Bling Bling Bitch!

[haitangkitty]

 



I previously talked about how i can't stand true crime these days but i do have a lighter alternative to satisfy my curiosity for crime: scammer stories targeting the rich. The Bling Ring is not a scammer story but a celebrity burglary story. Luckily they only got 1-2 years in prison or community service but that might also been because of media exposure and connections. The Bling Ring is the perfect crime entertainment containing obnoxious teenagers, fashion, and fame all set in LA in the time of the birth of reality tv stars and Myspace. The crimes(+50 homes!!) happened during 2008-2009, but what people most know about is the fictional film based on these events:

The Bling Ring (2013)
Sofia Coppola Film

"I wanna rob"

The film has sort of gained a cult status. It is so so bad on all aspects. Direction, cinematography, script, acting, editing, costume - it's all ass. TO ME it does not elevate itself to a "so bad it's good" status. Sofia Coppola based it on an Vanity Fair article in which one of the Bling Ring members Alexis Neyers was interviewed. The Bling Ring is depicted as shallow fame hungry teenagers with no personality or emotions.

If it was done today i believe it would be a neo noir. As a writer myself i think that there's few things that seem easy to write but are actually very difficult: troubled and entitled addict teenagers and the effects of social media and reality tv. What i find interesting about the Bling Ring is that they did not come from poor backgrounds but still had issues feeling like outsiders being close to extreme wealth and fame. They were not satisfied with their lives.

Fun detail that the documentaries don't have is that the some of the same celebrities they robbed were also later arrested for robbing or driving under the influence (the famous mugshots of Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton, Nicole Richie) becoming part of iconic pop culture images. 

I guess the film tried to capture the iconic pop culture of the time. The whole thing is so media sexy it's difficult to find what feels real about it.
 

The Real Bling Ring Hollywood Heist (2022)
3-part Netflix documentary

This documentary was also ass. It was so in your face. Trash entertainment like the film. It's a sensationalist documentary with the message that "fame is bad". Am i looking for depth in a story that doesn't exist?

What was interesting is that it gave lot of space for two of the Bling Ring members to tell their stories: Nick Prude and Alexis Neyers. 

You want to know the mind of the criminal, their original story, their traumas, their motives.

Both Nick and Alexis talked a lot about how they used lot of drugs and were not doing well mentally at that time. Alexis had become the face of the Bling Ring which she clarifies is a false image since she only took part in one robbery(for what we know). BUT she was filming a reality show of her own at the same time when police found out about them, so to media she became the perfect face for the crime (Emma Watson played her in the film). She tells she had been painted as a shallow teenager when really she was an addict and exploited by the entertainment industry and by her own mother. Although what is interesting is that she sold the rights of her interview for Sofia Coppola and was a paid to consult in the film.

If someone from the Bling Ring actually enjoyed the fame it brought it was definitely Nick. He ratted out the whole group and told the police about crimes they hadn't even discovered. In the film he is kinda depicted as an awkward gay best friend, but in reality he did play a bigger part in the burglaries although he says everything was influenced by his friendship to Rachel Lee - the ringleader of the group whose absence in the documentary becomes a mystery. Nick and Alexis have conflicting statements and everyone is kinda blaming each other or the drugs, which is understandable since I don't think there's one objective telling of this case especially in hindsight.
 

The Ring Leader: The Case of the Bling Ring (2023)
HBO documentary
 

I was excited to find out that there was a documentary about Rachel Lee. She was the missing piece. During the trials she did not speak to media at all or try to gain attention in any way. She was not part of the Netflix documentary but she got her own more quality documentary on HBO, kind of getting the last say on the topic which is a very powerful move(if it is one). The documentary has the depth i was looking for, or maybe i mean emotion. You can see that talking about the Bling Ring is not easy for Rachel but she does give insights to her life. At one point she confesses she believes she was a psychopath at the time because she had no regrets and did what she wanted. She highlighted the friendship between her and Nick, two troubled outsiders talking about the darkness they shared. I think that would have been most interesting to see on film, a toxic codependent friendship that is doomed. That is also a very common teenage experience. I think it's also interesting how Rachel had troubles feeling like an outsider due to her Korean heritage in a time when the media (and all the IT girls everyone looked up to) were very much white and rich rich. I'm a bit younger than her but i remember being poc teenager during that era had a specific feeling of being so outside of everything. But the Bling Ring burglaries or most scammers are not some Robin Hood stories about punishing the rich but wanting to emulate the life that they have, wearing their skin and getting that rush of adrenaline and power for committing a crime and getting away with it. Rachel is the only interviewed member who doesn't give a clear motive for her crimes because she is not so sure of it herself. I also think she's extremely smart and maybe smarter than she lets people know.


I do not have nostalgia for that era. I think it's funny how young people now love early 2000's and the pop culture of that era but i remember it being trashy, misogynistic, racist, homophobic, and exploitative. I gotta admit i did watch a lot of MTV, both music videos and the reality series back then. I wanted to be American! I have to admit after watching the Bling Ring film and documentaries i had to check how Calabasas and the beaches of LA look like. One girl from my high school moved there because her family was in the film industry and she went to study film at UCLA, I was so jealous and maybe I still am. Being at the heart of it all, and being part of it!

Anyway next I'm gonna watch the Netflix reveal documentary of America's Next Top Model, another reality i also actively watched as a teen.