Even before its release, the Max series The Idol has been marred with controversy. Accusations of the series being “torture porn” have been levied at the Sam Levinson-created series. In the latest episode of the series however, viewers were surprised by the revelation that Jocelyn, the main character of the show played by Lily-Rose Depp (The King, Tusk), is actually manipulating her supposed manipulator, the cult leader Tedros. Da’Vine Joy Randolph (High Fidelity, The Lost City), who plays Destiny on The Idol, sat down with The Hollywood Reporter to discuss the ending of the show.
Randolph explained why she believes that the ending is brilliant and empowering. “I loved it because I love the idea that they flipped it,” she said. “When I was doing interviews prior, everybody was up in arms and I kept saying, ‘Do you really think that someone as intelligent and brilliant as Sam, who accomplished Euphoria, would literally be that on the surface?’ Why I liked it, I should explain, is number one, it’s showing something new. When have we seen the woman do it? In a weird way, it’s feminine empowerment. We’ve never seen that side of this.”
Randolph further elaborated on the finale’s perspective on fame. “What is it like when the talent has this huge team and all these people who are working for them and everything’s going along and then you lose a bit of yourself?” she said. “I think there is a cost for that level of success and fame, and there’s a part of you that does, I think, give yourself over. I think the key is and what I strive for and am fighting for, I don’t care how big I get, how can I remain humble? How can I remain grounded? How can I remain true to myself without having to sign that over, right? So now it’s not just, what do you think of this man doing this thing to this woman? It’s taking back the power for women in the sense of, that girl knew what she was doing. I think it’s clever and I think it gives it a great setup for what could be moving forward. I think it turns it on its side and, hopefully, did what it needs to do in terms of shocking people which I hope then made all the other stuff worth it. When it’s questions of this being inappropriate or he’s quote-unquote ‘raping’ her, this kind of answers all those things.”
Randolph also discussed the “torture porn” accusations. “We’re not inventing something new,” she said. “We all saw Cabin by the Lake. That was freaky and weird. We’ve seen Eyes Wide Shut. There’s stuff out there. We didn’t reinvent the wheel, this is just the era of people voicing their feelings and that’s cool because at the end of the day, you want your stuff to be talked about. Good, better or indifferent, that you can’t control. But you want it to be talked about. I’m happy with people’s interaction because that lets me know that the work was impactful. There was nobody out there that was like, ‘Well, I’m indifferent.’ Everybody has something strong to say, and that I love. That I’ve never been a part of, and I think that’s part of the magic of Sam.”
You can read the full interview here. You can watch The Idol now on Max.