Fact Check: Giant robot doll in Squid Games not borrowed from South Korean museum
According to Netflix, the South Korean survival-themed drama, Squid Game, has officially reached 111 million viewers, making it its biggest launch ever.
By Satya Priya BN Published on 15 Oct 2021 10:30 AM GMT
Hyderabad: According to Netflix, the South Korean survival-themed drama, Squid Game, has officially reached 111 million viewers, making it its biggest launch ever. In this series, several contestants compete through a series of games where their lives are at stake. The main attraction in the series is a giant 10 feet robot doll.
Several social media users and some media websites started sharing a claim that the robot doll from the Squid Game has been borrowed by the Squid Game production team from a carriage museum in South Korea.
The claim reads, "The giant doll is not a prop. It actually belonged to the Horse Carriage Village in Jincheon County in Chungcheonbok-do, South Korea. The town has a village and a museum for horse carriages called 'Macha Land'. The doll was returned after filming and stands near the entrance."
The claim has been shared along with a photograph of the doll at the Carriage Museum in South Korea. In the photograph shared, the right hand of the doll seems to be missing.
Several websites also wrote this as a news article.
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Fact Check:
The claim that the giant robot doll is not a prop and was not created by the Squid Game team and is a part of a horse carriage museum is misleading.
The image shared along with the viral claim, which shows the giant doll standing at the horse carriage museum is an original one. But the doll was placed in the museum for a few days after the production ended and was removed from the premises and stored away.
According to the series-making video posted by Netflix's Facebook page, at 1.47 minutes, talking about the series the creators mention that "The first game, Red light, Green Light, was a kid's game mostly played in the alleys back in 70s or 80s. We referred to the illustrations of Cheolsoo and Younghee from the textbooks back then when making the robot."
According to the Korean news portal Hankook Ilbo, the decision to keep the doll was made at the request of the doll manufacturer who made it especially for the show.
After filming, the company entrusted the doll to the museum for private storage, but due to a communication error, the museum displayed the doll for public viewing when the series was released. In a phone call with the Korean daily, the doll maker said they often keep items they make at the museum.
The museum has since wrapped up the doll for storage.
According to another Korean website mk.co.kr, the doll from Squid Game was released for public viewing for about 10 days at the Carriage Museum in Jincheon-gun, North Chungcheong Province. However, later, according to the museum, the dolls were kept private. After wrapping the tagger doll in plastic and covering it with a camouflage screen, heavy equipment is used to move it to another location for storage.
A Netflix official told Maeil Business Star Today that "The doll was used as a prop for the movie was shown to the public for a while before being stored. The doll will be stored in the warehouse at a later date." When asked about the release of the doll, he said, "There are no plans for a separate exhibition at this time."
On September 27, 2021, the museum also posted a brief update stating that the exhibition of the doll has ended and that the doll is no longer for exhibition on the premises.
http://machachehum.com/bbs/
Hence, the claim that the giant robot doll is not a prop and has been borrowed from the Horse Carriage Museum in South Korea is misleading. Though the doll was put for exhibition at the museum for a few days it was removed later. It was placed on display after the production of the series ended. So, the claim is false.
