‘The Idol’ Is Bad but the Parents Television and Media Council Is Worse

Lord help me, I’m still watching The Idol every Sunday night on Max. I can’t help it; it’s a terrible car crash but kind of amazing to watch with someone who also thinks it’s awful, to laugh along with. The dialogue is terrible, the gratuitous nudity is unnecessary, the costume choices are inexplicable (Why the hell does the show’s star The Weeknd have a rat tail?!) and the plot lines are a misogynistic dumpster fire. Additionally, for a show about music, the songs are forgettable and bland, yet they’re treated as the next coming. Hilarious! Basically, it has all the parts necessary to be a trash masterpiece, but it falls so comically flat it’s almost redeemable. It’s the very definition of almost, but not quite.

The Idol is not a show that needs to survive past a first season, for all the reasons I listed above. It does not, however, need to be canceled because of its adult content, despite what the joyless dorks over at The Parents Television and Media Council would like you to believe. That’s right, the organization that wants to ban everything “in the name of the children” is back, and they’re targeting The Idol. Per The Wrap:

The Parents Television and Media Council has called on HBO to cancel music industry drama “The Idol,” citing its depiction of “torture porn” and “sexual abuse” as sinking into “such depravity.”

[…]

Additionally, PTC also demanded that the network’s streaming platform Max halt marketing directed to youth through social media for the show, and requested that the streamer tighten up its “wide gaps in its parental ‘controls’” that is responsible for younger audiences having access to watch “The Idol” and “other explicit TV-MA content like ‘Euphoria.’”

Look, if you want to be a killjoy, I have a very simple solution for you: don’t watch something you don’t like. Hell, that mentality is even extended to the people in your household if you want. Set up parental controls on your tv or streaming service (Max most definitely has this capability.) Hide the remote. Turn off the internet. Do whatever you want in your home; it’s still a free country. What I will not stand for is controlling conservative weirdos dictating what trash I can consume at my leisure.

And these are extremely controlling conservative weirdos we’re talking about. The group was founded by the extreme Christian activist L. Brent Bozell III as a branch of the Media Research Center, whose whole goal was to undermine the legitimacy of nonpartisan news outlets by convincing viewers they were left-wing propagandists. The PTC wants to do the same thing but with narrative media, convincing the world anything even slightly taboo is harming children—even, or really especially when it comes to programs not meant for children.

We’re already at this weird point in time where other chowderheads want to bring back the Hays Code (bad idea!) because they can’t stand a little sex in their media, and now here I am, a single woman well into her thirties, and some group wants to control what smut gets produced. There are like eleventy billion Kirk Cameron Left Behind movies. They have their own media to critique (and it’s godawful!) Yet they’re focusing on The Idol, and worse yet, making me defend a truly atrocious show because it’s bad for many reasons, but not because it dares to show a woman’s nipple on the screen.

There are, arguably, valid criticisms to be made of the show and the way co-creator and director Sam Levinson frames its sex scenes. (This right-wing group is hardly the first to use the term “torture porn” to describe the series.) But The Idol is not a kid’s show. If your child ends up watching it, that’s a conversation you need to have with them, not try to get it taken off the air. And we cannot let this group pretend this is about protecting the children. It might help their case if conservatives didn’t use the exact same narrative in targeting drag shows, books, and even abortion. It’s yet another attempt at controlling people who don’t want to be controlled by them. So let’s call it what it is: bulls*hit.

Now look, I’m not suggesting you go watch The Idol in protest. (Again, It’s really bad.) Just don’t give in to this particular argument as to why the show is terrible. The enemy (PTC) of our enemy (Sam Levinson) is not our friend.

(featured image: HBO)