To be a fan is to be a parasite

As a self-professed info-maniac and someone with an innate love of culture, pop music and film (read: a gay guy), I’m naturally drawn to movies about musicians, particularly documentaries, which allow filmmakers rare access to a world few actually know about, despite what they may assume. Like any subgenre, these films vary in quality. While usually entertaining, documentarians will seldom capture something truly insightful about the life of a pop star. Even with admittance into the inner circle as a spectator, documentary filmmakers can’t always peer close enough into their subject’s life. Too often, these movies are vanity projects, co-produced by the person they’re chronicling, that don’t have the privilege of being able to dig into the real nitty-gritty of what it’s like to be a world-famous celebrity, which is to say, both incredible and absolutely horrifying. But that makes perfect sense. A musician being filmed for a documentary wouldn’t want to alienate the fans that have been an integral part of their success, lest they risk damaging their brand. Calculated self-awareness is as necessary to the pop star formula as musical prowess; even more so in the digital age, where even a whiff of ingratitude is grounds for cancellation.

But there is one moment in a pop star documentary that breaks this mold, briefly yet brilliantly illustrating fame’s dual nature. In Chris Moukarbel’s 2017 film, “Gaga: Five Foot Two,” Lady Gaga is in New York City, working on the final cut for her music video for the song “Perfect Illusion.” A crowd of fans, photographers, and, ostensibly, people who want her to sign merchandise so they can sell it online, has formed outside. To get to her car, Gaga must wade through a sea of people with unclear intentions. Amid the chaos, Moukarbel’s camera catches one fan in the group, a young woman, yelling, “Mommy, Mommy!” The self-infantilizing is disconcerting to watch, and no doubt petrifying to experience firsthand, but Gaga dodges the fan and gets into her waiting vehicle. But when Gaga and her posse arrive at their destination across town, the same young woman has beaten them there, and waits with a sharpie and a photo. She pleads again, “Will you sign this for me, Mommy?” Gaga reluctantly signs the image and takes a photo with the woman, before ducking away.

Not every interaction between a celebrity and their fan is so unsettling, but there is, typically, a transactional nature to these brief encounters. The fan wants something — closeness to fame, something to hock online, the thrill of being acknowledged by someone they see as almost super-human — and, in many cases, they’ll do just about anything to get it, even racing across town to get to a recording studio before their idol does. In his new thriller, “Lurker,” writer-director Alex Russell artfully examines what happens when this transaction is allowed to continue past its natural conclusion, and the consequences of blurring the line that separates an artist and their fans. Where the film occasionally falters by Russell’s reluctance to twist the knife, it also succeeds in its director’s admirable commitment to realism. In this way, “Lurker” feels less like a narrative thriller and more like a chilling, genuine document of how easy it’s become to manipulate those around us in a hyper-digital world, where the mere proximity to celebrity can be as powerful as celebrity itself.

When Matthew (Théodore Pellerin), a young retail worker at a trendy Los Angeles streetwear shop, encounters the rising, eponymous pop star Oliver (Archie Madekwe), Matthew sees an opportunity. Living with his grandmother and struggling as a digital artist and filmmaker, Matthew is just trying to make ends meet in an incredibly competitive field. But when Oliver walks into the store, entourage in tow, Matthew makes a play to ingratiate himself with the pop star that goes better than he ever could’ve expected. Wisely, Matthew doesn’t just start playing one of Oliver’s songs, as some fans might try to do; he grabs the aux cord and queues up one of Oliver’s personal favorite songs, a cited influence in the musician’s art. It’s a piece of info about Oliver that Matthew knew by lurking online, which he’s stored away in the annals of his brain in case a moment like this might ever arise. The two strike up a conversation, and Matthew is inducted into Oliver’s inner circle almost overnight.

Immediately, Russell is moving puzzle pieces into place to form a picture of how contemporary stardom works. Oliver is quickly becoming one of the hottest new musicians. He’s self-satisfied and loves to have people fawn over him, but his star is still nascent enough for Oliver to retain some naivete. Matthew strikes him as a cool guy — a friend, or maybe even a potential collaborator — not someone who explicitly wants something from him. Matthew, on the other hand, is savvy but not ambitious. There are dozens of other, more difficult routes for him to get his career off the ground, but he’s content to toil away in a corny streetwear shop, hoping that, one day, he’ll magically get his big break. And as Russell suggests, maybe that’s not such a far-fetched idea anymore. We live in an age when anyone can be famous under the right circumstances. You can be interviewed on the street, make a joke about “spitting on that thang,” and, within a matter of weeks, have a podcast and be invited to throw the first pitch at a Mets game. “Lurker” might not be the story of Hawk Tuah exactly, but Russell cleverly understands that just because someone seems aimless, that doesn’t mean they don’t know what they want.

Start your day with essential news from Salon.
Sign up for our free morning newsletter, Crash Course.

As Matthew spends more time around Oliver, “Lurker” melds into a combination of “Misery” and “The Talented Mr. Ripley” for the new age, when anyone with wealth, power and internet clout is liable to gain a clique of yes-people. The other members of Oliver’s team, aside from his sweet manager, Shai (Havana Rose Liu), put Matthew through a grueling hazing process, intimidated by the latest person to enter their inner sanctum. But Matthew’s talents as a filmmaker and videographer are undeniable, and soon, he’s tapped to follow Oliver and produce a documentary about his rise to fame. Naturally, this new, made-up job title pushes someone else out of Oliver’s circle — an apt shape, given that what goes around eventually comes back around to smack Matthew upside the head when the same thing happens to him.

It’s when Matthew’s newfound access is threatened that things start to get tense, but also when Russell pulls a few punches just as they’re about to hit. But though “Lurker” could certainly push the envelope further, Matthew’s ascent, fall from grace and gradual climb back up wouldn’t feel as realistic as it needs to for the film to land its sickly ending. Pellerin — who has just as much cunning, wide-eyed smarm here as he did in the vastly underrated, short-lived series, “On Becoming a God in Central Florida” — is at his best when he gets to play into Matthew’s overtly manipulative side. As much as Matthew wants to be Oliver’s friend, he’s not afraid to push, elbow, punch and blackmail his way into that role. There’s a violence in him that appears when tested, one that’s not far from how superfans and stans act in the replies under PopCrave posts, and or how they respond to even the most moderate criticism of their beloved idols. Online stan-dom thrives in pernicious cruelty, and social media has become the breeding ground for people like Matthew, who feel adrift until they find a pop star to latch onto and a community of like-minded fans to team up with. At the end of the day, a real-life (well, terminally online but still in real life) stan of a pop star wants the same things that the people in Oliver’s fictional posse do: to have their existence validated by celebrity.

(MUBI) Archie Madekwe as “Oliver” in “Lurker”

While “Lurker” might feel a bit slight at times, and viewers may crave a full-scale, “Mr. Ripley”-esque marble statue to the dome, a lethal level of violence never arrives. For “Lurker” to work, things can’t get quite that bloody. This is a film about what really goes on behind the scenes, what happens in the footage of pop star documentaries that’s left on the cutting room floor. “Lurker” is the story of what might happen if someone like Lady Gaga’s spooky superfan had chosen a somewhat different, though related, kind of fandom, playing coy enough to worm her way into the singer’s camp. Russell keenly analyzes Los Angeles’ lecherous atmosphere and the glitzy parties where everyone has their own agenda, no doubt aware of how someone like Charli XCX’s creative director, Terrence O’Connor, has become something of a celebrity himself to XCX’s fans, just by being in her orbit.

By focusing on the frightening ways a fan can collect information and seize an opportunity to get a leg up in the right circumstances, Russell prioritizes believability over spectacle. The decision pays off in the film’s third act, when Matthew is exonerated in the court of the public and receives the adoration he’s been trying to leech from Oliver. In the end, there are no dead bodies, no ruined careers, no narrow escapes. Instead, “Lurker” suggests something far more sinister: Our old world is gone. Hard work is dead. The only way to achieve success is through exploitation and destruction, and everyone we idolize figured that out a long time ago.

The post To be a fan is to be a parasite appeared first on Salon.com.

Source link