![]() ![]() Several years ago she directed a film called She Dies Tomorrow that was an inventive, haunting and funny depiction of a woman grappling with mental illness and grief, something that - after extensive reshoots, recuts, rewriting and a significant overhaul of the cast and crew - the charlatan Levinson has not come even close to conjuring. It's sad to think that we won't get to see Seimetz's version of The Idol. ![]() But she left mid-production in April 2022, reportedly after Tesfaye was unhappy that her approach to the story leaned too much into the female perspective. He throws a whole bunch of images at us - a masturbation scene, an erotic asphyxiation scene, the protagonist's admission that she likes how her love interest is "rapey" - but there's little takeaway, other than Levinson's low-hanging desire to provoke pearl-clutchers.ġ3:17 Reviewing Episode 1 of HBO's new series The Idol Culture critics Rad Simonpillai and Sarah-Tai Black unpack the controversy surrounding the new HBO series The Idol and what it all says about the allure of toxic masculinity in TV storylines.Īmy Seimetz, the independent filmmaker behind Sun Don't Shine and The Girlfriend Experience, was at first attached to The Idol as its writer-director. But its substance-disinclined creator, Levinson, is more concerned with overstimulating his viewers than saying anything new or worthy about the pressures that women face in the public eye. Like any HBO show, The Idol has high production value and stylish cinematography. Characters don't have to be likeable (we're well into the age of the TV anti-hero, Succession and Barry being two recent examples) but the least they can be is not dull, particularly in a series that was billed to be as sexy and risqué as this one. As much as Depp brings a kind of naturalism to the role - such as her scenes with Sennott, the flustered friendployee - the character she's playing is like a paper doll, barely emoting. But if this first episode is anything to go by, The Idol fails miserably. During an era of the pop star comeback story, where many of the most famous women of the aughts are reclaiming their personal narratives over a decade after they were subjected to gruelling, misogynist public attention, The Idol is trying to satirize the current feminist-bent of female celebrity, undercutting the girl power of it all with a story of sleaziness enabled by industry and social media. As much as it's painful to admit, one can understand what Levinson et al are going for here. Pamela Anderson documentary tells a side of the actor's story the public has never heard: her own.Justin Timberlake apologizes to Britney Spears, Janet Jackson.Things start to get hairy after the rest of Jocelyn's team - assistant and best friend Leia ( Shiva Baby's Rachel Sennott), co-manager Destiny (Tony nominee Da'Vine Joy Randolph), and publicist Benjamin ( Schitt's Creek's Dan Levy) - discover that a compromising photo of her has leaked on social media, where she's been described, in graphic terms, as the object of male pleasure. HBO's music industry drama The Idol, which stars Lily-Rose Depp and Canadian singer Abel 'The Weeknd' Tesfaye, who co-created the show with Euphoria showrunner Sam Levinson, finally premiered on. The guy ends up locked in a closet, Levinson has made his contempt for intimacy co-ordinators known, and we move on. Once Jocelyn gets wind of the co-ordinator's intrusion, she speaks to her manager Chaim (Hank Azaria, doing a confusing accent) - it's her body, after all, and she can do what she wants with it. Jocelyn's shoot is interrupted when an intimacy co-ordinator steps in to remind the photographer that the singer's nudity rider restricts which parts of her body can be shown. As much as Depp brings a kind of naturalism to the role, the character she's playing is like a paper doll, barely emoting. Reflecting on the controversy that followed after the Rolling Stone report, Levinson said at a Cannes press conference, “When my wife read me the article, I looked at her and I said, ‘I think we’re about to have the biggest show of the summer.’” Time will tell if his prediction will resonate with viewers.Depp as Jocelyn in The Idol. Afterward, Rolling Stone published an exposé about the toxic work environment on set and the show’s transformation into a story about “torture porn.” (HBO has denied these allegations.) Indeed, at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, some reviewers criticized the gratuitous number of explicit sexual scenes shown in the first two episodes. Tesfaye reportedly directed a complete overhaul of the show, claiming it was leaning too much on the “female perspective,” tapping Euphoria creator Sam Levinson to helm the series after director Amy Seimetz exited. ![]() In the lead-up to its release, there was heavy scrutiny of the series-which stars Lily-Rose Depp and singer the Weeknd, born Abel Tesfaye. Will The Idol be everyone’s next onscreen obsession? We’ll find out when it officially drops on HBO this Sunday. ![]()
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