Netflix is here with another documentary series that is sure to leave anyone shocked. Focusing on Lou Pearlman, a talent manager and scam artist, who was the mind behind boy bands such as Backstreet Boys, *NSYNC, and O-Town, among others, the docuseries sheds light on the man’s life and deeds with the help of interviews and accounts from his book, Bands, Brands and Billions.
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Dirty Pop Netflix Director
David Terry Fine
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Dirty Pop Series Episodes
3
In a documentary series featuring boybands and fraud, you’d expect the most astonishing part would be how a man who worked with blimps would become a talent manager for Backstreet Boys. However, astonishingly enough, Netflix’s Dirty Pop: The Boy Band Scam features something so surprisingly unnecessary and forced that it makes you forget that this is a true crime series – for some reason, the makers of this show thought that digitally enhancing Pearlman’s old interviews to reiterate things written in his book is the way to go and would be a selling point but it only makes you feel more and more uncomfortable as the episodes roll on, leaving you looking around wondering whether this is ethical or not.
Apart from this rather strange editorial choice, the Netflix series is a spectacle and then some, taking you on a strange journey through the world of Pearlman, a man with a lot of talents and a lot more bad ideas, that starts off with us watching interviews of friends, family, associates as well as the members of the boy bands that he once founded. Of course, everyone isn’t here to give us their two cents but there are enough people to lend their point of view of the entire ordeal to keep us thoroughly engrossed. The sheer audacity of this fraud is what will keep viewers hypnotised with the story, an ordeal that no one should ever have to face in their lives.
I think the sheer scale of his fraud is what will keep viewers engaged to see where things will go next – is there more to this fraud or have we reached the end? The questions keep on flowing through our minds. In that regard, the documentary does a fantastic job. However, it’s very difficult to understand where it stands when it comes to a man who has quite literally destroyed people’s lives for his own pleasure. There are interviews and moments in the storytelling where it seems like Dirty Pop might be sympathetic to Lou’s life and even more where it celebrates him. It’s a little confusing because it’s not like this is an unsolved case – why are we celebrating a man who has caused unthinkable harm to so many people? The answer is probably not there but that doesn’t stop it from leaving a bad taste in our mouth.
Dirty Pop Review: Final Thoughts
Dirty Pop‘s odd editorial choice is what remains its most memorable thing, in spite of the insane story that it showcases for the audience. The problem is that the AI thing is an unnecessary addition that adds nothing to the story in any way but makes you question whether anything that you are seeing is real or fabricated. The docuseries has its merits, especially because of the archival footage it brings forth of our favourite boy bands and shows us this story in a cohesive and dramatic way. However, the series still drops the ball in many ways, especially when it sometimes feels like it is celebrating a scam artist with all its might.
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