Selena Gomez
SCORES
Attraction of fame: 5
Destruction of fame: 5
SHE SAW
There’s been a wave of self-produced celebrity documentaries over the past couple of years and I’ve watched most of them: Pink, JLo, Taylor Swift, Beyonce. They’re all fairly similar in format and style; they follow the celebrity around for a few months, seemingly to prove how difficult their lives are and to show that there’s a “real” person behind the public image. Like the others, this documentary’s been causing a bit of a stir online. But Selena Gomez’s film is different because her life is more difficult than most.
She suffers from lupus and had a kidney transplant back in 2017. When it flares up, she’s in considerable pain which is just the tip of the iceberg for Gomez, whose mental health appears to be hanging on by a thread.
The film, which was directed by Alex Keshishian - who made the 1991 documentary Madonna Truth or Dare, began production in 2016 with the intention of following Selena on a global tour. But the tour was cancelled mid-run when Gomez suffered a psychotic break, was admitted to a psychiatric hospital for several months and was eventually diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
The documentary doesn’t dwell on this period - partly because Gomez doesn’t remember much of that time and partly because filming stopped for a couple of years while Gomez recovered. The precarity of her mental health however is the central throughline of the film. She’s constantly trying to figure out how to live a life that’s fulfilling enough to keep her from spiralling down into depression and the possibility of another psychotic episode.
Celebrity documentaries always purport to be revealing the “truth” behind the public image but, of course, it’s a carefully curated truth that generally makes me sceptical. Every one of these films has to feature the star in bed. We get it, you’ve taken us to their most intimate and private space, we’re in the inner sanctum, seeing them at their most vulnerable… but how did that camera crew set up its tripod, run sound tests and white balancing without waking them up? It doesn’t add up.
Selena’s documentary is certainly selling a narrative but I do believe that, for the most part, she hasn’t made the film for reasons of vanity. It’s not, like many of the others, simply another product designed to make the fans love the artist even more for their supposed authenticity and relatability. Gomez appears frequently miserable in this film, even rude at times, but her desire to be of service to others suffering from mental illness is genuine, and hopefully her openness in this film will be a lifeline for some struggling young fans.
HE SAW
She knocks on the door of her childhood home and the man living there lets her in. She looks in the bathroom mirror and tells us it’s the same mirror she looked into when she found out she’d booked Barney - her first major television appearance. We are then shown a photo of her as a kid in that bathroom, having just booked Barney. It’s an especially powerful juxtaposition because that kid’s excitement about the possibilities Barney has opened up have now been fulfilled, presumably beyond her wildest dreams, but the excitement has been replaced by despair. She has become one of the most popular and beloved entertainers of her generation, and she hates it. If only the girl in the mirror could have known.
The lifestyles of performers have always been presented in the media as glamorous and aspirational: So much adulation! So much money! But the narrative arc in the books and documentaries that follow is now so familiar as to be cliche: The fulfilment of one’s dreams is accompanied, or at least followed, by the realisation of the emptiness of the fulfilment of one’s dreams. In Gomez’s case, it has been worse than most. It has come close to literally destroying her.
In the documentary, we see her going through the interminable process of makeup, hair and costume and we see her walking through airports and other places, with paparazzi shouting provocations at her - “Selena, are you depressed!?” - as they hope for the reaction that will give them what they’re paid to get. The worst thing is that they’re not monsters - they’re just part of an economic system in which their survival depends on their ability to turn off their empathy.
The documentary’s most poignant moment comes when she’s sitting in front of a TV interviewer who asks her what she wants to do next. She replies, “Philanthropy”, at which point the interviewer says, “Ok, that’s it for me”, takes off her microphone and walks away. Gomez is stunned. “Appreciate it,” she says, to the interviewer’s already-empty seat. “Felt like you really understood.” She had thought the interviewer might see her as something more than a product to be sold to viewers. She is devastated to learn that’s not the case.
You can feel the shockwaves of that exchange overwhelming her, because it’s not just that interviewer, not just the media and the paparazzi, but every one of the vast army of people surrounding her and supporting her - both paid and not - who see her as product, or at least a means to an end. All her relationships are tainted by it and until she walks away from the business, and probably even then, she will never be free from it.
Selena Gomez: My Mind & Me is now streaming on Apple TV+
New York Times: Our are devices distancing us from real connections?