Queenmaker: The Making of an It Girl

I think Morgan is really pretty. I follow her on social media and she looks like an ephemeral goddess or like an exotic Asian Barbie doll.

I don't know why everybody else is stuck on being "misled" or this being two docs in one... I can't imagine how Morgan might feel with all this negative feedback, especially considering she's trans (men being "misled" liking her only later figuring out she presented differently before; the two in one concept, best of both worlds ts trope, etc She comes across as really thoughtful and well put together.

Maybe people are daft or are just secret Marxists because the synopsis and previews for the film clearly indicate some type of unmasking... not a deep dive into socialites or the early 2000's, that was just a jumping point for the audience to meet Morgan where she www at 17, and nothing more.... I mean for all the gripes I've read why did you people even watch the whole thing only to trash it because it doesn't compare to some 2 min trailer that has images of Hilton ad nauseam?

I agree the storytelling is kinda murky. Zackary Drucker's previous works always reveal a betrayal of the subject... they always end up like an emperor with no clothes... why she would constantly misgender Morgan and make the crux of the movie this "reveal" is... beyond me.

I used to follow PAP and James and the kid has been in transition for l two decades. This whole judging her thing is stale and I see the movie for what it is: a flawed portrayal of a beautiful brown girl who had to be framed by white blonde women and (what seems like) bashing by her friend (singular: one friend) and people assuming she's delusional, mentally unwell and all sorts of accusations... just to have her story told and they never told her story really. That's where the movie loses me and us.

I hope Morgan writes a book about herself or starts a tv series. I'd read or watch. Time for her story.

I saw the trailer on Hulu and thought it would be a fun deep dive into what the trailer & title of the movie called it, 'The making of an IT girl'. I was excited to watch it and revisit that time in the early 2000's when pop culture was OBSESSED with socialites, heiresses, and debutants. The first 1/3 of the movie delivered on that, focusing specifically on Tinsley Mortimer who despite always seeing her name and pictures in magazines & blogs, I was pretty unfamiliar with at that time. It shed some light on how she & other 'It' girls of that era made their mark in society and the media and all that goes on to get into and stay in the spotlight; From going to Diet Doctors in order to fit into designer sample sizes, getting a publicist, interviewing people who wrote about these girls or helped craft their image and brand etc. So far so good, and then the movie took a hard left and went into the life of a then anonymous blogger who wrote about these socialites. I initially thought it was a little side story that would help segue and tie everything together but it really didn't. The rest of the film is about the blogger, literally. There were parts that connected the bloggers world to that of the socialites he wrote about but the majority of it felt irrelevant to the film and unnecessary. Honestly I was very confused about what I watching, I had to double check that it was still the same documentary and that I hadn't accidentally changed it. Towards the end it dips back in to Tinsley very briefly and gives a vague description of her "downfall" which really wasn't a big deal as much as it was a change in the times. I wish the filmmakers would have dug deeper into her life and her fall from grace and how perspectives have shifted from then to now. They didn't, it was very surface level shallow. Again most of the focus being on the blogger from who he was then to today. Overall, the trailer & description was straight up false advertising, it's 2 films and 1 but only one of them is what's being advertised. The documentary was very disappointing and underwhelming, a choppy & confusing mess that had me scratching my head wondering why Tinsley Mortimer even agreed to be in this and asking myself wtf did I just watch?

The onslaught of negative engagement the distribution network is placing on this film is noted, but let's get to the crux of it all... it's magic

There's a story within a story here, one fantabulously more interesting than the necromacy of the early-00s It Girl era that dominates the first half. Not that I'm not here for a Gawker post mortem, but what could be ground for a really in-depth look at a very specific scene which emerged alongside a new form of surveillance and monetisation thereof fades into something else... rather than revel in the weeds we seek to learn and understand its creator, maker, Morgan. This someone else is what you can only see in the title once you read it through the prism of this deeply enriching interior story, of a plucky crestive with a gift for writing, obsessional focus, and fabulist tendencies, who infiltrated an alien world and made its leading swans dance their greatest dance. Kudos to Morgan Rose and to Zackary the director and fellow viewers disjointed by the internet feedback to this rather brilliant character study on a clearly unusual soul and woman.

This is a wonderful documentary that provides a unique and fresh prospective on an industry where we often see the same scandals recycled again and again. Morgan Olivia Rose's story is one of the most compelling I've heard. This documentary does take a look at what goes on in the background to really make an "It Girl" but much more interesting is the life story of Olivia, who's writing is responsible for making several of the known "It Girls" of our time. Her story highlights a range social factors and the toll this industry takes on those both in and out of the spotlight. I would defiantly recommend watching this!

And that's my fault. I should've read the description provided here on IMDB instead of trusting the trailer I saw on Hulu.

I thought I was getting a documentary about the rise of the late 90s/early 00s "It" girls of NYC. We did get several minutes of that primarily focused on Tinsley Mortimer, who I really didn't know that much about back in the day. I was glad they didn't devote that much time to Paris Hilton, because I've seen enough of her story already, so it was good to learn about one of her peers. I kept waiting for the documentary to start dissecting the forces at work to make these girls happen in detail, but it never happened. Then it suddenly shifts to the story about the kid behind a blog about these It girls and their milieu.

This person's story (and I won't give away spoilers about their identity) just wasn't very interesting. They themselves came across as sad, depressed, insecure and still in search of their own identity. As one of their own friends observed, this person had their own reality, which didn't necessarily coincide with everyone else's. I don't mind an unreliable narrator in fiction, but prefer to avoid them in real life.

Overall, I felt the documentary could've been so much more. New York Magazine just did a big article with multiple covers about the "It Girls" of times past. I was hoping for something more about the history and the impact of It girls on the culture.