to others, in the relation to learning and those are really in. a situation of handicap compared to those who were able to acquire this playing ability.

► Also to listen: Is the Squid Game phenomenon dangerous?

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