Page Six says maybe.
I hope not.
Mostly because I haven’t even had the chance to get this 1,000 word think piece out.
The audience reaction to this show is turning out to be …a lot.
It’s basically a mirror for the very accurate realities of the entertainment industry. It’s an on-and-off-camera exercise in post-#MeToo, and, for the outraged masses who are cringing and clutching their pearls at the dirty dialogue, a weekly reminder of their own bad habits.
It’s important to start this with a reminder that Sam, Lily-Rose, and Abel are all “talent.”
They’re also all well established multi-millionaires, with two of them being inherently protected from any real fallout or career death by a little golden pillow called “A-List Nepotism.” A cushion for failure that permanently hovers just underneath them. One that unprotected and unconnected new actors just simply don’t have. For nepo babies, the golden pillow is actually more like a golden trampoline.
If we’re really getting into it, Abel Tesfaye, the new actor/writer/producer, is just a nepo baby birthed from the molly-riddled womb of The Weeknd, the multi-platinum Grammy Award-winning recording artist with a decade-long career that includes seven #1 hits and a $300M net worth.
Those three are just a tiny sliver of industry working like a dog day and night to make sure that the stories, characters, words, and scenes from Sam Levinson’s freaky lil’ mind make it to your TV every Sunday night. He’s no more or less toxic than his agent at WME who’s feverishly working on more deals for him as we speak. Or the publicity & marketing teams pushing his shows out the world. Or the unions who let their members work on his sets. Or the networks fighting for the rights to air his shows.
This is not an island dedicated to just Sam. His agents, lawyers, and networks are shared by some of most vocal celebrity crusaders for representation, safety, and feminism. To my knowledge, none of them have walked out or fired their agents in protest of their connections to Sam’s ‘torture porn’ empire.
Listen, we know that none of the agencies who promised accountability, safety, and equity post-#MeToo really meant it, right? And, we know that even a female director doesn’t guarantee a more equitably-run production.
I think back to the messy press tour of Don’t Worry Darling and actress-turned- director Olivia Wilde, who faced her own set of controversies during its production. She hired Shia LaBeouf, then ‘fired’ him, and then, in press, attributed the firing to his bad on-set behavior and the need for a ‘safe, trusting environment’ for the female lead Florence Pugh. At first, it sounded like a gallant position from someone who had made a full-time job out of appearing on as many “Women In Hollywood” panels as she could get on.
Shia countered, saying he quit due to scheduling conflicts. As proof, he shared a video of Wilde begging him to stay, evidence of a less combative end to the partnership. Wilde never addressed the video, and when pressed during a Venice Film Festival press conference in support of the film, she had nothing to say other than to write off the cast controversy and media commentary as internet ‘noise.’ When the Hollywood Reporter followed up with questions specific to Shia LaBeouf, Florence Pugh, and reports of on-set safety issues and toxic environments, Wilde shut the question down altogether:
She spent years talking about the challenges of being a woman in Hollywood, about the need to be heard, about the problems with other director’s productions and handling of toxic situations, yet when pressed on the controversies surrounding her own, she had nothing to say.
There’s a similar pattern running through the reaction to The Idol. If you’re outraged at the show, but not enough to change your own habits, are you really outraged? This is, after all, a show being produced in a toxic industry, about a toxic industry, about sex, for a country obsessed with sex.
Yes, the dialogue is cringey, but do not judge if someone’s musty son is muttering this to you as we speak. Yes, the show is over-sexualized, but the data says this is what the people want:
Outside of that, there’s also this thing happening where Lily-Rose Depp fans are continually painting Abel an IRL villain predator who has taken advantage of Lily-Rose, a helpless blonde damsel with no professional autonomy of her own. There’s the obvious white supremacist trope, but I also wonder if audiences are just so unfamiliar with consent and autonomy that believing she’s willingly acting in this show feels unrealistic to them.
Anyway, removing this country’s Puritanical shame from the equation, I think the show’s bad acting and writing are really the only valid fan arguments.
Is Sam Levinson even a good director? I don’t really know. His dad direct Rain Man, though. And, a literal monkey could direct Zendaya and I still would applaud every scene. Is the writing bad? That’s what happens when singers are handed TV shows to write. Is the acting bad? Probably, but that’s also what happens when you literally skip over qualified actors in favor of industry kids.
Should The Idol flop, or should Sam, Abel, or Lily-Rose never be nominated for a single award, they’ll still be able to bounce onto the next lucrative, rewarding, and heavily-funded project with no real risk or interruption to their individual fame, bank account, or reputation.
And you’ll all be there. Because you’re still here.
Great take. I don’t think the show is more gratuitously immoral more than anything aimed at GenZ. It’s a concept that could’ve been gripping in the right hands. It’s guilty of being just.....bad. But I do feel like they caved to pressure too early. It could’ve picked up steam and went somewhere interesting