To put it mildly, there’s not enough transgender representation in film or television at all, which is an unfortunate truth. Beyond Park Sung-hoon’s excellent performance, Hyun-ju is a landmark character — not just on “Squid Game,” but in the larger television landscape — because she’s unapologetic and confident in her identity, and is forthcoming about the fact that she needs the money to live her life as a woman. With that said, there is one issue here … which is that Park is a cisgender man, meaning that this trans character is not played by a trans woman.
This isn’t a new problem — actors like Eddie Redmayne, Jeffrey Tambor, and Jared Leto, who are all cisgender men, have all won awards for playing trans characters — but “Squid Game” showrunner and creator Hwang Dong-hyuk spoke to Entertainment Weekly about some fair critiques he received. “I do understand that there has been some concerns from the Western world, from the U.S., but in the case of Korea, we didn’t have as many concerns because of the Eastern or Asian culture,” Hwang said.
“In Korea, there are really not many transgender [people] who have come out and are actors, and there’s just a couple of gay [actors] who have come out publicly,” Hwang went on. “So it was physically difficult to find a transgender actor who could really play the role. It was, realistically speaking, nearly impossible.”
Then, Hwang shared an anecdote about a trans fan and YouTuber — whom he did not name — who’s a fan of “Squid Game” and had some understandable reservations about Park playing the role. Ultimately, he watched with the rest of the world as this YouTuber came to love Park’s performance and the role itself regardless.
“She said that in the beginning, she wasn’t sure why a straight man had to play the role of Hyun-ju,” Hwang told the outlet. “But then, even though she was not sure in the beginning, as she progressed, she realized and she was actually touched by the character of Hyun-ju, played by Park Sung-hoon, who is a straight man, because she was moved by how beautiful and how genuine this character portrayal was. It actually moved her to tears.”
