My professor cracked a joke this week about how knowledge of social issues, as necessary as it is, will ruin anything pop culture-ish. After starting a new “Max” show recently, I can wholeheartedly say she was right on the money.
I just re-subscribed to Max a few weeks ago and have been working my way through some iconic shows and films that I’ve missed out on ever since I unsubscribed my freshman year of college.
I hit the classic, cult-favorite shows- “Euphoria,” “The Last of Us,” “Vampire Diaries,” “Gossip Girl,” you know, the works. While I was cozied up in my bed at home, I decided to watch “The Idol.”
Of course, I stay well-versed on pop culture and have heard of the show and its star-studdedness (the main characters are played by The Weeknd and Lily-Rose Depp), but what piqued my interest was its controversy. Props to whoever said that there’s no such thing as bad publicity, because they, too, were right on the money.
Each episode runs for about an hour, making it a great show to binge if you have the free time. To be clear, I certainly do NOT have the free time to be wasting precious time like that, but alas.
If you look up “The Idol,” you’d be hard-pressed to find an article about the show that does not have the word “controversy” in it. While I actually enjoyed it, there were many times where I felt viscerally uncomfortable and awkward, but not in the campy way “American Horror Story” might make me feel fear. It was genuinely unsettling.
I wish I was daft enough to extract the Pinterest-ness out of it and move on, admiring only the music, the frequent cigarette smoking, and vibrant scarlet red tones, but I am not. Although I did appreciate all of those things and I honestly think the directors probably aimed to create art, and even though I actually kind of really like the show, I thought that it was confusing, disgusting at times, and consistently deeply uncomfortable.
One review of the show described the main character Jocelyn as “limp, glazed-over, chain-smoking nothingness.” Another wrote that The Weeknd’s performance as Tedros “should be tried at the Hague.” It is unfortunate that I found both of these things to be true. Despite being the star of the show, literally, Jocelyn lacked characterization and viewers were left with a pathetic blob of half-assed, oversexualized and mediocre thing.
This show seemed like a disgusting man with some sort of weird power kink or fantasy had access to a studio for ten hours. “The Idol” was trying way too hard to be edgy, without ever really saying anything out of the ordinary or shocking- it was just gross. It was the very embodiment of getting the heebie-jeebies. Yikes.
I was prepared for a bold statement against the establishment focused on empowering women who have been torn down their entire careers, so I was shocked to find that this show that dominated the pop culture news for weeks was nothing more than a sexist, garbage fire masquerading as the “American Horror Story” Cult season. I’m not saying that feminism is why “The Idol” disappointed me, but rather, I’m pointing out how my prior knowledge of feminist theory and literature is the reason why I am able to critique this show without just saying, “It sucked…” even though it kind of did.