The Idol star Jane Adams has defended the controversial HBO show against criticisms it’s faced over its treatment of female characters.
Two months before the show’s 4 June release, Rolling Stone published an exposé featuring anonymous interviews with those who worked on the series. They alleged that co-creators Abel “The Weeknd” Tesfaye and Sam Levinson (Euphoria) had taken the show “disgustingly off the rails” to create a drama “about a man who gets to abuse this woman and she loves it”.
The show was then condemned as “shameful” and compared to pornography by critics after premiering at Cannes, with some highlighting the skimpy clothes that Lily-Rose Depp, 24, wears to portray series lead Jocelyn.
However, Depp has defended the show on numerous occasions, praising director Levinson and saying that the “occasional bareness” of her character physically is meant to mirror her emotional state.
Adams, who plays ruthless record-label executive Nikki Katz in the series, told Vanity Fair that supposed feminist critics were refusing to hear what the female cast members were saying about the show.
“What is amazing to me is no one’s listening – I’ve not seen that before in all my days, such a dogged ‘We refuse to change the narrative,’” Adams, 58, said.
“I especially want to say to all the feminists, ‘Go f*** yourself.’ All these women that I’m working with are talking about their experience and you’re not listening. You’re not listening!”
Jane Adams— (Eddy Chen/HBO)
The actor, who’s best known for her work in indie projects like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, added: “Free speech is the license to offend, period, full stop.
“The funniest stuff, to me, is going to offend a group of people no matter what you do.”
Similarly, in a recent interview with The Independent, Adams’s co-star Hank Azaria (who plays Jocelyn’s manager Chaim) reassured that “there was tremendous respect, collaboration, feedback, and checking in from Sam about whether everybody was comfortable with what was going on” in regards to the show’s numerous nude scenes.
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“I understand anybody being daunted or triggered by what they might be seeing. That’s understandable. All I can say is in making it, a lot of care was taken with everybody,” he said.
Adams has received praise for her performance in the show, which has otherwise been panned.
The five-episode drama reached its conclusion on Sunday (2 July) with a controversial twist that baffled viewers.
All episodes of The Idol are streaming on NOW in the UK and Max in the US.
