Book Chapter

Precarity and the gladiators of contemporary television

Abstract

From freelancers to gladiators in suits, the embodied language we use to describe labor and laborers in a gig economy is often revealingly linked to violence. This chapter takes such language and archetypal metaphors seriously, interrogating the ties between the mythology of Roman gladiator and precarious labor under contemporary capitalism. Drawing on methodologies from television and cultural studies, and including the scholarly field interrogating precarity, this chapter analyses four key gladiatorial television programs, two scripted and two unscripted. From South Korea, the interrelated programs Squid Game and Physical: 100 are studied as well as the (2010–2013) US/New Zealand co-production Spartacus and its unofficial unscripted ITV2 spin off Bromans from the UK. These case studies are illustrative examples of a wider globalized phenomenon of gladiatorial metaphors that are ubiquitous, particularly on film and television.

Authors

Steenberg, Lindsay

Oxford Brookes departments

School of Arts

Dates

Year of publication: 2025
Date of RADAR deposit: 2025-01-14

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All rights reserved.

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Related resources

This RADAR resource is the Accepted Manuscript of Precarity and the Gladiators of Contemporary Television
This RADAR resource is Part of Contemporary Asian Popular Culture, vol. 1 : Squid Game, Utopias, and Dystopias [ISBN: 9783031720642] / edited by Yeojin Kim, Dharshani Lakmali Jayasinghe, Hiba Aleem, Karen A. Ritzenhoff (Palgrave Macmillan, 2025).