Nepo babies, 'The Idol' and Sam Levinson's legacy: why we love music that's mid at best
By Stephanie Weber
I couldn’t finish The Idol.
Director Sam Levinson didn’t do it again. The Idol isn’t like his hit show Euphoria. It didn’t gain much popularity among Gen Z. It received critically poor ratings across all generations, and was canceled after its first, six-episode season. What went wrong?
The Idol sounds like a gripping show in theory. The HBO 2023 original focuses on nepo baby Lily-Rose Depp as Joceyln, an American popstar searching for stardom. She’s finally releasing new music after a year long mental breakdown following her mom’s death. Like Depp, Joceyln is beautiful, a doe-eyed face with a supermodel body that makes viewers see her as an idol, a dreamlike status of fame and glamor just out of reach. Like her Euphoria counterparts, Joceyln is a sex symbol; the characters in The Idol are all obsessed with sex, drugs, and fame, acting out scenes full of gratuitous violence. The Idol could be looked at as satire, commenting on how celebrities and their comrades act with power and fame, but it’s supposed to be real. Joceyln and her team are ready to make music and legitimize the career of a young starlet.
The show is studded with other “musicians turned actors:” Troye Sivan and Moses Sumney are featured alongside creator and actor Abel Tesfaye, better known by his stage name The Weeknd. He serves as a foil to Joceyln; Tedros, The Weeknd’s character, is a sleazy producer with bad morals, complemented by The Weeknd’s bad acting. “Blinding Lights,” The Weeknd’s number one single, is the longest charting song by a solo artist ever on the Billboard Hot 100. So, he’s got some credibility. And money. The Idol was filmed in his Hollywood mansion and features a cameo from Mike Dean, a hip-hop producer with ties to Tesfaye. The Weeknd’s transition to acting isn’t clean—he’s never done it before and it shows.
But countless musicians are making their own acting debuts; see Lil’ Dicky in Dave, Donald Glover (Childish Gambino) in Atlanta, and Suki Waterhouse in Daisy Jones & The Six. It’s not that the merge between Hollywood and the music industry is a bad one. In fact, Sivan’s acting in Boy Erased (2018) is gut wrenching and made me cry. Maybe if Sivan was the lead actor things would’ve been different. Or maybe it’s the fact that the show is fronted by a nepo baby.
Depp is a nepo baby, known only because of her uber famous parents Vanessa Paradis and Johnny Depp. We all saw the Vulture article with a detailed tree of the nepo babies in Hollywood, hired for their talent but also their incredibly good genes and industry status afforded to them by chance. Her acting in the show is bad, and that’s an opinion shared by many critics. But what’s worse is the music. Joceyln is supposed to be one of the most popular artists in the world, but with a song like “World Class Sinner/I’m A Freak” her status drops. “I’m a freak, yeah” has been stuck in my head since watching the series over the summer. But fear not! The music is on Spotify, and has garnered over 37 million streams. Same goes with all the other original songs in the series.
So, if the show is bad and so is the music, then why watch and listen? Because The Idol reminds us of what we grew up on. When pop stars go down the rabbit hole of self-destruction and misery, fans and enemies follow along like it’s their jobs. It gives us something to talk about and allows us to fill our heads with thoughts like “Well, I’m not that crazy.” Culturally specific moments stay with us for years, like Britney Spears shaving her head in 2007 or celebrity breakups like Jay-Z and Beyonce. The Idol is relevant to Gen Z because it shows how existing in the age of constant media implicates celebrities in scandal, especially those who are suffering and vulnerable. It also presents a narrative about ownership and autonomy; Joceyln makes a remix of “World Class Sinner/I’m A Freak” with Tedros’ help, but her producers turn it down and release a song she doesn’t approve of. Think of Taylor Swift re-recording her music or the #FreeBritney campaign. Sound familiar?
What The Idol lacks in everything, it makes up for in its cultural relevance. Its reflections on the American music industry are true, providing a fictional account of a very real world. Maybe I should finish The Idol, if only to have something to talk about.