It's got the largest cast, and cash prize, in TV history, but is "Squid Game: The Challenge"
even legit? Here's why some contestants say the game was rigged from the start.
Anyone who watched Netflix's hit 2021 South Korean drama "Squid Game" knows
that the fictional dystopian game in question — wherein 456 people desperate for financial help
fight to the death for a $4.56 million cash prize — is brutal and unforgiving.
According to a report in Rolling Stone from February 2023,
the streamer's reality competition show based on the series — and
offering the same cash prize — was, if not lethal, also pretty brutal.
Not only were filming conditions during one specific game reportedly horrible,
but some former contestants made claims that the entire thing was rigged.
For their part, Netflix and its co-producing studio partners deny
claims of a fixed game, telling Rolling Stone,
"Any suggestion that the competition is rigged or claims of serious harm to players are simply
untrue. We’ve taken all the appropriate safety precautions, including after care for contestants
— and an independent adjudicator is overseeing each game to ensure it’s fair to everyone."
But some contestants were exceedingly blunt
about what went down when they spoke to the outlet. One said,
"It was just the cruelest, meanest thing I've ever been through. We were a human horse race,
and they were treating us like horses out in the cold, racing, and [the race] was fixed."
So, how was the race fixed, exactly? One part of the exposé claimed that during
the filming of the "Red Light, Green Light" game,
some contestants successfully crossed the finish line, only to still get eliminated.
Their ink-filled "squib packs" — which simulate gunshots and signal a contestant's elimination —
allegedly exploded way after the fact. That group didn't take it well. One contestant recalled,
"It really wasn't a game show. It was a TV show, and we were basically extras in a TV show."
We all know that reality shows manipulate scenarios and make
careful edits to ensure certain outcomes. Contestants on "The Challenge," though,
have alleged that the on-set behavior from producers was nothing short of egregious.
Take this example from a contestant who claims that she was eliminated even though she got across
the "Red Light, Green Light" finish line with five seconds still on the clock. It was then,
as she was waiting to leave, that she saw that a contestant and his
mother were still being filmed ... and not only that, but the show allegedly
added time to the clock off-camera just to feature the duo. The contestant claimed,
"This kid is sitting at the finish line, he's crying,
and cameras are on him and he's waiting for his mom. They added [more time] to the clock
for her to get across because she was one of the people that they wanted to be in the show."
"My mom, she was like a superstar athlete. It's like, I just feel
like she's going to—she's going to outlast me and embarrass me in front of all my family."
Regarding the nine-hour shoot for the "Red Light, Green Light" game, which was filmed
inside an airplane hangar, contestants made some extremely serious accusations.
Namely, they said that they were forced to maintain frozen poses for the bulk of the
nine hours, only moving from time to time ... a condition made worse by the fact that they
weren't appropriately dressed for the allegedly freezing cold temperatures inside the hangar.
The icy conditions — as low as 14 Fahrenheit, according to the Rolling Stone report — led
to some contestants getting sick and collapsing, and while medics attended to the fallen players,
people in pink "Squid Game" guard suits would block the process from view so
everybody else could stay frozen in place. One contestant revealed,
"People were beating themselves up, including myself, around the fact that you've got a
girl convulsing and we're all stood there like statues. On what planet is that even
humane? [...] It played on our morals and it's sick. It's absolutely sick."
Other injuries contestants say they incurred during filming include a herniated disc,
a torn knee tendon, pneumonia, and ear infections. One contestant told Rolling Stone that,
despite the game's origins, a brutal survival experience wasn't what they were expecting:
"It's not like we signed up for 'Naked and Afraid' or 'Survivor,' where you're
gonna eat ants and it's gonna be grim — that was not the game."
And another contestant mused,
"The funny thing is, equality and fairness was the main theme of the original Squid Game."
Was it, though? The competition depicted in "Squid Game" was a brutal,
predatory exercise created by wealthy sadists who treated human life with little
to no respect. The contestants were, to put it lightly, manipulated into participating,
and were targeted due to their precarious financial positions.
Not only that, but if they moved during "Red Light, Green Light," or lost a game of tug of war,
they were quite literally killed on the spot. None of this is to say that the alleged misconduct on
the set of "Squid Game: The Challenge" is acceptable in the slightest. It is to say,
though, that perhaps a reality competition series based on such
a terrifying and ugly prospect is sort of an iffy concept in the first place.
As another contestant put it,
"There's $4.5 million up for grabs [...] These people were willing to die. [Someone] says,
'I'm going home with this, I don't care what it takes.' I think the producers wanted that.
They wanted people to not think about their health, to not care about their safety."