Sickening portrayal of rape culture.

Sam Levinson’s The Idol: A Painful, Sleazy, and Incoherent Mess

The first two episodes of The Idol premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and, unsurprisingly, they were bad. Rape Culture: The Show was never going to be a great concept, especially after firing the original director, Amy Seimetz, who was replaced by Levinson. Costly reshoots followed Seimetz’s departure, completely changing the series’ concept, resulting in a story with little substance.

Instead, the show features a succession of uninspired music-video-style shots, slow-motion sequences, and porny overheads of Lily-Rose Depp in various states of undress. The narrative follows Jocelyn, who resembles Britney Spears and Miley Cyrus, as she tries to get over her mother’s death and launch her new single. However, her vulnerability is exploited by manipulative managers, assistants, and music industry figures.

Although the show attempts to subvert some of the worst aspects of the entertainment industry, it continually indulges in its worse instincts. For example, Jocelyn is objectified to an extreme extent, and her character is shoehorned into an inexplicable sex scene, while a secondary character dissolves into a mere excuse to show female nudity.

The show’s most horrendous moment is when Tedros Tedros, played by Abel Tesfaye, chokes Jocelyn with a cloth. Though the character is meant to be sleazy and domineering, this scene blurs the line between sexual desire and violent behaviour. Furthermore, the show is hesitant to portray Tesfaye’s character in the same light as Jocelyn, as it is unwilling or unable to frame him as an object of desire.

In this incoherent and sleazy mess of a show, many talented performers, such as Jane Adams and Rachel Sennott, are wasted. A nastier and more confrontational version of Entourage, which was likely the original concept before the reshoots, could have been intriguing, but instead, audiences are left with an ugly and disjointed series that tries to subvert and exploit the rape culture it seeks to criticise.

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