Everything About "Daisy Jones & The Six" That Pisses Me Off
Jeff Bezos presents: Shein "A Star Is Born"
Original IP is an endangered species; stories are all spin-offs or prequels or remakes or adaptations. The corporate calculation of suits eager to cash in on built-in fanbases while taking every creative shortcut available to them plus audiences’ weakness for nostalgia grabs and familiar fictional universes equals an endless loop of retreading derivative narrative ground. It feels like there’s no way off this ride.
One of the people who stands to gain the most from this adaptation-happy environment is Taylor Jenkins Reid, a New York Times-bestselling author and foremost BookTok darling (derogatory). Her books are the literary equivalent of La Croix – the experience of reading them is more akin to hearing someone else outline the plot of a book to you, leaving behind only the faintest aftertaste of an actual novel. Her characters are one-dimensional cardboard cutouts, and her world-building is similarly shallow. Reid’s settings are sanitized and distant, regardless of whether we’re supposed to be caught up in the heyday of 70s rock and roll or clawing our way out of the seedy underbelly of Old Hollywood. And as if it’s not enough that her novels are all premise and no substance, her writing is also deeply uninspiring. It goes down easy, but nothing – not a memorable line of dialogue nor a clever/gorgeous/funny piece of prose – lingers after the fact. The only thing you come out of a Reid novel thinking about is: I wonder who they’re going to cast in the adaptation.
Which brings us to Daisy Jones & The Six, the first of Reid’s novels to be adapted for the screen (a film version of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo is already in the works at Netflix). Daisy Jones & The Six is thinly (barely) veiled Fleetwood Mac fanfic – girl joins 70s rock band and becomes the breakout star, band writes an album about its tangled web of romantic drama, band gets huge, and band breaks up at the height of fame. On the page it was tedious and frustrating, being told over and over again how great the music and the performers were instead of being able to actually see and hear the band for ourselves. The novel felt like Reid’s spec script for an eventual TV show or movie, so it came as no surprise when Amazon Studios and Hello Sunshine, Reese Witherspoon’s production company, optioned it. The resulting series was depressingly true to the spirit of the source material – hollow, and not nearly as messy or complex as it thinks it is. The music was better than I expected and Riley Keough, who played Daisy Jones (it’s the titular role!), made the most of an insultingly underwritten character. As far as highlights go, that’s about it. Anyway, here’s everything else about it that pisses me off:
The faces Billy Dunne (Sam Claflin) makes when he sings
Prime Video promoting Amazon’s Daisy Jones-themed store in nearly every scene
This comically on-the-nose line of dialogue from Daisy’s mom
Daisy’s flimsy excuse of a backstory
The wig Karen Sirko (Suki Waterhouse) wears in the 1990s interview scenes
This bit of expository voiceover
The wig Billy wears in the 1990s interview scenes
Never-ending brand tie-ins
Simone Jackson (Nabiyah Be) being sidelined
Hiding Timothy Olyphant behind a bunch of facial hair and yet another atrocious wig
And finally: everything about Camila’s characterization, or lack thereof
also -- “Her books are the literary equivalent of La Croix – the experience of reading them is more akin to hearing someone else outline the plot of a book to you, leaving behind only the faintest aftertaste of an actual novel.” so harsh but so so true
soo agree with everything you said here (but you already know that)