With one episode left in the much-discussed but unpopular first season of The Idol, Lily-Rose Depp is still on the defensive. Led by Able “The Weeknd” Tesfaye and Euphoria creator Sam Levinson, the show was already being described as a sexist exercise in torture porn before the first episode premiered, and the finished product didn’t do much to clarify that. Despite the five-minute ovation at Cannes, the response to the series was mostly negative, as most critics either didn’t understand what the series was trying to say or thought it was boring.
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However, Depp knew they were “doing something provocative,” which explains why the core of the first episode revolves around a viral image of Depp’s character with “cum all over his face,” as AV Club recap Manuel Betancourt put it. While the show aims to shock rather than spark real conversation about sex and fame, Depp continues to praise her peers. “Honestly, I’ve never felt so respected and safer on a set,” she said, which is a relief considering all the production complaints that trickled out of the set earlier this year. She went on to say that the “trust” built between the cast and the creators “made it feel really secure on set.”
“In terms of the nudity and risqué nature of the role, that was really intentional for me,” Depp told Vogue Australia. “That was really important for me and something I was really happy about. I’m not afraid of it. I think we live in a highly sexualized world. I think that’s an interesting thing to explore.”
The show has been at the center of controversy since a Rolling Stone revelation accused showrunners of ousting original series director Amy Seimetz and taking the show into sexist territory. Even the show’s intimacy coordinators, who choreographed all of the sex Weeknd and Levinson invented and helped Depp create a safe environment for her provocations, felt that “The Idol” was doing viewers a disservice.
In recent weeks, as the show kicked off with a collective groan, Tesfaye took a different marketing approach: blaming audiences for not understanding his work. See, his character is meant to be gross and irretrievable in an unfunny and not particularly entertaining way. Unfortunately, that explanation didn’t help, considering the show’s episode order was reduced from six to five just this week.
As Betancourt put it, “The Idol grew from a tantalizing proposition (an industry provocation, fueled by a salacious interest in equating pop music with porn, and perhaps also by examining the cult-like tendencies of those who flirt with fame and themselves.” yearning for fame) ) who struggled to walk the tonal fine line required to realize his ambitious ideas into… well, an almost unremarkable weekly foray into soft-core erotic scenes, set between a series of talkative industry Navel-gazing pieces.”
The Idol season finale airs this Sunday.
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