Is it real or is it fake? — no reality TV series will ever escape this particular scrutiny. The scales only tilt further against them when claims of a show being staged are made by those directly associated with it — accusations Netflix’s Squid Game: The Challenge has been facing long before its first half debuted on the streamer.
There were already doubts about the once-upon-a-time streaming giant’s attempt to turn the fictional but soul-chilling Korean series, Squid Game, into a real-life game show. But Netflix powered through amid the distrust and rumors, only for Rolling Stone to, well pardon my pun, roll out a sensational expose claiming that the game was fixed, with particular contestants already chosen to make it to the end and that the big crowd of 456 participants was just for show.
What have the former contestants said about the Netflix reality show?
Not only did the report double down on previous allegations that the show was filmed under inhumane conditions — from contestants left to spend nine hours in freezing conditions to those in dire need of medical help not receiving any immediately as the producers didn’t want to ruin the shot — but former players also shared with the publication that the game was rigged from the very beginning.
The former players shared many details with Rolling Stone — including how the TikTok and Instagram influencers were “pre-selected,” which included them having fully functioning mics, moving when they were supposed to be frozen, getting extra time to make it to the finish line, and making it to the next round even when they failed the first one, while many of those eliminated were given fake microphones and were either deliberately failed or removed despite winning. One of them even alleged seeing an eliminated player returning to the game without any explanation.
“It really wasn’t a game show. It was a TV show, and we were basically extras in a TV show.”
In fact, two of the eliminated contestants discovered when they first reached London that their return flights were already booked — before they even got a chance to play the game, or as they called it, the “Rigged Game” by “Net Fix.”
How true are these allegations against Squid Game: The Challenge?
There is yet to be concrete evidence to confirm either side of this argument. However, further flames have been fueled by a few eliminated contestants once again making fresh claims — this time on social media — that the show was pre-decided to go in a set direction with already chosen contestants.
Whether it is Ashley Yoder (contestant 332) accusing the show of treating its non-preferred cast “really bad” or contestant 299, Spencer Hawkins, sharing on his TikTok how in the Dalgon cookie game only one-fourth of the participants were actively working as the rest were instructed to merely pretend that they were also working on a cookie, Squid Game: The Challenge’s reputation has definitely taken a hit.
Has Netflix and Squid Game: The Challenge creators responded to accusations of the show being fake and rigged?
Similar claims made previously were labeled “untrue” by Netflix and the co-producing studios The Garden and Studio Lambert, who assured that an independent adjudicator was present during each and every game to ensure its fairness.
Now, the outright allegations are yet to be addressed, but in a chat with The Hollywood Reporter, the show’s producers did respond to the possibility that certain aspects of the show may appear staged because they fictionalized certain elements — like showing the hours-long Red Light, Green Light in just five minutes and putting masked men between the player to “control” the game.
“We made that judgment. If somebody else was making it, they might have made a different judgment call. We think it works for us. People expect the show to be quite like the scripted show. I think the use of the guards was something we are very pleased with — they helped build that sense of it being an immersive experience for the contestants. They did a lot of the communicating of the information to the players, rather than having producers doing it, or having a host. And they looked good.”
Well, now, that doesn’t really answer whether the decision to stage and fictionalize certain sections also extended to deciding who will make it to the end of the show. Apart from waiting for Netflix to issue another statement refuting the claims, we can only expect more contestants to support either side of the claim — there are 456 of them after all, and even a quarter of them supporting or going against the above allegations could be enough to seal the deal.