My Corner

May 2024

Y’know when you sprout out of bed at dawn in a tizzy over the striking reminder that you have completely forgotten an assignment that’s due in an hour and you’re forced to complete it amidst an aching need to go back to sleep making yourself settle for mediocrity even though you know in normal circumstances you could do better? I have a feeling Sam Levinson had a similar experience writing HBO’s The Idol.

As I combed the list of movies released this month, I thought I would change things up by revisiting a mind boggling television release from this time last year.

From shifting directors to a total creative overhaul, The Idol did not have an easy time making it to air. In September of 2021, Abel Tesfaye (better known as mega pop artist The Weeknd) announced that he would star and produce an HBO Max show titled The Idol with Amy Seimetz (Sun Don’t Shine, She Dies Tomorrow) beside him as director. Under Seimetz’s lead, the show was supposed to be about the troubled yet glamorous life of former child star and up-and-coming pop icon Jocelyn who meets and later falls victim to L.A. nightclub owner and cult leader Tedros as we watch her struggle to reclaim her agency against a music industry and cult that are dually fighting to take agency away from her. Lily-Rose Depp was set to star as Jocelyn alongside Troye Sivan, Arabella Grant, Jane Adams, Suzanna Son, and an extensive cast.

Beginning production in November 2021, Seimetz’s version of The Idol was scrapped only 5 months later, as, according to a Deadline source, The Weeknd was unhappy with the show “leaning too much into a female perspective.” This news came only after Seimetz’s cut was 80% done and HBO had already spent over $54 million on it. One of the most cost-worthy annihilations Hollywood has ever done. 

With that, former producer of The Idol and writer, director, and creator of Euphoria, Sam Levinson, was promoted to alter the show to seemingly fit The Weeknd’s requests. Much of the previous cast was let go, and BLACKPINK’s Jennie Ruby Jane, Rachel Sennot, Moses Sumney, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Hank Azaria, Hari Nef, and Dan Levy were hired as cast members.

With this second incarnation, Levinson and Tesfaye “dial[ed] up the disturbing sexual content and nudity to match — and even surpass — that of his most successful show, Euphoria,” cutting down the show’s original “layered narrative” that drove home a powerful message about “the trappings and exploitations of fame,” sources close to The Idol told Rolling Stone in an explosive article. 

Wrapping in May 2022, The Idol completely lost the feminist lens the show was structured around, becoming a show now starring Tesfaye instead of Depp and about “a man who gets to abuse this woman, and she loves it because it gives her musical inspiration,” said multiple production sources.

The public’s reaction was…strong. Premiering at the exclusive Cannes Film Festival to mixed reviews, The Idol made its public debut on June 4 and was released weekly from then on. Despite poor reviews, the show did manage to make some social media buzz, trending number one on Twitter weekly ahead of the show’s release and sparking a small yet potent dance trend on TikTok. 

I decided to binge the entire five-part series, and here are my thoughts. One: It’s not as egregiously exploitative as many painted it to be; however, I have a feeling HBO pulled the plug on a few of those raunchy scenes in order to avoid further embarrassment. Two: HBO should be thanking its lucky stars they managed to hire BLACKPINK’s Jennie Ruby Jane because she trended number one on social media every week regardless of only having one to two scenes per episode. Three: The show is filled with record-scratch moments. An example of such is when Jocelyn said she liked Tedros because he’s “weird and rapey.” Four: This is by far, the sloppiest writing I have ever seen from such a highbrow television network. No character arcs of any kind, no overarching structure, and uneven pacing all around. An example of this is, with as few spoilers as possible, Tesfaye’s Tedros embarrasses Sivan’s Xander, Jocelyn’s lifelong best friend, shocking him before Tedros’ cult as Jocelyn yells at him for never sticking up for her to her mother, who physically abused her as a child. In the very next scene, there is no resolution, and the seemingly monumental event is never brought up. The characters literally continue as if the moment never happened. Leaving no impact on the show or the audience. 

The biggest question viewers will be left to ponder is what did the Seimetz cut of The Idol look like? While we did have a few photos of Depp and Tesfaye filming, we got even more when roughly a week after the show finished airing, former cast and crew members posted behind-the-scenes photos and clips from filming, which seem to show a story of an innocent and sheltered child star, like Britney Spears or Selena Gomez, desperately wanting to become a pop idol, being taken advantage of and manipulated by sleazy yet charismatic Tedros, and trouble ensues. Truly day and night to what Levinson gave us, epitomized by someone calling it “Barbie versus Oppenheimer”.  

However, this show is not all bad. Its saving grace is truly its actors. While I found her character wildly all over the place, Lily-Rose Depp is Jocelyn.  There were about five minutes in episode two when Jocelyn breaks down during a music video shoot where Depp shines and is given the chance to do some really incredible acting. Jane Adams is my favorite character, Nikki, Jocelyn’s no-nonsense business manager, who we don’t see much of as the show unfolds but delivers one of the campiest monologues the show has to offer at the beginning of episode 2. Da’avine Joy Randolph, Troye Sivan, and Rachel Sennott do their best with what they’ve been given.

The worst thing I could say about The Idol was that it left me feeling disappointed. Perhaps the most unfavorable feeling you could get from an anticipated show. How could such a fail-safe concept be failed at so poorly? If anything, The Idol should serve as a cautionary tale that ostentatious displays are only meaningful if they leave a lasting impact on the audience. Something it seems Seimetz and Levinson both could not do for very different reasons. 

To summarize, “[The Idol] went from satire to the thing it was satirizing.”