The paradox of tranquility and brutality: Soundtrack dissonance in Squid Game Series

Abstract

Music has been a fundamental element of the art of film since its earliest examples. The “soundtrack”, as a recorded song or composition used to support film scenes, usually has features that coincide with the theme of the film, the emotion of the scene in which it is used, or the film images. However, sometimes it can be seen that film producers and directors choose music to accompany film scenes that is completely contrary to the dominant emotion in the scene. They use music that has a cheerful character for a drama scene, sad for a happy scene, fun for a horror scene, etc. According to the theorists of different historical periods of film literature, the aim of these choices, which shake the viewers’ expectation of harmony between the scene and music, is to try to offer new and different perspectives to the viewers perception through the paradox of scene atmosphere and music. With this kind of use, considered as soundtrack dissonance in the study, brand new meanings can be produced from the combination of opposing elements that neither the film scene nor the music alone can produce individually. This study aims to analyse the game scenes selected from “Red Light, Green Light”, the first episode of the Squid Game series broadcast on the Netflix digital platform in 2021, as an example of soundtrack dissonance.