In crafting GORILLA, we explore how power, privilege, and the allure of glamour can corrupt even the purest bonds between people. By setting our story in the deceptively glittering world of 1960s French cinema, we illuminate issues plaguing our society today—the exploitation inherent in the entertainment industry, the commodification of human relationships, and the crushing weight of capitalism on authentic human connection. Through Ivan's journey from outsider to “gorilla,” we witness how the machinery of show business and high society can take something as genuine as loyalty and twist it so it can be used as a weapon. His story resonates particularly well today as we grapple with questions of belonging, immigration, and the price of assimilation into societies that fundamentally view outsiders as disposable. The series explores how systems of power—studios, political institutions, social hierarchies—tend to corrupt those who try to rise in their ranks, often destroying the qualities that made those individuals special in the first place. While the series is set in the sexually liberated 1960s, it deliberately echoes contemporary conversations about power dynamics and exploitation in the entertainment industry. The high-society orgies, the casual misogyny, the treatment of women as a commodity to be traded—these elements aren't merely historical colour but rather a mirror reflecting patterns of behaviour that the #MeToo movement has brought to light. Richard's complex relationship with his own sexuality and power, masked behind a carefully constructed image, speaks to ongoing discussions about toxic masculinity and its cost to both the perpetrators and their victims. By framing our story through the memories of an elderly Richard Després, we examine how time has changed our understanding of what was once considered acceptable behaviour.