HBO upcoming series “The Idol”, which features BLACKPINK Jennie, not only omits scenes of the female idol, but has gone off the rails entirely.
Previously, fans were excited to hear about BLACKPINK Jennie’s appearance in HBO’s “The Idol”, which is produced by famous pop star The Weeknd. However, there have been rumors that Jennie’s character now only has “barely any air time and an inconsequential story arc”, alongside “three or four lines per episode”. In fact, according to Rolling Stone, a production source even said about Jennie, “They didn’t let her talk that much. Her job was to sit there and look pretty, basically.”
However, this is not the only “nightmarish” change to “The Idol”, seeing that the series has gone “wildly and disgusting off rails” due to the change in directing.
The Rolling Stone article also mentioned that director Levinson has chipped away all of the show’s original message, making “The Idol” resembles “sexual torture porn” and tells the story of “a man who gets to abuse this woman and she loves it”.
“The Idol”, which are now handled by the “sick and twisted minds” of Sam Levinson and The Weeknd, follows pop superstar Jocelyn (Lily-Rose Depp) as she navigates the seedy underbelly of the music industry and falls under the spell of Tedros (The Weeknd), a mysterious owner of a popular L.A. nightclub who secretly runs a cult. The show, however, has fallen far away from its original message, after the exit of previous director Amy Seimetz, which happened after roughly 80% of filming was finished.
Regarding the changes, one production member said, “What I signed up for was a dark satire of fame and the fame model in the 21st century, the things that we subject our talent and stars to, the forces that put people in the spotlight and how that can be manipulated in the post-Trump world. However, it went from satire to the thing it was satirizing.”
Meanwhile, at the time of the directorial change, The Weeknd mentioned that he was unhappy with “The Idol” adopting too much of a “female perspective”. Now, with Sam Levinson holding the mantle, the script has become filled with disturbing “sexual and physically violent scenes”, to the point a staff member even call this version a “rape fantasy”.
Source: RollingStone
