When you gaze into Dwayne Johnson’s new wax figure, it gazes also into you
Or: A brief historical tour of frequently terrible wax sculptures of The Rock
Aux News Wax
We will confess to a certain weakness for the wax figure, as an artform. Few human endeavors, after all, tend to diverge as strongly between intent—i.e., looking like an actual famous person and not their much weirder, potentially dead sibling—and the actual, waxy result. So when a new Bad Wax Figurine arrives in the world, we feel moved to herald its birth.
Hello, Baby Wax Dwayne Johnson. Welcome to a world that will never love you.
This version of the Black Adam superstar was unveiled at the Musee Grevin in Paris this week, and pretty much instantly drew online commentary that we can only categorize as unkind. Some people took issue with its skin tone; others with the decision to depict him in rare Polo Shirt Dwayne mode. For us, it’s the smirk, which is off in ways that are hard to put into words, but which has somehow transformed from “biggest badass in the world has a secret” to “We just found our gym teacher’s corpse, and he’s weirdly happy about it.”
As is often the case with these excursions into the wax zone, the online reaction to the new figure sent us down a bit of a historical wormhole, hoping to see how other artists have fared with our man’s expressive eyebrows and surprisingly angular head. Won’t you join us, then, for a brief tour of the Wonderful World Of Wax Rocks?
Honestly, it’s not clear why we ever needed a second (or third, or fourth, etc.) wax Johnson, since Madame Tussauds basically nailed the look out the gate in 2002: Heavy on the eyebrow, plenty of swagger in the body language. It’s even approved by Flesh Johnson himself!
On the far, far side of the quality spectrum, we have the above entry from the Dreamland Wax Museum, exhibited in Brazil late last year. Dreamland tends to play fast and loose with faces anyways—take a gander at their godawful Ben Waxffleck—but we are genuinely not entirely convinced this isn’t a generic mannequin that has had a fake beard glued to it.
The best of the bunch, though, might be this one from 2019, which debuted at Madrid’s Museu de Cera. Look at that bad boy! He’s got the stubble, he’s got the furrowed brow, he’s even got a bit of light in his eyes. That’s a high-quality Wax Dwayne.
Okay, now look at this one again:
Yeah, woof.
39 Comments
Thank you for not making this a slideshow.
This could be the comment of the year. Thanks.
What. The. Fuck. is this straight fucking Chapelle-in-whiteface ass looking version of The Rock??
The likeness isn’t bad and all these sculptures have creepy dead eyes and trigger our uncanny valley sense but it’s really the skin tone here that is the issue. That thing is whiter then I am
It’s not just the lightness, it’s the tone. There’s a helluva lot of olive in the Rock that ain’t there in the wax. This is less Pacific Islander and more Shetland Islander.
He looks like he did the fusion dance with Vin Diesel
He looks like he should be voiced by David Bateson.
:O !!That’s blasphemy.
Check the ass. If it’s made of candy, then it’s a repurposed Vin Diesel mannequin.
The latest Fast and Furious experiments into genetically engineered Family.
That’s not inexplicably bald Freddy Prinz Jr?
thats who it reminds me of! bald buff FPJ
Exactly what I thought. I literally suspect that he may be a remodeled statue from an old Scooby Doo exhibit. The funny part is that, when they do this, it’s probably because people told them for years that the Freddie Prinze Jr statue looked too much like The Rock. It’s like that weird Trump/Hillary animatronic from the Hall of Presidents. They really need to go back to making these things from scratch.
Can’t. Unsee.
Close! Freddy’s profile is a bit more “refined” though, I think.
Came down here to post that as well.
At least Wax The Rock is able to work since real The Rock can’t.
More like White Adam.
They got confused and thought the Rock was the one who did the “Kerwin White” gimmick.
Oh, c’mon now! It’s not like there are many photos or videos of The Rock out there to reference.
Guess I’m the only one that sees this:
So you smmelllllllllllWhat the CHALK…..Is cooookkkin????
So when this artist was sculpting for hours and hours and hours did no one look at it and say, “He’s too white”?
Getting more of a Johnny Sins vibe from this figure.
Thats Dan “The Stone” Smith. He’s Johnson’s cheap non-union white knock off
Presumably his catch phrase is, “Can you taste what the Stone is baking?”
Yep and his signature move is “The Societies Leg Drop”
But he’s the best part of the ‘Hasty and Hot-Tempered’ film franchise.
That time that someone mixed up Mr. Clean and The Rock.
Dreadful. This looks like Mr. Clean and I can always identify Johnson by his forehead: if he had hair it would be a “two-head.” This one looks like a six!I’m looking at the one at Madam Tussauds. It’s good, but the color still isn’t quite Dwayne. That’s difficult, though, and people don’t often know that you have to give brown skin a bit of “shine” to make it look natural. For a very long time filmakers and photographers didn’t realize this either. I think it would take a lot of courage to allow yourself to be immoralized this way. Or egotism, lol.
This looks like a guy auditioning for Lex Luthor in a 1980s made-for-TV Superman movie.
Lol, that is definitely a Lex Luther “I just bought your company” smirk.
If The Rock wanted to fight Superman so badly, he probably should have just played Lex Luthor. That would have been interesting casting
It is getting closer!! RUN!!!
Please let us all agree to never refer to him as “Flesh Johnson” again. I mean I guess he was already a Rock Johnson, so I’m not sure which is more unsettling as a moniker.
It looks fine, like modern day Dwayne Johnson currently looks.‘”Okay, now look at this one again:Yeah, woof.”’No, you guys are just hating on it for no reason. Must be a slow news day…
John Dwayneson and his famous catchphrase: “I’m cooking some shit!”
Dwayne just preppin’ for his next big role
This wax statue dares to answer the question “What if The Rock were British?”