In one of the early interviews with Lily Rose Depp, of The Idol, she says that at the beginning it seems that her character Jocelyn is being manipulated by a dangerous club owner named Tedros. This, she says, is misleading, and that by the end the tables will be turned in a way that puts everything that happened previously in a new perspective. Everything that happens leading up to the finale is a red tinged horror of female humiliation, mixed in with the single gay character being tortured to the vicious glee of Tedros, Jocelyn and their followers.
Tedros slithers his way into Jocelyn’s life, abuses her employees, alienates her friends and preaches some dubious viewpoints on why pop music needs to be overtly sexual in order to sell. This might have been true in the 90s but now the biggest pop stars of our generation are Taylor Swift and Billie Eilish, two women whose sexuality is hardly relevant in light of their musical talent.
The finale occurs and Jocelyn has kicked Tedros out of her life. She steels his followers and is on her way to a sold out stadium show. At the very last minute she invites Tedros to her show and it is revealed that she lied to him about her mother’s abuse, that all along she has been using him and manipulating those around her and Tedros is actually the victim of Jocelyn. It is a frighteningly ill-spirited twist that seems to posit that women are liars and that we should pity the poor men in their lives.
What was the point of all of this? There doesn’t seem to be any underlying theme here, and the plot of the show is dreadfully thin. Ironically, all of the prior worry over the sexually explicit nature of this show really seems to be the least offensive part of it. The show isn’t incredibly explicit. We seen some breasts and an occasional ass but the nudity is barely at the level of Game of Thrones and the sex is child friendly kink at best. The problem is that the show is a self indulgent mess of Sam Levinson and The Weeknd’s misogynistic fantasies. You really get the sense that these two men hate women and live in fear of a false rape accession, which truly makes one look twice at Euphoria which faltered phenomenally in its second season.
There are quite a few problems with Sam Levinson’s writing, but I think it is the sexuality that is brought up the most when that is not the issue with his television shows. Yes, Euphoria and the idol are hyper sexual television shows. But since when is sex bad? It is so strange to see so many, mainly Gen-z folk talk about sex as if we are back in the 1800s. As a result of that, the majority of tv and film has the look and feel of a children’s movie. Romantic couples kiss with lips closed and speak of each other distantly as if talking about a cousin. Meet cutes follow a prescribed pattern of love notes and prom date dances where hands stay firmly above the belt. Anything that strays from this pattern is named misogyny and ranted at by teenagers who clutch their pearls like elder grandparents.
How did this happen? How did we take so many steps back so quickly? A lot of it still has to do with the male directors themselves. Rather than attempt to navigate questions of consent and equality in onscreen sex scenes, they simply throw the idea away entirely. Because there is a line and it is a thin one. There is a line in The Idol that I did get a kick out of. “Let people enjoy sex and hot girls.” I agree! I love sex, I love hot girls! I also love hot boys. I would love to see all three on screen, plus any hot person who identifies as neither boy or girl or both. Now, how to show that without being exploitative?
That’s a question I doubt I could really answer. Especially since I am now thinking of movies like A Serbian Film, Irreversible, and Climax. All films that fit into the sexploitation genre where sex and violence dominate the narrative but not without reason. So is the answer for all sex scenes to have deeper narrative meaning? I disagree with this. Sex in and of itself already has multiple meanings. Obviously, it builds intimacy, it shows vulnerability, it can sometimes give us a deeper insight into what a character wants or doesn’t want. And honestly? It’s fucking fun! This doesn’t go for everybody, but a lot of people enjoy sex. They like having sex, watching sex, thinking about sex. And there isn’t anything bad about that.
The idea of fear and discomfort around sex isn’t anything new, but the fact of it popping up as a topic in media discussion these days has to do with the uproar against female sexuality, female body commodification and male control over female sexuality and reproduction. There is a lot of distrust around sex and specifically women’s and queer people’s roles in sex. This is a legitimate fear and distrust, especially in the case of male directors is to be expected. But is the answer to this really a return to the Hays Code, as so many Twitter users have been calling for?
Really it brings to mind the danger of book bans. There are classics whose content is now looked upon with fear and distrust. Some of this content genuinely does depict a vile part of world history. And then some of it is just a product of its time when that language was accepted and there wasn’t as much education on certain topics as there is now. But then there are the books that attract fear of a different kind, a fear that these books will teach the reader something that will influence their behavior. Brave New World, leading the reader to question their government, or Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret making them curious about masturbation.
Obviously, something like Secretary isn’t exactly in the same ballpark as Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret, but the vitriol against it to me seems just as ridiculous. Ridiculous being the precursor to dangerous. Because Secretary is a fun and sexy romp, that should be enjoyed for what it is by people who have interest in consensual kink. And then we come to important sex scenes like the implied intimacy of Moonlight, or the psychologically groundbreaking sexuality of Sanctuary. These are sex scenes that are necessary to tell a story about a type of person whose experiences are intrinsically connected with a specific sexual relationship. And that creativity and nuance deserves to be explored.
When we get rid of the various ways there are to explore sex creatively on the screen, we consign ourselves to the dull and ugly sexuality we see on The Idol. Demonizing an entire expression of intimacy leads to only the very least creative expressions being shown on screen. The Idol mocks the beauty and power of sex as a storytelling tool. It is used as set dressing between characters with no chemistry and no relationship outside of kinky sex that doesn’t add anything to the already weak narrative. The worst part is that critics of the show focus on the sex scenes as an example of how bad the show is. The sex scenes are not the problem, the poor writing and the emptiness of the character’s actions are the problem. By demonizing sex we only open the door for more ill spirited examples to come through. Sex can be ugly or it can be heart wrenchingly honest and lovely, but it’s good writing good intentions that make all the difference.