“Are you okay? I’m okay because you’re okay,” Billie Eilish announces at the final show of her 2018 Where’s My Mind Tour in Salt Lake City. Cheeseball and decidedly California hippie-dippy, Eilish’s entire “magnetism” is one built on the rapport she shares with her fans, a legion she says she does not consider to be fans, so much as her lifeblood. And who would know better about that kind of dynamic than someone who was so unabashedly obsessed with Justin Bieber?
This aspect of her life (and personality, for Bieber is undoubtedly part of her)–being a fangirl before becoming a source of generating fangirls herself–is one of the few consistent threads we can really get out of R.J. Cutler’s semi-shaped “narrative” for Eilish’s rockumentary, The World’s A Little Blurry. And yes, while Gen Z likely won’t recognize such a “boomer” word to describe a documentary about a musician’s life (both personal and on the road), that’s what genre the movie falls under. With the title being taken from a song of hers called “ilomilo,” it aims to show just how skewed reality can be when you become an overnight sensation and everyone wants a piece of you.
While her groundwork was put in circa 2015 with the single “Ocean Eyes” (played often by L.A.’s KCRW, presently under fire for being too white/racist), Eilish experienced the phenomenon of “insta-celebrity” as only the internet age could furnish. And no one seems more surprised by it than her, constantly wondering why anyone likes her, as elucidated by her self-deprecating, “I’m such a piece of shit” nature. Maybe she should call up Cazzie David. In any event, it’s a far cry from Madonna lapping up fame and enjoying every moment of it after how hard she worked to achieve this dream. But that doesn’t fit into the “modesty” and “demureness” of the present generation, who find boomer and even millennial excesses to be passé. But that lack of “excess” really doesn’t make for a captivating two hours and twenty minutes. Especially in comparison to the ribald content of some of the greatest rockumentaries ever made, including Don’t Look Back, Gimme Shelter, The Kids Are Alright, Truth or Dare and, more recently, The Punk Singer.
Eilish is rich, white, totally intertwined with her family and anti-drugs, so what’s the most interesting thing that can really happen? To that anti-drug end, when it comes to the making of a pop star, there is always a distinct difference between those who find success while still in their teenage years versus those who break out in their early to mid-twenties. The prototype, Madonna, made it at twenty-four. Lily Allen was twenty-one when her MySpace fame translated to a hit record called Alright, Still. Lady Gaga was twenty-two when The Fame got unleashed. Katy Perry was twenty-three when “I Kissed A Girl” was released and climbed the charts in 2008. Lana Del Rey turned twenty-seven in 2012 when Born to Die became a massively successful debut album. When you look at those who have constantly been entrenched in the world of fame from the time of their adolescence–Britney Spears, Justin Bieber, Miley Cyrus, etc.–the contrast is much starker. It really does have a greater impact on your psychosis when all you’ve ever known is the non-reality of celebrity starting from your formative years. This much is manifested in the 2008 documentary on Britney Spears called Britney Spears: For the Record. Early on, Britney asks, “What’s weird?” The filmmaker reminds, “Your life. Do you know it’s weird?” She laughs and says, “Do I know my life is weird? It’s all I’ve ever known. I don’t see it as being weird.”
Eilish possibly has a similar mindset despite knowing that even if she’s “on top of the world, your world isn’t real.” The expectations of her are as high and pressure-laden as ever, but Eilish is spared the cruelty of tabloid culture endured by so many in the 00s, which is one aspect of how her image is carefully controlled. There’s a moment when a member of her team tells her to think cautiously about making an anti-drug statement (as she does on “xanny”) because it would be bad if she was ever caught doing drugs in the future. The craziness of having to think about what you’re doing so far in advance lest what you say later will come back to haunt you because it’s already been documented on the internet is a specific plight of the twenty-first century pop star.
Fortunately, just because the internet exists, doesn’t mean everyone is adept at using it to dig up mistakes and hypocrisies past. Eilish herself possesses a lack of awareness for pop culture “of yore” that drives home that point. Like when Kevin and Bean on KROQ refer to her as Doogie Howser and she has no idea who that is. She also has no idea who Orlando Bloom is when Katy Perry shows up with him to Coachella (though if you show her on the internet, she’ll recognize him as someone who’s more than a random dude Katy Perry just met).
It is also at Coachella that Eilish has her first physical contact with Justin Bieber. Bieber, who was suspiciously already wearing a surgical mask at the time (as though he had been tipped off to COVID-19 well in advance), locks eyes with Billie, and she absolutely loses it, finally allowing herself to be embraced by him. The fact that the biggest arc of the documentary pertains to this evolving Justin Bieber relationship–with Billie going from fan to friend–should be some indication of the overall vapidity. And of the idea that what a “star” means in the present is someone accessible. This is in direct contrast to the past, where what made a star special was being so elusive and unknowable.
As stated, it’s difficult to make a “riveting” documentary about a young, rich person, who already sort of grew up in relative comfort. But the O’Connell-Baird clan is sure to play up how they struggled, knowing full well that people will lash out if they see Eilish’s fame as yet another extension of privilege. Of course, it was. Eilish had the talent and the voice, there’s no denying it. But how many out of hundreds of thousands of aspiring singers are actually given the chance to cultivate their craft from the age of thirteen because their brother has an A&R connection?
One can also imagine the O’Connell-Baird style of parenting taking hold in the generation of Eilish acolytes who want their own child to become famous, and see the same “laissez-faire” attitude adopted by her parents, Maggie and Patrick, being a viable way for their “investment” in birthing someone to pay off. Because having a famous child, as Jamie Spears will attest, is the surest way to a cash cow. While Billie’s father is slightly more checked out, some part of him feeling an irrelevance over never having made it the way his children did, Maggie exudes the Mrs. George aura of, “I’m not like a regular mom, I’m a cool mom.” This comes across when she talks about teenagers as though she has authority and insight into their psyches–what with Eilish being the spokesperson for the present batch of teens and tweens (the kind who would never deign to listen to Justin Bieber). She talks of their problems as a way to assure there is no “fake depression” at play. Yet no one has ever really accused Gen Z of being disproportionately depressed. That was the critique lobbied against Gen X, and the clothing companies saw fit to capitalize on the grunge aesthetic that went hand in hand with their angst.
Alas, for being someone so concerned with the environment and how it represents the inevitable destruction of her generation, nowhere in the documentary does Eilish talk about it. And then there’s her blithe excitement over getting a black Dodge Challenger–not exactly “eco-friendly.” But then, doesn’t every white girl deserve to get the car she wants when she obtains her driver’s license? The only regret is that Olivia Rodrigo’s song of the same name wasn’t out in time to use during this scene, the lyrics of which also would have played into Eilish’s “relationship” with Q a.k.a Brandon Quention Adams. Though it doesn’t come across as a relationship so much as Eilish patently being more into it, and Q not really caring either way.
The real romance, it has to be said, is between her and her brother, Finneas. The dynamic is undeniably cringeworthy, and it’s difficult to imagine either of them ever being able to have a significant other who can compare to their sibling. It’s all very Angelina Jolie and James Haven. Naturally, there will be those who would say, “That’s disgusting, you’re making their sweet relationship perverted.” Girl, it ain’t sweet. It’s way too enmeshed. Just like Eilish is with her entire family. And no one seems to think it’s a bit odd that she doesn’t move out of her childhood home and gain some independence. Of course, Maggie would likely posit that Billie needs people in her life who can keep her grounded. She says she doesn’t understand how anyone Billie’s age with such fame could have ever survived without a parent guiding them. Well, Britney had a parent, and that didn’t turn out so great. For all the “unconditional love” a parent might think they have, once they start getting accustomed to a certain lifestyle, all bets are off–and they’re not so quick to make decisions in the best interest of the spawn, so much as their bank account.
Eilish, being a child of the “screen scene,” knows how to inform herself (even if she doesn’t seem to know how to use Google to look up things that will make her sound less out of touch with generations past). She’s therefore a sufferer of that unique post-Gen X plight: being constantly concerned with what people on the internet might say about her. “The internet’s going to be mean if I do it,” she says of “belting” out “No Time to Die” for the eponymous James Bond movie that will evidently never be released. She’s aware of the absurdity that 300,000 people will watch a spider crawl on her chest on Instagram Live. “Why would anyone watch that?” she wonders. But, more to the point, why would anyone watch a rockumentary when the majority of all “cinéma vérité” footage exists on Instagram? There’s simply nothing interesting about the way these productions are made now. For everything is already an open book in the lives of pop stars thanks to their social media accounts. Themselves fairly banal. And it’s in part because there’s nothing interesting about the present time. Eilish can’t be blamed for that, she’s merely another product to be sold as a means to reflect youth back to itself. Katy Perry warns her she has about ten years of frenzy coming her way. Indeed, every ten years tends to be the cycle of when a new “teen queen” arrives, so Eilish knows to enjoy her place in the sun now–before it bores a hole entirely into every Antarctic ice shelf.
As for the physical toll the profession has already taken on her body, one can’t help but think of how uniquely indefatigable Madonna is in comparison to those pop stars who have come after her. Of how she continued to perform her Madame X Tour in the face of a major leg and hip injury. Of how grueling and date-heavy every tour before that was. Eilish is literally forty-three years younger than Madonna and already can’t hack the physical demands of pop stardom, which might be changing anyway because concert tours will never quite go back to normal post-corona. And yes, let’s not discount Eilish’s respective lack of stamina when taking into account the disadvantage of a major hip injury during the formative physical age of thirteen. Not to mention the depression that came with being told she had to give up dance (the thing that caused her hip injury in the first place).
It was a depression likely greater than the one that came after her decision to break up with Q, who Eilish paints, whether she means to or not, as some kind of “scary black man” because he punched a wall. And now, of course, her parents are scared for her too. Will their daughter’s love of rap music, therefore a presumed love of black men, be her undoing? Speaking of rap, which Eilish frequently cites as an influence on her own work, the singer’s musical style is often touted as innovative and unprecedented. But this connotes a rather considerable gloss-over of her marked tonal and thematic similarities to Fiona Apple (though most will choose Lana Del Rey before Apple as a comparison). Even her stage presence borrows noticeably from others. There is the giant moon in Eilish’s backdrop being a recent motif in Ariana Grande’s Sweetener Tour–itself already ripped from Celine Dion. There is the bed she wields in a non-sex oriented way to further prove being the twenty-first century ideal of a sexless pop star. Before her, John and Yoko used a bed to make a statement about peace. Now, she’s just using it to sit in with her brother (again, not weird at all). After John and Yoko, Madonna came along to sexualize every bed she laid in for “Like A Virgin” purposes. With Billie, it’s just about the horrors of sleeping. Oh how times have changed.
Even compared to another recent rockumentary (from Netflix, not Apple), Miss Americana, starring a fellow juggernaut of a pop star named Taylor Swift, there isn’t anything “super exciting” or engaging about Eilish’s life. She’s just this girl from L.A. who tapped into the freakdom of fame. Even the artistry lengthily highlighted during the songwriting process isn’t as “scintillating” to watch as Swift coming up with her music and lyrics. Yet what does stand out is Eilish’s “concept creating” process for videos, using her mother as the template for the early stages of making the “when the party’s over” video. After the shooting of that video, Eilish declares she’s directing all her own shit thenceforward. She got wiser much faster than Swift in that regard. And, at the very least, The World’s A Little Blurry is certainly better than Ariana Grande’s excuse me, i love u.
Showing us some entries from old journals as we get toward the end of the movie, one of the lines reads, “I am a void, the epitome of nothing.” In other words, the perfect vessel for twenty-first century fame. And the equally as hollow rockumentaries that come with it.
