Before we dive into the narrative of Lou Pearlman, a pop music kingmaker who built his empire on a Ponzi Scheme, there is something I need to mention about Netflix’s three-part docuseries “Dirty Pop: The Boy Band Scam.” Technology is advancing; hence, non-fiction filmmaking has to be subjected to more and more scrutiny. That leaves these series makers stepping into some kind of professionally nebulous water as far as I am concerned. Today’s date notes that Pearlman passed away in 2016. Nonetheless, before he died he had a book published called Band, Brands & Billions plus passages from this book have been employed in the form of an A.I-generated Pearlman for the series but it is presented like he was being interviewed or giving some sort of presentation regarding his life. While no one can defend Pearlman today, it seems like the wrong decision was made here. Written words found in books are not similar to interviews. How do we know that not one or two words were left out during translation? Are we certain that the emphasis on particular word or concept is right? This feels like an extremely slippery slope towards turning books into interviews.
Of course, there are morally ambiguous boundaries within which this story must operate because Lou Pearlman shaped pop stars of the ‘90s and ‘00s in a way that really changed music forever. In Dirty Pop it all comes crashing down when we realize, what they were doing was fraudulent-pearlman had people investing in bands with little to no intention ever of producing them a return on their investment at all. Initially selling blimps that did not exist yet through Trans Continental Airlines then following New Kids on the Block’s success and trying to duplicate it on a grand scale brought him into actual plane rentals business (Pearlman). In essence, he formed the best-selling Boys band ever known-Bacskstreet Boys; however this is just the surface of boyhood as he later managed and shaped NSYNC, O-Town, LFO, Take 5, Natural among many other groups.
It was all a scam and “Dirty Pop” does a pretty good job at this. (“Dirty Pop”) The first to realize they weren’t really getting paid were the Backstreet Boys who filed suit against him. This was followed by NSYNC and everything collapsed from there on. People suffered as Pearlman ran around to pay for an artiste that had used up most of his money. It is somewhat unclear how much those close to Pealman knew about his illegal and immoral activities in “Dirty Pop.” Sometimes it becomes surprisingly defensive about Pearlman and his legacy, perhaps speaking more broadly about how people feel like defending something they love such as the music he helped make. As a fan of either the Backstreet Boys or NSYNC one may have a hard time morally coming to grips with how you could be fed so much joy by something so corrupt.
However, “Dirty Pop” seems uninterested in exploring this intricacy. The highlight is the set of talks done with former boy bad members, but some major stars including Justin Timberlake are missing and it further gives the thin project an additional feeling of being incomplete. At the point when Pearlman was apprehended, his actions were labelled as the lengthiest Ponzi plan in history. To keep his business going on or to satisfy his personal needs he created ghost companies which would borrow money that he used for such purposes. It is a place where greed meets business intersecting with pop culture and that is why it can be captivating but also ethically intricate for an attention-seeking Netflix documentary series. Why should something so loved cause so much pain? However, there is no Pearlman present to answer this question directly and therefore this series does not provide any definitive response either even though it attempts to use excerpts from him.
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