Demi Lovato: Dancing with the Devil begs the question of whether we need the "destruction" of pop-stars as our entertainment

The Atlantic

Lovato's new YouTube docuseries is the third hair-raising documentary of Lovato’s career, as Spencer Kornhaber notes, following MTV's 2012 Stay Strong that focused on her stint in rehab at age 18 and 2017's Simply Complicated, which revealed that she had used cocaine during the first documentary. "There are noble reasons to invite such scrutiny," says Kornhaber. "As the opioid crisis continues to take lives across America, Lovato’s briefing on treatment options will help some viewers. Others will be enlightened about the way that fame and the music industry torment young stars. Lovato has said she finds public transparency to be liberating. More than anything, she and her documentarians have said over the years, the pop star wants to combat the sense of shame surrounding mental-health issues of all sorts: self-harm, eating disorders, addiction, anxiety, depression. Anti-stigma campaigns have been shown to encourage people in distress to get help, and Lovato’s fans frequently testify that her honesty has helped them seek treatment for their own issues. Still, it might be time for a check-in on the efficacy of the watchword destigmatization, at least as rendered by recent pop culture into escalating games of show-and-tell. As the benefits of talking openly about one’s problems have become a hot media topic, rates of overdose deaths and suicide have kept climbing in the United States, where access and affordability remain the most significant barriers to mental-health care. Social media, the means by which people so often share their pain, is also the source of a lot of that pain, and Dancing With the Devil demonstrates how celebrities experience a jumbo version of that feedback loop. Lovato has repeatedly stepped onstage to share her scars, and the ensuing attention of fans, friends, and business associates has taken its own toll."