The Idol: The Controversy Surrounding HBO’s Next Euphoria
Photo Courtesy: HBO MAX
The Idol, a show created by Sam Levinson (Director of Euphoria) and Abel Tesfaye (The Weeknd), stars Lily Rose Depp as a troubled pop star alongside other big industry names such as Troye Sivan and Blackpink’s Jennie. Controversy has emerged following a Rolling Stone article documenting the alleged drama surrounding the new show. Initially meant to be a dark satire illustrating the struggles of being a young woman in the industry, Tesfaye allegedly disagreed with its initial focus on the female perspective, resulting in a massive shift in the tone of the show that heightened its sexual nature.
According to Rolling Stone, the show was meant to be released in November 2022. However, after the unexpected departure of director Amy Seimatz, Sam Levinson, the co-creator of the show became the replacement director, and called for film reshoots with a new vision in mind. According to 13 sources, Levinson had proposed overly graphic sex scenes and magnified live nudity that romanticised abuse. This included scenes in which Tesfaye’s character repeatedly beats Depp’s character to her enjoyment and sexual pleasure. A source who worked on the set claimed; "it was a show about a woman who was finding herself sexually, turned into a show about a man who gets to abuse this woman and she loves it".
It is not the first time that Levinson has been the subject of controversy: his show Euphoria was criticised due to its overt and obscene sexualisation of high school students. Cast member Syndeny Sweeney who played Cassie in the show said in an interview with The Independent that she felt uncomfortable with the amount of nudity in the show and felt it was unnecessary. The sexualisation of young women in Hollywood is not unprecedented, as the male-dominated industry creates female characters that serve the male gaze. Euphoria also exhibits storylines where the character Kat, a teenage girl, begins to sell her sexual content to older men over the internet, and another teenage girl ventures into online dating and has intercourse with older men. This glamorises pedophilic relationships and sex work which harms its impressionable audience of young adults and sets unrealistic standards for teenage girls. The show does nothing to condemn these acts and suggests that the female characters are simply there to serve men’s desires.
It is disappointing to see another piece of media function as the directors’ wildest fantasies put to screen. Throughout film and tv history, female characters have been overly and unnecessarily sexualised. We see this constantly throughout horror movies, as an inherently phallocentric genre that relies on the sexuality of women, where a sadistic level of torture is employed upon female characters, such as in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Hostel. Doing so desensitises mass audiences to the victimisation and violent abuse of women on screen and enables directors such as Levinson to use their platforms to create grotesque “torture porn”. Not only are there inevitably harmful implications for women in the film industry but women all around the world. This type of content dehumanises women and spreads its misogynistic messages to its audience, creating harmful perceptions of women as weak and whimpering victims.
Rather than issuing a statement after the article was posted, Tesfaye posted a short clip from the show as a response to the article. In this clip his character says, "Rolling Stone? Aren't they a little…irrelevant?.". His dismissive nature suggests that Tesfaye is committed to the production of the show, despite the serious allegations. The Idol began with the intention of providing meaningful commentary on the exploitation of women in the film and television industry. Now, self-proclaimed as “the sleaziest love story in all of Hollywood '', it has become exactly what it set out to satirise in the first place - no longer a complex exploration of female empowerment but rather a degrading piece of media.