Death to the celebrity documentary

If Dorian Gray were alive today, he wouldn’t have a portrait of himself hanging in the attic. He’d have a Netflix three-part docuseries called Being Dorian, or It’s a Gray Area, or Dorian and Me buried somewhere in the interface. In this series, he’d sit in his kitchen and fess up to mild sins while a crisis publicist left the real ones on the cutting room floor.

Whether it’s Martha Stewart, or the Beckhams – who have a hagiographic docu-series each – Eddie Murphy or Harry and Meghan, Gaga or Beyonce, Sly Stallone or Arnold Schwarzenegger, the rise and rise and rise of the celebrity documentary is one of the signs that we are entering the cultural end times. Our brains are melting; our planet is burning and, hunched over our screens, we are turning into apostrophes, navelgazing at the billionaires and millionaires who live so much more exciting lives than we do.

It’s just a bit of fun, you might say. “It was just a bit of fun” should be carved on the defrosted Everest to be read by the aliens when they land to find a lifeless planet to explain why we fucked it all up.

The weird thing is how furiously joyless these lives are that we watch. Charlie Sheen is what Kendall Roy would call “a shit show in the fuck factory.” Except for his two Oliver Stone films, he’s in a series of shit movies and then in a shit television series; he treats everyone terribly, takes a lot of drugs and doesn’t die. It’s like the Jimi Hendrix story if you took away Jimi’s looks and cool and talent and importance and Jimi himself, all you were left with was the vomit, pooled on the floor.

The damage Sheen left in his wake, the addicts he facilitated, the accusations of sexual and domestic abuse are papered over in AKA Charlie Sheen. Timed to coincide with the release of his memoir The Book of Sheen, it is absolutely an exercise in reputational repair. And that means sweeping the sticky stuff under the sofa and getting at least one teary moment.

What did I learn? Nothing. These are anti-documentaries in that, after watching them, you know less than you did when you began. They serve as image curation and have as much bite as the fluffer on the set of a porn film.

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Another recent example is Being Eddie, which has Eddie Murphy looking through his photo album in his mansion and muttering in a surprisingly quiet voice, revealing once more that people who are funny onstage tend to be deadly serious and a bit miserable off. He’d be likeable if it wasn’t for his whinging about not getting an Oscar and his serious statement that he opened the door for Denzel Washington and Morgan Freeman. I think Denzel might just have survived without Beverly Hills Cop.

Other celebrities – probably with an eye on their forthcoming docuseries – line up to pay compliments to Murphy for his Donkey in Shrek – “He should’ve won the Oscar for that” says Pete Davison. Of the multiple roles in The Nutty Professor, Dave Chapelle marvels: “There are so many stages to Eddie’s career.” Yeah, the funny stage and the not-funny stage.

When David Spade on SNL makes a joke about one of Murphy’s flops, that cruelty, that sense of betrayal is given a teary moment. I mean, imagine joking about stuff?

Murphy is a hugely talented, influential and important comedian and actor. 48 Hours, Trading Places, Beverly Hills Cop, Coming to America, Bowfinger, his standup recorded for Delirious and Raw, his straight drama role on Dream Girls – all wonderful. In fact, so much good stuff you can afford to admit that The Adventures of Pluto Nash and Harlem Nights were not actually very good.

There’s not much scandal with Murphy – if the documentary is to be believed. He doesn’t drink or do drugs. When the cops pulled him over with a sex worker, his claim that he was being a good Samaritan was believed. She went to jail for a parole violation. None of that is in the documentary.

Instead, we see him surrounded by his family, having dinner. Irate that he can’t find anything good on television. “I even flick past my films,” he says. I feel you buddy.

Complaining that it’s got too cold, Murphy uses a remote to close the roof on the courtyard of his mansion. Rich celebrities, huh! They’re just like us deep down.

This is the problem with the whole genre. It promises intimacy but we just get more spin. They are as revealing as a Hello! photo spread, and in fact a supplementary pleasure of these shows is the property porn. A remote-controlled roof!

These softball documentaries want to come off as confessional, but I was brought up a Catholic and so I’ve been to actual confession and I was never given victory laps and an exec-producing credit as penance for my sins. They are stories of self-aggrandising success which cover the tracks and soften the edges.

At one point, Murphy refers to those who have been banished from his circle. We don’t know why or what for, but it is a glimpse of ruthlessness which no doubt aided him to achieve the success he has achieved. You feel the camera crew could just as easily be dismissed – banished – if they put a foot wrong. It is a portrait of a court.

People will always want to get into the proximity of successful people. And celebrities are successful people. But they’re celebrated enough already without this faux honesty, this other performance passing for transparency. It’s all as see-through as the hall of mirrors of talking heads, all of them just waiting for the moment when they can sign the book deal and the documentary crew to follow them around as they drive their SUV through downtown traffic to the studio.

As Oscar Wilde might have written in The Picture of Dorian Gray: “There is only one thing in the world worse than being the subject of a Netflix docuseries, and that is not being the subject of a Netflix docuseries.”
Being Eddie and Aka Charlie Sheen are streaming on Netflix. John Bleasdale’s novel Connery, about the life of Sean Connery, is published by Plumeria on February 23