Many felt the casting was inappropriate.
The long-awaited season 2 of Squid Game will be added Netflixthe catalog in a few days, with Lee Jung Jae returning as Seong Gi Hun to lead a new all-star cast into the next round of deadly games.
There has been a lot of discussion about the cast, as netizens marvel at the many different stars featured in the series. However, the casting of one actor sparked controversy over the character he was selected to play.
Actor Sung Hoon Parkrecently appeared in The Glory AND Queen of tearswas cast as a transgender woman, Hyun Joo (also romanized as Hyun Joo).
Park Sung Hoon is cis-gender and his casting has drawn mixed reactions from netizens, many of whom argue that the role should have been given to a real transgender woman.
Transgender character in ‘Squid Game 2’ sparks heated debate
Recently, the show’s director directly addressed Park’s casting in the role.
In an interview with TV Guide, creator and directly Hwang Dong Hyuk he admitted that he knew there would be mixed feelings about the casting.
I predicted that discussions like this would arise from the first moment I started creating Hyun Ju’s character.
— Hwang Dong Hyuk
She shared that she wanted to “authentically” cast a transgender woman, but found there were almost no openly trans actors. He explained this by the fact that the LGBTQ community is still marginalized in Korea, mentioning that there were also few openly gay actors.
At first we were doing our research and I was thinking about doing an authentic casting for a trans actor. […] When we researched in Korea, there were almost no openly trans actors, let alone openly gay ones, because unfortunately in Korean society currently the LGBTQ community is still quite marginalized and overlooked, which is heartbreaking.
— Hwang Dong Hyuk
With that in mind, Hwang added that he has confidence in that Park.”he would be the right person in terms of talent to play this character.“
Squid game season 2 will be added to Netflix on December 26, 2024.
