DAISY JONES & THE SIX - THE EPITOME OF ROCKSTAR?
Following the whirlwind ride of an emerging rock and roll band, Daisy Jones and The Six was released as a fictional novel in 2019 and quickly became New York times best seller. The mini series featured on Amazon prime has been dropping multiple episodes every Friday in the month of March. The gripping storyline explores a humble Pittsburg born band on their rise to fame in the 70’s and their collaboration with their newest band member, an unhinged, manic and talented singer, Daisy Jones. An intoxicating story of rock and roll and endlessly complicated relationships, this show has got the audience itching each Friday.
Why do we love it? Because it feels like rock and roll is fucking back. Why do we love rock and roll you’re asking, is that a serious question? Rock and roll is a representation of freedom, living wildly, presently, no responsibilities and never wearing a watch on your wrist. Filled with sex, temptation, love, lust, infidelity, and of course, the music. Of course there’s also the darker and well worn path of addiction, substance abuse, and withering mental health that goes hand in hand. Really though rock and roll is the music. The music of blues, country, rock and rhythm all mixed up. It’s full of passion, drive, turmoil and destruction, and that’s exactly what this show brings.
The character of Daisy Jones was meant for this life. She brings a hard hitting energy, she is exuberantly outspoken, and symbolises the temptations we crave whilst also being a figure of immense sadness and solitude. Through this series Daisy and Billy begin an unstable and passionate relationship built on hatred, stubbornness, desire and their love of music. Billy tormently walks the staggered line of infidelity, addiction leading into sobriety and his relationship with his shadowed self. You can’t help but want to see Billy and Daisy together with their electric energy. They set each other off and complement one another in all the right and wrong ways. Leaving the audience torn with the addition of also rooting for Billy to get better and be the father and husband he needs to be.
It leaves me to wonder, should Daisys character be glorified or marked as a danger warning. Although I want to see what Daisy and Billy could become, she represents everything Billy is running from and is his worst temptation. Watching Daisy is an exhilarating and painful show. Her self destructive behaviour and constant trail of self serving and demoralising relationships leaves the audience feeling empty for this girl. She symbolises so many we’ve witnessed as they journey to fame, coming from a background of an unstable home, never knowing what it feels like to be loved and appreciated for. Giving herself away from a pre-teen age and becoming known as an ‘it girl’ on the LA strip in the 70’s, an outsider might think she’s got it all. Truly Daisy lives as an empty shell, mixed up and naive she begins using pills to bring her out of her sadness. I think she’s pretty damn relatable and that’s why she is so loved. Yes she’s wild and untamed, a little dangerous, but she’s just trying to fulfil herself. What she imagines and feels for Billy she pursues in efforts to continue the fire within her. Should she really be vilified for living her life in the name of passion?
Through the duration of the show the audience witnesses’ Daisy fall as her addictions rise to her climactic episode of overdosing on the shower floor. In the aftermath she comes to the awareness that her inspired substance use in efforts to dull her emotions, acts on the contrary. Stumbling through her dabbled idea of sobriety we see Daisy doing ‘well’ for the first time. With gumption she pines for Billy, eventuating in the final moments of the show displaying Billy in a state of surrender and wildness as he slips off his strong held sobriety. Feeding his desire, he succumbs to his feelings and passion for Daisy. In that moment a small part of me felt so sad to see these two broken people losing hold of their sanity, their drive, and to very easily fall down the well and back to their deadly habits. It can be said that no amount of love and wanting for each other can excuse the inescapable fact of two people just not being good for each other. Two damaged, weak and tempted souls can make for a doomed and irreversible disaster. Pulling herself from the ‘deja vu cycle’ of wild self destruction, Daisy removes herself, allowing Billy to make amends with his wife, and she beginning her journey of healing and sobriety.
For a rock and roll band, I think Daisy Jones and the six definitely ends fittingly. Theres no soft exits, and amicable partings, its gotta be hard hitting, drama filled and there has to be some sort of finality to it. The production was all out, and extremely bingeable. A theme throughout the show, first highlighted by Billy is that it’s not what’s been done but more so what you haven’t. An argument that represents the mistakes and missteps made through life, but further focussing on
the actions you didn’t take, the irreversible errors and blunder that would have made things go south. On first hearing of this I though it was an overt excuse for the infidelities and mistakes made, however on reflection I find this theme candidly relatable. To live a life without error is an unheard of plot, but to not overstep, to not give in, to hold yourself accountable, to turn things around, and to keep pursuing actions in the name of good, that’s a storyline I can live for.