> But I guess a show making that particular social critique isn’t going to get funded by a major studio or tech company.
I don't really get this point (which I often see repeated online). There are tons of TV shows, books, movies, songs, etc, which include scathing critiques of various aspects of "the system" (government, the financial sector, the medical sector, the class system generally, etc). Many of these are produced and promoted by "big business". There is no centralised control over what gets funded, businesses will fund and produce what is likely to make them money. If shitting on capitalism will make them money they'll happily sell you that.
Fringey political theorists like the Situationists have a concept called recuperation which suggests that capitalism doesn't just do these things to make money, but to perpetuate itself by giving people a safe method of blowing off steam, much like the 'bread and circuses' idea of Roman imperial governance. You could argue that the second season of Squid Game is specifically about this.
I don't really get this point (which I often see repeated online). There are tons of TV shows, books, movies, songs, etc, which include scathing critiques of various aspects of "the system" (government, the financial sector, the medical sector, the class system generally, etc). Many of these are produced and promoted by "big business". There is no centralised control over what gets funded, businesses will fund and produce what is likely to make them money. If shitting on capitalism will make them money they'll happily sell you that.