Let’s talk about Kim Kardashian in American Horror Story
American Horror Story: Delicate is doing everything it can to turn Kardashian into a filthy-mouthed badass. Is it working, or is this just stunt casting?
TV Features Kim Kardashian
American Horror Story evidently wanted Kim Kardashian to make an unforgettable entrance in its season 12 premiere. In her first appearance as uppity Hollywood publicist Siobhan Corbyn, she commands a minimalist and massive skyline-facing office. She then rattles off the line, “Tell the Daniels to suck my clit,” referring to this year’s Oscar-winning filmmakers. Yeah, in a single scene, AHS: Delicate makes it clear that Kardashian’s alter ego is supposed to be a bossy badass who doesn’t give a shit. It’s too bad then that her performance isn’t convincingly conveying the right amount of odd-duck energy—at least not yet.
For the record, Kardashian is surprisingly promising in the two episodes that have aired so far. She plays a supportive BFF to her client, Anna Victoria Alcott (Emma Roberts), a CW-turned-indie-movie star vying for an Academy Award nomination. The two met at an IVF support group; now Anna’s pregnant, but Siobhan isn’t. While Anna is tormented by body pain, a stalker, and some sinister events, her PR pal dutifully stands by her side. To match this narrative, the reality TV star plays her part in a decent, straightforward manner. However, the quirky writing insists on turning Kardashian into a vessel for provocative one-liners. But her stoic dialogue delivery doesn’t make them land.
Take episode two, “Rockabye,” in which she has a more significant role. Siobhan wants to motivate Anna for the upcoming Gotham Awards. She does so by sternly saying rousing things like “Do you know how many blowjobs were collectively given for you to get a nomination? Derek’s jaw will never recover.” She also expresses something along the lines of Anna’s face looks like a cat’s asshole. The intention might be to add levity or gleefully enjoy Kardashian (of all people) churning out these lines. But it comes off as top-level cringe instead.
AHS: Delicate saves all of its quips for Kardashian, as Roberts and other cast members (Matt Czuchry, Denis O’Hare, Julie White) are directly involved in the season’s Rosemary’s Baby-esque mystery. It’s quite a risk considering she’s obviously a stunt casting effort; she’s thankfully not too bad, but it does read as a stunt regardless. Ryan Murphy’s long-running FX drama has done it before, adding Lady Gaga, Macaulay Culkin, and Stevie Nicks randomly to its ensemble. (FYI: AHS season five was Gaga’s big acting debut as well, like 12 is Kardashian’s.)
In this case, though, the show borrows directly from Kardashian’s life. Her character is a noticeable shadow of her mother, Kris Jenner, a PR mastermind herself known for buzzy zingers. (Anyone who keeps up with the family’s many reality series’ knows this.) “Rockabye” features a subplot in which Siobhan nonchalantly procures Madonna’s 1991 Oscar gown for Anna to wear on the Gotham red carpet. You know, in case you forgot Kardashian did the same thing with Marilyn Monroe’s dress at the Met Gala in 2022. The episode also has Siobhan go off on internet discourse—with a smattering of self-projection—when she rants, “Do you know how much Jamie Lee Curtis hated being asked if she’s a nepo baby?” (Side note: The show is obsessed with Everything Everywhere All At Once, huh?)
AHS doesn’t just want to profit off her emerging acting skills, but her real experiences as well. It’s a sure-shot way of inviting new fans, overlapping reality and horror genre audiences into one snappy show. On paper, it works. It’s a shame then that it’s hard to root for AHS: Delicate completely considering season 12’s first part filmed during the WGA strike. The scripts were complete, but picket lines were crossed anyway. Kardashian herself tweeted from the set. (Production eventually shut down after SAG-AFTRA went on strike.)
So as morbidly exciting—out of curiosity, if nothing else—as it is to see Kardashian onscreen in a different light, we can’t help but wish it was under better circumstances. Especially because AHS: Delicate is an exciting return to form for the show after a long, long time. Maybe it has something to do with new showrunner Halley Feiffer, or the novel it’s inspired by, Danielle Valentine’s Delicate Condition. Or maybe it’s Kardashian’s unconventional turn. Hopefully, as the episodes continue, her performance attunes to Siobhan’s badassery and outlandish dialogues to make it as fun as intended.
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“It’s a shame then that it’s hard to root for AHS: Delicate completely considering season 12’s first part filmed during the WGA strike. The scripts were complete, but picket lines were crossed anyway. Kardashian herself tweeted from the set. (Production eventually shut down after SAG-AFTRA went on strike.)”The same could be said of many films and shows that were in production at the time and there was nothing at all unusual or improper about it. Actors and crew were bound by employment agreements to show up for work and were instructed by their unions to do so. Those who didn’t risked termination and being held liable for damages. Now that writers have a tentative agreement with producers, no one expects them to refuse to go back to work because SAG-AFTRA is still on strike.I completely understand this may be confusing to people who don’t follow the industry, but there’s really no excuse for an entertainment site to be casting aspersions based on misinformation like this 5 months after the WGA strike began.
SAG-AFTRA also reiterated multiple times that actors were required to go to work. It’s literally in the contract that SAG-AFTRA members can’t strike with other sister unions.I don’t hear people complaining about the writers being all “pencils up” and writing/getting paid for writing now that the WGA strike is over even as SAG-AFTRA is still out, which makes this repeated comment about actors going to work all the weirder.
Well now that the writer’s strike is over I’m going to start leaving inane comments in this space again. Did you guys miss me?
Counter-argument: Let’s not.
“Uh… no, Peg.”
Yeah I don’t know why anyone thinks this is the content the avclub sorely needs. But pretty much no show reviews.
October clicks?
i enjoy AHS but i won’t watch anything with a kardashian in it. sorry. they are all completely useless.
Her casting completely ruined any interest I had in this season of AHS. Lady Gaga in Hotel was one thing, but this is something else.
My reaction as well to the teaser.“Oh look, a new AHS.”<>“OK, hard pass on this season.”
So Kim isn’t good on the show. But also she is good on the show. But, more importantly, she isn’t good on the show.
She’s also officially crossed the threshold where fillers have made her mouth incapable of natural movement, which makes her very difficult to watch. I give her five years until she’s the cat lady.
She has the acting chops of a head of lettuce. This might be the worst season yet, and that is really saying something.
Didn’t SNL show us nearly 2 yrs ago that this bitch can barely read a que-card?
To paraphrase the Simpsons, she’s Jared Leto good!
Yeah I mean I find her character vaguely creepy because all of her lines come off as disingenuous. But the jokes seem wasted on her- I wish someone like Leslie Grossman had gotten the part instead, she would’ve killed it
I don’t know — I always got the impression that Cardassians are unfailingly polite, even when they’re stabbing you in the back. I can’t imagine Gul Dukat telling anyone to suck his anything.Then again, the whole concept of a species-wide monoculture where everyone has the same personality is an unrealistic storytelling crutch to simplify Star Trek worldbuilding. Why shouldn’t there be a chilled-out Klingon who doesn’t care for bat’leth fights, or a Vulcan who just lets his emotions all hang out? Maybe Rob and Khloe are pacifist Cardassians who would never have supported the subjugation of Bajor. (It’s not even like all Americans watch American football — would all humans be awkward in elevators and obsessed with brunch, for instance?)So more power to Kim for being a foul-mouthed Cardassian. Now if only we could get Costas Mandylor to take off his beskar helmet once in a while…
“I can’t imagine Gul Dukat telling anyone to suck his anything.”
Much respect to the commitment to the bit here.
Thank you!
It’s almost as if they were just abstractions to help tell stories about humanity.
I’m calling it. Kardashian is basically playing the neighbor girl from Rosemary’s baby. She’s going to end up falling off the high rise and dead on the sidewalk like how that character ended up.
Kim’s acting debut was a similar role with way less swearing in Tyler Perry’s Temptation: Confessions of a Marriage Counselor. Similar delivery and wardrobe for sure.
I thought her debut was a sex tape.
Some of us don’t want to see that trash anywhere.
No, that sounds worse than talking about circumcision.
How bad is AHS this year? I skipped most of NYC and only watched the first story of Double Feature (the Cindy Crawford Jr. story was just too awful). Which is a shame because 1984 was decent fun.
first two episodes were decent, they always can deliver a good first three episodes. But doing 10 episodes of Rosemary’s Baby? how?Also Kim K is decent enough, she does feel different than her regular mannerisms.
You nailed it. The flashback, flashforward and completely ridiculous episodes start around Episode # 5, ugh.
So far its not bad as the previous two seasons, which may have been the worst ever (which is saying something for this franchise). But we’re only 2 episodes in. Seems like most AHS seasons start going off the rails around episode 4. It’s also not particularly interesting though. It’s moving rather slow and the subject matter (and people involved) don’t really capture my attention the way some concepts in the past have
NYC is highly underrated for making a ghost story out of the AIDS epidemic and being uncharacteristically tactful for a Murphy-Goop’s Hubby production. The Red Tide portion of Double Feature was also great until it faceplanted the landing. The only reason to watch the 2nd half is Sarah Paulson as Mamie Eisenhower (along with a cast of passable Presidential impersonators) but that’s about it.This season is bad, like “Kim Kardashian saying her lines is the most interesting thing” bad. Like, American Horror Stories Bella Thorne episode bad.
Damn…its been like 7 years since this show was as cool as it thinks it still is
The only reason we even bother watching at this point is hatewatching the stunt cast try and get through the dismal writing. American Horror Stories in particular is a red hot bag of garbage with a hole cut in the bottom, except for the one episode where a homicidal Santa played by Danny Trejo murders a Bro House of obnoxious influencers. I don’t know why Murphy/The Other Guy made an even shoddier anthology series within their anthology series that no one asked for. No one asked for a VOD grade Rosemary’s Baby reboot with Kim K spouting vulgarities without moving her face either, but Ryan Murphy needs to indulge his pregnancy fetish and how he’s still allowed to throw a handful of curses in every episode because it’s allowed.
We don’t talk about (most) AHStories eps. More duds than gems.
I noticed most of KK’s lines are delivered with her off screen or her back to the camera, showing the other’s reaction. I thought it was fluke on the first episode, but by the third became too noticeable to dismiss as poor editing. More like they meshed several retakes and dubbed her in.
My big problem with 1984 is all the cgi blood. I feel like using cgi instead of practical effects is a slap in the face to the genre you’re trying to honor.
NYC was great, I really liked it. It was really moving and had some great actors that were a lot better than some of his normal choices
Those Kim Kardashian/Emma Roberts scenes are lighting up the screen. True thespian prowess that will be talked about for decades to come.
Once more for the ages: PLEASE QUIT MAKING STUPID PEOPLE FAMOUS. Sub heading: OR EXTENDING THEIR 15 MINUTES FAR PAST ITS EXPIRATION DATE.
Am I supposed to believe that “Siobhan” is a Celtic woman? She doesn’t look Celtic. She doesn’t even look Armenian anymore… because she doesn’t look like a real human.
First, why aren’t there any episode reviews here? AVClub used to be my favorite go-to spot for consistent, reliable reviews but it has steadily devolved into a weak, sporadic gossip blog of various show productions, even before the pandemic and the industry strikes. Now on to the show itself… Half of Kardashian’s lines are delivered with her back to/off camera, coupled with reaction shots of a slightly dazed, timidly frustrated Anna (Emma Roberts). Along with the time jumps, it makes me suspect Kim’s lines were dubbed in later to reduce retakes. The over emphasis each episode in which Anna’s fears are condenscendingly dismissed as side effects of medically induced sedation and/or hormones doesn’t excuse Robert’s lackluster performance. Since I’m unfamiliar with the works/lives of the actors of this series (e.g. I’ve only glimpsed the headlines of KK&K’s relationship while scrolling through Google News) my only interest in AHS-12 is as a hopeful fan of the series, not a curious voyeur of the actors’ performances in the context of their outside lives or other works. The only reason I’m expressing my opinion on the show here is because tv-avclub has YET to give actual reviews on this season! Finally, there hasn’t enough character development to take a vested interest in their roles or the plot. The best AHS anthologies quickly establish the premise and provide clear, concise story arcs of all the relevant characters. This latest iteration is muddled at best; all the performances feel stilted and I’ve learned more from reading the novel’s reviews and Wikipedia.