The lives of musicians are always a topic of interest to filmmakers and it’s one of the few Hollywood trends that never seems to die. Recently we had movies about Leonard Bernstein, Whitney Houston, Elvis, Weird Al Yankovic, and Billie Holiday. In the next few years there’s projects about the lives of Bob Marley, Michael Jackson, Madonna and Amy Winehouse. The trend has been pushing through for years. Is the trend, however, ethical? And is it accidentally feeding an obsession with celebrity?
On the one hand, the movies themselves have been hit or misses. The ones that stand out have a uniqueness to them, either with killer performances (like in “Straight Outta Compton”) or another twist, such as it being a musical (like “Rocketman”). The ones that miss are usually committing the crime of serious miscast (like “Great Balls of Fire”) or essentially being an acted out Wikipedia page, but somehow duller (like “I Wanna Dance With Somebody”). But there’s always a cycle with these movies: An actor is cast as an iconic musician, the fan base either rejoices or calls for the actors and directors heads on pikes, then it dies down. The cycle repeats when the trailer comes out and again when the films themselves are released.
The reaction to the trailer for “Back in Black,” the biopic about Amy Winehouse, is evident of this. Fans have lambasted the trailer in the comment sections online. They slammed the choice of ever-controversial Sam Taylor-Johnson as director, the casting of Marisa Abela as Winehouse and the film’s existence altogether in light of the fact that her portrayal in the media is often cited as a cause for her eventual death in 2011. There’s two ethical concerns here. The first is the fanbase being cruel and unjust to an actor or filmmaker doing their job; their ravenous defense of their preferred celebrity, instead of just not engaging, often makes their whole fandom seem more like lunatics than defenders of a musician’s honor. However, do the fans have a point that the film’s existence may be unethical and disrespectful to Winehouse’s memory?
Tragedy exists in the music world. Winehouse is one of thousands of musicians who tragically died too soon and sadly, she was a woman who in her life struggled with self harm, drug and alcohol abuse and bulimia. Of course, she was so much more than that and the movie’s intentions may be good in showing her success, but is it right to show her suffering? This was a real, flesh and blood woman and very easily, the film could veer into exploitation. The exploitation of a real person’s suffering is what made the sexist, borderline pornographic garbage “biopic” about Marilyn Monroe, “Blonde,” so hated and so awful.
There also raises the issue of no endorsement, or the wrong kind of endorsement. Mayhem drummer Necrobutcher expressed his disapproval of the film made about Mayhem, 2019’s “Lords of Chaos,” because it was well into production before he and his bandmates were even notified. Mayhem, of course, is a highly controversial band and two of its original members died in tragic ways. Wouldn’t it have been the right thing to do to notify the band or the deceased members’ family before deciding to create a narrative of their lives? Seems like a rough area.
Another issue fans have is when the wrong people are involved. Winehouse fans are highly skeptical of Winehouse’s father, Mitch Winehouse’s involvement in the film, after a 2015 documentary made by some of Winehouse’s friends was highly critical of him (which he has denied). There is worry that the involvement of certain persons damages the integrity of the story, whether it be the person trying to make themselves look better or attempting to sanitize issues involving the musician. Some critics quickly pointed out Elvis’s portrayal in the two films about him, “Elvis” (2022) and “Priscilla” (2023) – the former portrayed him as a complicated but thoughtful character and the latter portrayed him as volatile and controlling. This is partially the reason why Lisa Marie Presley was against the film “Priscilla” shortly before her passing. The line between truth, interpretation and narrative is such a cluster, and how films portray these people can determine how we view them as an audience.
What’s the solution then? Music biopics aren’t an unnecessary thing either. Musicians, love them or hate them, are cultural icons. One would be foolish to dismiss the cultural contributions of musicians like Bob Marley or Madonna, they’re just as important and deserving of cultural depiction as Abe Lincoln or Julius Caesar. But how do we keep it ethical? Bottom line, we can’t make it entirely so and we are in an endless cycle of discourse every time a music biopic comes out. But that is the reality of how we can both appreciate a film about our favorite musicians and discuss the truth of who they are. There are obvious lines to not be crossed and hopefully the filmmakers making biopics can find a way to balance a good movie about a real, complicated person with respect and honesty.
