A Parisian museum returns a wax figure of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson to the desk.
Dwayne Johnson is known for his many movies. PDO
Actor and show wrestler Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson received his own lookalike wax doll last week at the Grévin museum in Paris.
The doll has tattoos, a bald head and big muscles like the real Johnson. However, one rather significant feature went wrong: skin color.
Social media users have resented the light-skinned doll. The real Johnson’s father is a dark-skinned Canadian, his mother is Samoan.
Among other things, a comedian James Jefferson Jr. slams the makers of the doll harshly in his Instagram video.
– They made The Rock David Beckham’she says in the video.
– I am slightly injured, Jefferson continues.
Johnson demands changes to his wax figure. PDO
Now Dwayne Johnson himself has also commented on the matter. The actor has shared Jefferson’s video with his own on his Instagram account.
“My team is in contact with our friends at the Grévin Museum so we can ‘update’ my wax figure with important details and improvements – starting with my skin tone,” Johnson wrote on Instagram on Monday.
If embedding doesn’t work, you can see the post too from this link.
The Grévin Museum has taken a stand on the doll controversy on its own Instagram account.
Director of the museum Yves Delhommeau also says in the video that they were surprised at how pale the doll’s skin tone looks under the bright lights of the museum.
– At the same time, we realized that we had made a mistake.
If embedding doesn’t work, you can see the post too from this link.
Delhommeau also explains that several pictures of Johnson were used to help create the doll. However, the problem was that Johnson’s features looked different in different pictures.
Delhommeau says the doll goes back to the workbench so it can be made as exquisite as its model.
– We will continue to polish the doll to perfection, he assures.
Delhommeau expects to meet the real Johnson soon in Paris.
On the museum’s website it is written that the sculptor by Stéphane Barret it was challenging to create the puppet without the presence of Johnson himself. Sculpting teams reportedly toured gyms to find a man to match Johnson’s measurements. Barret says in his statement that this was also successful.
Johnson’s tattoos took ten days to paint. The eyes had to be redone three times to get their shade right.