rewriting hbo's "the idol", part 3
to prove i can write a better show than a nepo baby with nothing but my laptop
finally, we’re on the last season i thought of for this show and what it could have been. hope you guys enjoy it along with the bonus material i’ve included to celebrate the end of this little (unending) saga.
season 3: trainwreck
“you have no idea of the power you hold, jocelyn, but i can help you harness it.”
well, well, well… we’ve come back to the original show’s timeline already. here’s where i’ll be more “canon compliant”, but with the necessary tweaks and fixes that might make this shitshow watchable. now it’s been almost a year since jocelyn’s mom’s death, she has been on the longest hiatus of her career due to grief. her team has brought her to extensive therapy after her highly publicized mental breakdown in the hotel, new security has been hired, destiny moved in to jocelyn’s in order to take care of her and a new dynamic has been installed in the house, one where her team has become jocelyn's main support system.
she has been writing songs that she was thinking of posting independently, because her label hadn’t approved of them for being “too vulnerable” or “not worthy of a comeback" -but she's also greatly uninspired, and part of her fears it being because of her mother's absence. jocelyn buries her pain by becoming a sort of party girl who gets papped almost every weekend, and during this period she gets closer to dyanne, member of her dance crew. during this season the show's tone will only get darker as we explore jocelyn's addictions, grief, toxic relationships, loneliness and her relationship with fame as the public expects her to just "bounce back" after such traumatic events. after this "hiatus", her team draws out her comeback plan which includes a relocation in new york city in order to give a more sophisticated turn to jocelyn's image, a relaunch of her tour with new dates and a deluxe edition release of her album, in order to gain back some of the losses from the last dates of the tour and the deals that had been negotiatied in europe for an international leg. oh, and the picture that leaks in the original The Idol is mentioned as well but this time her team is smart about it and takes it to their advantage.
after moving, we have the vanity fair interview that appears in the original show, but this time in jocelyn's new penthouse in the city (bought by her mother). the interview is part of the plan to put jocelyn back in the spotlight, with a deep dive into her grieving process in order to gain the public's sympathy as well as the recent leakeage of her private pictures, her creative process, her cancelled tour… everything. no fake deep bullshit about god, we don't need that.
now we see jocelyn trying to adapt herself to her new life as a young adult in a city she'd never lived in. she's starting to be booked again for photoshoots and accepts a new brand deal, but she still feels that void. that feeling that her mother is still watching over her, hunching over to see her fail, telling her she's nothing without her. so she escapes into the night, numbing her mind with new drugs. after being tossed around like a doll from one place to another by her team, the drafts for a new era are presented to her, which jocelyn finds inauthentic, empty, just like her she feels now. she can't even notice how something seems to be brewing behind the scenes.
by the end of episode four she meets stinky tedros (played by someone other than the weeknd) in a club, just like in the original show. they dance, talk about her art and his work as an "artist developer". he's charismatic, tells her everything she wants to hear; the click instantly, their meeting feels almost fated. maybe it is.
the rest of the season would explore jocelyn's relationship with tedros as he helps her complete her new ep and she releases it on soundcloud against her label's wishes, although it's really well-received. this makes jocelyn believe her connection to tedros is what is building her up creatively after her mother's death, so she keeps saying "yes" where there should be "no's", making her team suspect there's something fishy going on. but they don't find out until jocelyn is too far gone to get tedros and his "friends" out of her life (and her house).
besides, her label is trying to push dyanne as a new solo act after seeing how volatile jocelyn has become as a cash cow, to which the former agrees because she has ambitions of her own -and jocelyn is too busy getting high and producing experimental music with tedros to care. she has no say in that after all, it's just business. but jocelyn's team won't give up, so plans for a new album and a "world" tour are put in place. and as messy as the creative process is, jocelyn completes her sophomore album in collaboration with tedros and his crew in time, with a sound that to jocelyn actually felt like herself, although it alluded to pretty dark topics like her grief and the "strength" she'd found in tedros and his "community". but that doesn't stop there: the crew would also be there the entire tour as part of jocelyn's creative team, courtesy of tedros. the cultish takeover is slow and manipulative, making it all seem like this is good for jocelyn's career. and the seeds ended up being an incredibly prolific psychedelic, trap-infused pop project. comparisons between this and dyanne's debut ep ensue.
one year later, at the end of the new tour before jocelyn's 20th birthday, tedros proposes and jocelyn accepts. now it's when tedros' takeover accelerates using the wedding as an excuse to isolate jocelyn even more from her original team, becoming more involved in tedros' "art incubation project" that she talks about extensively everywhere she goes, to the point that they buy a new home in montana and end up moving there with the rest of cult members, performing activities that stripped them of their egos in order to "surrend themselves to the greatness of art" (tedros, of course). and they would use jocelyn's platform to propel their careers.
however, in the last episode jocelyn realizes she's being used for her influence in the pop world and it's like opening a pandora's box: she unleashes all the monsters she'd kept inside after being betrayed by tedros. it was all a lie, and she is gonna make him pay. everyone would pay for never letting her get a proper chance to heal, for forgetting she was human, too. for hearing using her fragile state of grief as a gateway to isolate her from the world.
so she confronts tedros, who tries to choke her to death, and ends up killing him in self defense. the last shot of the show has jocelyn in a white blood-stained dress, stranded in an unknown road in montana, with a jaded mournful look on her face. there is a post-credit scene, though, with a more relaxed, older jocelyn (imagine now in 2023) making beats in her apartment, alluding to her still making music but only as a producer, away from the spotlight and at peace with herself.
list of episodes:
1. invisible pain
jocelyn is in a therapy session, that day making nine months after the first time she had gone to therapy on her own -back when she was a child actress and it had been recommended to her in order to deal with the pressures of having a full time job as a kid, but her mother never approved of it. in this episode we have jocelyn talking about her anxiety with grief in a similar style to Jules’ special episode in euphoria. we also get to see how her routine has changed now that her mother is gone and she lives in a new city undercover, just like her album name. on the last third of the episode, jocelyn has a meeting with her team where they discuss that it's time for a huge comeback and they've been planning out some drafts for her next era, not even asking whether she's ready for it or not. in a week she's having a very important vanity fair interview that is gonna be this great exclusive to put jocelyn back on the map, and chaim reactivated joss' social media in order to get back to posting to sort of "awaken" her fanbase after such tragic events. at least losses from the tour weren't that big and they were able to break even. the episode ends with jocelyn looking at a picture of her mom saying: "i miss you" after posting for the first time on social media for months. she takes the framed picture into her arms and sleeps with it like it's a teddy bear and the screen fades to black.
2. jocelyn, vulnerably revamped: a vanity fair exclusive
this episode would include a combination of events that actually take place in the original the idol: for the first 20 minutes of the episode we have a fast-paced sequence of preparations for jocelyn’s vanity fair exclusive where according to chaim and destiny she should: “show herself bare to the public in order to project a vulnerable yet strong image”, like she’s getting her shit together but grief still strikes her, probably hinting at a future project. except she hates each song she writes and the way her hairdresser touches her hair because it reminds her of her mother. this would include a back and forth, just like in the idol’s pilot episode, of joss’ management team trying to solve a pr crisis involving some leaked nudes from the night before the interview. the internet is divided —she is seen both as a victim of revenge porn and as a trainwreck who’s destroying her career. therefore it is time to spin the narrative. i’d also include some scenes of leia and nikki butting heads because of their different perspectives as jocelyn’s best friend (and assistant) and a label executive. oh, and the intimate picture isn’t shown —we don’t need it, sam!!
after that exchange, chaim and destiny explain jocelyn the situation and she wants to puke, but there’s no time to be anxious when talia from vanity fair is about to arrive. joss practices some breathing exercises to control her anxiety and goes to the balcony to smoke for five minutes. for some reason, she feels watched, but she brushes that feeling off; it’d been happening to her since she was like nine.
then she goes back in, straight to the interview, and talks to talia as if she was with her therapist (with a bit of pr training, but it wasn’t like she didn’t censor herself even in therapy). again, no fake deep bullshit about god and looking into the abyss. despite her pain and grief, jocelyn is an actress, and she knows how to sell a story. so she talks about what’s been going on: the loss of her mother, the grieving process, cancelling the last shows of a tour she’d loved doing, feeling drained and lacking inspiration in los angeles, feeling trapped inside her house and preyed upon when she’d go out, now feeling like not even her body was hers after last night’s leak, the (real) pain it caused her to be betrayed like that, and lastly her plans for a future comeback.
the interview is deemed a success. jocelyn sheds a controlled tear, her left hand shaking.
3. in the mirror i don't see myself, i see you
now that jocelyn seems to be getting into the public’s good graces, she is sat down for a meeting with her team to discuss the entirety of her year-long comeback plan: first, she's gonna drop some teaser photos for an upcoming single (a pop trap scrap from her last album), release the song with its accompanying video and they'd have to work overtime in order to have the album ready but destiny and chaim think jocelyn can handle the pressure. she thinks that it's time to get to work again after being given so much time to rest idly while thinking of her mistakes.
then we see her attempts of getting her songs approved by her label, even though she doesn't really like them -she doesn't like anything she's been creating after her mom died. maybe something is broken inside her, she thinks, because her creative process was heavily influenced and controlled by others. now instead of being given freedom to create and explore who she is beyond the boundaries she was confined to, she's being rushed into getting her pop crown back and making her label and staff money. and by the end of the episode she has a panic attack in her bedroom while trying to record some voice memos for a song, and asks for her mom to let her live while she sobs uncontrollably. it's like she's being haunted by a ghost that only reminds her of her faults, of how now that her mother's gone, her life's meaningless.
deep down she wants to prove those voices wrong. but for now she can drown those horrible thoughts in the noise of manhattan’s clubs, drunk out of her mind.
4. rinse and repeat
the first single for the album rollout has been chosen (none of jocelyn’s demos were accepted, leaving her pretty disappointed but not surprised), so two weeks later we find our main character in rehearsals for the upcoming music video, following a similar pattern to the original show. however, the concept for the music video would be different in order to generate a contrast between this and what will happen in following episodes: here jocelyn is supposed to burn the trenchcoat associated with the undercover era, while adopting a much more relatable aesthetic in order to showcase this vulnerability that now that the public is paying more attention to her.
however the video does end with a big dance number (symbolizing, according to xander, jocelyn’s regained agency and willpower to get into the spotlight once again) and here is where the idol’s original scene would play out: she puts a lot of pressure on herself and the dance crew, asks for a reshoot over and over again until it’s finally perfect… and the camera was out of focus so jocelyn starts calling out for her mother and losing her grasp on reality. truly this is the only scene from this goddamn show i wouldn’t change because lily rose depp’s acting really sold me.
and here’s when nikki, the label executive, starts scouting dyanne in order to sign her so that they’d have a “backup pop girlie” in case jocelyn was out of business completely and the comeback didn’t work. after all, she was outdancing everybody, right? anyway, on the final third of the episode, joss and dyanne go to a club together in new york and they meet… tedros tedros. the last scene shows tedros and jocelyn dancing in the club together with the camera panning away as though we were an unwanted observer, an ominous presence watching from above.
5. LA girls all look the same
here’s where we actually get to see tedros’ characterization and the adjustments i’d make in order to make him actually menacing instead of a loser:
don’t cast the weeknd as a cult leader when he’s got the type of roundness in his face that makes him look like a care bear.
make him bond with jocelyn in a way that seems believable: what does she see in him? what does he offer her that makes him so irresistible?
make him actually be charismatic in front of jocelyn and slowly turn him into more and more of a bitch with her team as his influence grows and he isolates her and instills discord within her support system, making her reliant on him and him only.
get him actual character goals not only for himself but for his cult. i liked the whole “suffering as art” idea the original show had so i’ll keep it but twisting it, turning it into a series of rituals that would put artists in a connection with the divine, gaining inspiration and actually having success in different artistic industries. jocelyn becoming part of that would be the culmination of their efforts in order to catch the newest big fish of the music industry, which would give them even more influence (in the background of course) and tons of funds.
in this episode we get the first glimpses of jocelyn starting to get “distracted” with things that will later put her career in jeopardy, aka tedros. they start going out, we hear them talk about themselves, about their shared love for music and art in general, and tedros’ work as an “artist developer” (whatever that means) -although they bond over the shared grief for one of their parents. they even go together to a luxurious party where they’re papped together, and dating rumors ensue. her team is wary of tedros and they start making calls to investigate him and check whether he’s signed the necessary NDAs.
jocelyn and tedros end up writing their first song together at the former's house, recording the demo in her home studio where they also have sex. tedros convinces her to send their song to the label, and she can't help but comply after feeling so inspired without having to endure someone's abuse. it feels liberating.
6. a muse (a puppet)
after two weeks, tedros starts spending entire days in jocelyn's apartment, especially now that it's been proven they can write a label-approved song together.
meanwhile, destiny and chaim are telling the rest of team jocelyn that the data they got from tedros was… interesting, to say the least. no criminal records, a relatively normal yet short career in show business and now apparently he had his own "creative collective" and a big house in montana. they agree to further investigations on him and leia gives jocelyn a brief explanation on what they know about tedros and tells her to take care. she barely listens, of course, busy with the creative kick she's getting out of spending so much time with this new man. we can also hear a phone call between nikki and someone from the label saying that if jocelyn's new single doesn't do well, some of her backup catalogue that was gonna be part of jocelyn's comeback album would go to dyanne, who's just signed as a performer instead of a backup dancer.
lastly we get to see even more music making from jocelyn and tedros while they talk about their experiences with toxic families, which apparently they both share and makes the former feel incredibly seen and understood. they end up recording a ballad about not feeling like you're ever enough for someone you love, reflecting jocelyn's conflicting feelings towards her mother. tedros ends up convincing her of making an entire ep together and posting it independently, in order to reclaim her artistic integrity in a putrid business that only wants her as a tool to sell shit. she uploads the raw five-song ep to soundcloud a couple of days after her official comeback single is out, livestreaming to her fans at midnight on instagram (it was so weird to me that we got so little fan interactions in the original show; nowadays you're expected to be very online in order to be a popstar, like… strengthen that parasocial bond, guys!!!). to her it symbolizes a way to prove that she can still create things that matter, not only to others, but to her truly.
7. until your feet bleed.
after being scolded by her team for doing so many things without their permission, jocelyn's artistic achievements are celebrated. the ep ended up trending as much as her new music video, giving tedros approval to continue working with jocelyn on new music for her album that she should have ready for the beginning of the new year. there were talks about tour dates and venues already. we get a couple live performances of jocelyn promoting her single on tv as well, i think it would be cute to see that, you know… jocelyn working instead of doing freaky stuff, sam.
and here's where tedros brings some of his crew with him to work intensely with jocelyn on the album, according to what had been set up between her and her team. through tedros' crew's methods and overall romanticization of tortured artists and pain as a way towards artistic greatness, jocelyn ends up dancing until her feet literally bleed on rehearsals. it is also remarkable that dyanne is absent from said rehearsals (she is recording demos for her upcoming solo debut).
but that isn't tedros' only influence in jocelyn's creative process. now that his team is slowly integrating itself with the og team jocelyn, tensions start arising between them, but the singer is too high to care. still, chaim and destiny don't hide their distaste for tedros and continue with their investigation on him, seeing the discord he’s creating from the inside out.
8. who's the real star?
now tedros is fully installed in jocelyn’s home. tensions between her and her team are higher than ever, and it doesn’t help that the album deadline is getting closer and closer. still, that night is the release of the second single and she was gonna celebrate a new success after seeing how the first one was still charting. at the small event that included tedros’ “artist collective” members and jocelyn’s team, she can’t help but help tedros and only tedros for being her muse, the one to bring her back from the darkness and help her harness her creative talents in ways she didn’t see possible. this throughout the dinner makes leia especially mad, being both jocelyn’s supposed “best friend” and assistant; not only that but her main shoulder to cry on. leia and jocelyn end up having a conversation in the bathroom that ends with a fight between them which translates to, of course, leia getting fired.
jocelyn holds tedros’ hand, muttering “it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter” until leia leaves the scene, fuming.
the single is a moderate hit (a midtempo pop ballad with psychedelic elements, which would be the main inspiration for the upcoming album), but what jocelyn doesn’t expect is to see, when she’s back in her apartment, an announcement on dyanne’s instagram saying she’s releasing a song in two weeks. oh. so that’s why they aren’t speaking as much.
tedros motivates jocelyn to be more competitive in that regard and they work with his crew to get the album finished faster, although that may come at the cost of jocelyn’s wellbeing. with her own team (they found a replacement for leia) they pick the final single and, after three weeks of intensive work, a release day is set: november 1st, a little bit more than a year after the beginning of jocelyn’s mourning and hiatus. so now all the promotional schedule is done, and jocelyn only has to keep putting in the work. and maybe tear dyanne down while she’s at it —it wasn’t like she hadn’t eaten up her competition like that before. she can’t help but feel euphoric at the fact that ambition is coming back to her body. she can’t stop thanking tedros for it. now she only has to get ready to release a groundbreaking record.
the seeds will be an album that cements her legacy. it also will be her last.
9. solitude
(this episode would be longer as we approach the finale, getting to the 1-hour mark so that we have more time to flesh out certain scenes)
the anniversary of jocelyn's mother's death arrives and, as expected, it crushes her. on the one hand she feels really proud of the things she's been able to accomplish, but at the same time it hurts her to see that she can't yet separate her art from pain (although tedros says it's a good thing because at the end of the day she's making art that will outlive her). she’s no longer going to therapy due to tedros’ influence on her, and her support system has been weakened due to said influence as well, leaving her alone and confused with tedros, who seems to be the only one who truly “gets her” (which is not true but she’s being heavily manipulated). in order for jocelyn to cope, they try to write a song together with some of the members of the “artist collective” because that would “help her heal” —although there are some esoteric rituals involved in the “purge” of jocelyn’s confusing and contradictory feelings towards her mom through the creation of that song that would make for a few creepy scenes. this leaves jocelyn with a sense of emptiness inside. but at least, with the help of tedros, his team and the drugs she’s been consistently consuming instead of her prescription medication, jocelyn looks stable, clean, ready for the album release.
the album release party, two weeks later, is the definition of wilderness: euphoric, ecstatic, drugs are abundant, jocelyn is high as a kite and we get a heavily edited montage until she ends up puking in one of the bathrooms (her hair held by xander). there xander kinda tells her about this project they were working on with tedros' collective and that after the tour they would all be going to his house in montana. jocelyn says it's kinda bizarre but she doesn't have the energy to think about that now. when she finally regains consciousness, she finds out the seeds is a critically acclaimed album, and she can't hide her unbridled joy anymore. she giggles alone in her apartment, writing in her diary that maybe all the pain she's gone through finally has some sort of meaning. she snorts a line after that (yeah, she may have some sort of dependency on synthetic drugs, courtesy of tedros' unlimited supply, but the worst effects won't come out until later).
now we do a little fast forward to jocelyn's 20th birthday party (her first in snowy new york), which continues the debauchery we've seen throughout this episode, but this time leia makes an appearance. on a balcony she has a heart to heart with jocelyn in regards to their friendship, the new album, the questions that arise when it comes to working for your so called "best friend" and it seems like things are getting better for them. however, when jocelyn asks leia to come back, the former declines, saying that she knows enough about tedros to stay away from him now, and that she just wanted to wish joss a happy birthday and give her a present. the latter wants to know why and leia just tells her to call destiny (who had been blacklisted by tedros).
after that we hear jocelyn talking on the phone with destiny in a dark room, alone (we can't fully hear what destiny says) and jocelyn ends up throwing her phone to the ground after yelling "NO!". we hear her sobs until the screen fades to black.
the last fifteen minutes of the episode showcase the short lived mandragora tour (from january to march because of quarantine) where we get jocelyn performing both dance numbers and acoustic sets, behind-the-scened footage, jocelyn doing lines with tedros before shows, chaim losing his mind because of jocelyn's behavior, extensive training, etc. we also get to see some strange rituals taking place with tedros's crew. and in the last scene, which takes place in the los angeles date of the tour, tedros gets on one knee, proposing to jocelyn. she says yes before going onstage.
10. jocelyn's independence
this episode, being the season finale, would be almost twice as long as average with a length of 1h 30 minutes.
the episode begins with jocelyn and tedros' wedding ceremony in the montana house. they are surrounded by tedros' crew along with xander, the only one in team jocelyn who got hooked by tedros' schemes (being promised to release music as part of the "artist collective"). it is late march 2020 and the mandragora tour has been postponed until the virus is supposedly “dealt with” after easter (yeah, sure), so now that they have so much spare time in their hands, after making the decision to quarantine in montana away from “la and new york’s distracting work cultures”, jocelyn and tedros realize they should have their wedding in an informal celebration in the house in order to “seize the life the creator has provided them with, which it’s so easy to take away at any moment”. for the celebration i want you to think of midsommar’s aesthetic, ethel cain’s aesthetic and cho giseok’s work (oh, and the breaking dawn wedding):
this episode is meant to showcase the consequences of everything jocelyn’s been through throughout the season, the wedding being the last step into her self abandonment, despite destiny’s warnings: that tedros may have a clean record, but because gave his ex girlfriend whom he abused hush money. in her digging destiny had found out that his artistic collective had links to not only industry people who funded them, but to darker organizations (no wonder there were all types of drugs imaginable in the cabinets). that doubt hung above jocelyn like a dark cloud, but she put all that aside because tedros could provide her with everything she needed: equipment to make her art, emotional support in her dark moments and substances to null the pain. what else could she ask for? that was why she said yes when he proposed. he might not be perfect, but it was better than being alone in her apartment every night, telling to herself she’d never make anything important because without her mother’s approval she was nothing.
after the wedding scene, we get insights into how is life within the “artist collective” (in commas because it’s actually a cult) where tedros rules with soft power. it seems like, despite having a postponed tour and not having spoken with her managers in two weeks, jocelyn is having the time of her life with someone who loves her for who she is —though she finds some actions required from her in their rituals to be a little degrading. the rituals are supposed to strengthen the group’s connection to nature and therefore create more meaningful and inspired art, but they only seem to enlarge tedros’ ego while humiliating the rest (including her). but most times she’s too intoxicated to think about it.
jocelyn also gets to finally hear xander sing again at a bonfire and, by the way he smiles to tedros, she can’t help but suspect they’re hiding something from her. but, after all, her mother is dead so… there is no reason to stop him from having a career anymore. she hasn’t even kept up with dyanne’s debut anymore, although she wanted to destroy her. maybe it’s not as important as she thought it was. after all, everyone is in quarantine now, so she tries to brush it off. she thinks, maybe, she should leave to take her crown once again when the world goes back to where it used to be… but there’s a lot of security surrounding the house.
until one night after a meditation session, jocelyn goes to her shared room with tedros, where she finds a photograph in his bedside table of a girl who can’t be older than 18 in a candid yet suggestive pose. she starts pacing around the room, thinking of destiny’s words. his alleged abuse. the fact that it could have been a teenager. the hush money. the rituals. how far she is from her main support system now. her fight with leia. everything. everything. fucking everything.
she finds the keys to where her phone is kept and tries to make a call, but she’s interrupted by tedros who opens the door and finds her. a fight between them ensues where jocelyn asks to be told what the fuck are they doing there because she feels he’s lying to her and using drugs to manipulate her and he tries to gaslight her but it doesn’t work so the argument becomes more and more violent. there comes a point where he attempts to hit her and then jocelyn demands for explanations about the picture she found… and that’s when it gets truly violent. tedros smashes jocelyn’s phone so that she can’t call destiny and then tries to choke her. in their physical altercation, jocelyn breaks a glass she then uses to stab tedros in self defense in the stomach, leaving her white dress blood-stained. she leaves as soon as he hits the ground, too terrified of herself to look back.
she manages to escape by running to the woods that surround the mansion in the dead of the night, avoiding one of the guards by a hair. making sure she’s far enough from her prison, jocelyn lets out a guttural scream, cursing everyone who made her suffer: from the moment she left her mother’s womb to now, when she escaped tedros’ finger trying to choke her. she’s livid and tired and angry and, after letting all her emotions out, she walks towards a route in the distance. maybe someone is kind enough to let a worldwide famous celebrity in their car to drive them somewhere she can call destiny. now in a field, she lets out a sigh, looking at the mountains. then she looks at us, at the camera, almost asking: “did you have enough?”
credits roll.
and then we’d have a post credit scene!! yay!! here we see jocelyn in a more laid-back situation, three and a half years later (so it would be present day), making beats in her home studio. the shot wouldn’t show her face, but she seems well-adjusted, in peace. i see it as her stepping away from the spotlight and becoming an important producer, which would allow her to make music without dealing with the pressures of being such a big public figure, which caused her so much pain. yet at the same time her passion for art never died.
and that’s how i would have written the idol, for those who had been wondering. thank you from the bottom of my heart for reading this. i know it was a long text (and i’ve been working on conceptualization and writing for this post ever since august) and i hope it was worth the read. please consider following me on my socials if you haven’t already and subscribe to my silly little substack! i wanna keep posting some of my writing there especially after my semester in college is over which is when i’ll have some spare time to write and explore my creativity around there. i’m thinking of writing pieces about social issues, art, pop culture and the internet (because i’m a chronically online mess). enjoy!! love ya!!
related media you can consume instead of “the idol” for the sake of your braincells:
perfect blue (1997) dir. satoshi kon.
dear hollywood, a podcast by alyson stoner.
i’m glad my mom died by jennette mccurdy (2022)
black swan (2010), dir. darren aronofsky.
how the idol could’ve been phenomenal (e1-e5 analysis) by artatmidnight on youtube
THE IDOL: The Ethics of Hatewatching Sam Levinson and The Weeknd's New Show by Shanspeare
THE IDOL: when misogyny is disguised as art by Jordan Theresa
bojack horseman (2014-2020), specifically sarah lynn’s story.
the woman in me by britney spears (2023).
bonus: what i was listening while writing this long ass text
Ultraviolence (Deluxe) (2014) by Lana del Rey.
this psychedelic dream pop playlist by shalante
Norman fucking Rockwell! (2019) by Lana del Rey
this mitski playlist by isabella
Electra Heart (2012) by Marina.
Silence Between Songs (2023) by Madison Beer.
Bewitched (2023) by Laufey.
this ethel cain playlist by jules <3:
Punisher (2020) by Phoebe Bridgers.
Hozier (Special Edition) (2014) by Hozier.