It’s never good when the disturbing and urgent subject matter of your docuseries takes a back seat to the increasingly equivocal way it’s packaged. But Investigation Discovery, which recently brought us ““Fallen Idols: Nick and Aaron Carter” largely examines allegations of sexual assault that three women made against Backstreet Boys singer Nick CarterFans of the network since its origins in 2008 might be more used to its sensationalized reporting of celebrity events.
We saw that happen after “Quiet on Set” aired in March. It adapts much of the reporting from Kate Taylor’s thorough 2022citing allegations of toxic behavior and sexual assault at Nickelodeon in the early ’00s. But viewers’ engagement turned to questions about the ways in which the documentarians portrayed the information.by the filmmakers, who he said “never told me what this documentary was really about.” With “Fallen Idols,” ID is attempting to do a similar type of celebrity scrutiny.
Singer and producer Aaron Carter arrives at the"Kings of Hustler" male revue at Larry Flynt's Hustler Club on Feb. 12, 2022, in Las Vegas.All of that, though, is couched inside a progressively muddled docuseries that includes interviews with self-proclaimed Backstreet Boys superfans as Nick’s predominant sources of support., who alleges she was 15 when Nick assaulted her, told police that she told the singer she was 18.
If there is an overarching theme that “Fallen Idols” aims to convey, it has to do with the insidious celebrity culture that has been embedded in our psyches for decades, long before Backstreet Boys’ meteoric rise in 1996 with their debut album.Sometimes you can idolize somebody until it’s unhealthy for them,” former MTV VJ Dave Holmes, also interviewed in “Fallen Idols,” says. “We objectify these people, and we’re all complicit in this machine that our attention fed and fueled.