Josie and the Pussycats! Long tails and ears for hats!
Over the weekend I watched Josie and the Pussycats for the first time in many years. I vividly remember going to see it when it came out in spring 2001 with another female musician friend of mine--a drummer--and we left the theater happy and with plans to cover some of the catchier songs on the soundtrack the next time we practiced together. 20 years ago (for teen girl audiences) the film felt like a sharp and witty skewering of the oppressive and soulless mainstream music culture. Watching today, Josie and the Pussycats is like a time capsule of Rome just before the fall, the last gasp of the Monoculture.
The movie tells the story of the eponymous band comprised of Josie (Rachel Leigh Cook) and her Pussycat friends Val (Rosario Dawson) and Mel (Tara Reid). The Pussycats are a floundering garage band looking for their big break when they become ensnared in an evil government conspiracy to brainwash the youth of America into becoming consumerist robots through pop music. Of course once Josie, Val, and Mel figure out what’s going on they smash the machine and tell the youth out there that it’s okay to not a like a song or a trend. Just be true to your own tastes!
Ironically what struck me as the most archaic aspect of the film wasn’t the presence of CD stores (or CD store DJs) or even the idea of a “rock band” or Carson Daly as a cultural touchstone. It was the “like what you like” message free of any broader ideological position. “If you like the song, great! If you don’t, no big deal!” Stan culture in Current Year has made that an unspeakable position to hold online. Say you don’t like a song and risk getting tarred and feathered by a mob far more ruthless than the teens yelling “Pink is the new red” in the movie.
Maybe it’s just an inbuilt part of human nature and we are all il conformista at the end of the day, squashing our consciences and tastes to fit in. And anyways, in Current Year, the government doesn’t need to insert brainwashing messages under catchy pop punk tunes to get you to buy a fast food hamburger. Today’s artists are happy to shill directly for the companies themselves. The fast food commercial and the new single are one and the same. Back in 2001, the extreme branding and product placement in the movie seemed over-the-top and distracting. Even I, who genuinely enjoyed the film at the time, remember wishing they had used parody brands to make the anti-groupthink point. Now the use of branding seems prescient.
In 2001 we still had some vestiges of the “music” part of the music industry. Songs were meant to be purchased, yes, and consumed but also broadly listened to and enjoyed. All of that is gone now.
I was inspired to watch the film again in large part because I wanted to refresh my memory on faux boy band DuJour as part of my research in Boy Band Studies. DuJour (comic actors Seth Green, Donald Faison, Breckin Meyer, and Alexander Martin) were a goofy parody of the type of Backstreet Boys/Nsync male vocal act that was dominating the charts at the time. But for any of us who have seen a young Justin Timberlake proclaim that baby blue was “his color,” the bickering between Seth Green and Breckin Meyer over who got to do a certain “face” appears only lightly exaggerated.
DuJour’s gay-baiting parody lyrics (“I’m your backdoor lover”) may seem a bit crass in retrospect but I was pleasantly surprised that DuJour themselves emerge victorious. Even in goofy parody form, the Max Martin-style beat and BSB/NSYNC-style vocal harmonies are catchy and put a smile on my face. And much like their Norwegian counterparts Boyzvoice, the comedic bickering and performances of the four DuJour members were genuinely enjoyable. DuJour may have been a tool of Fiona (Parker Posey) and her evil MegaRecords brainwashing organization but they were an unwitting one. I’d happily watch a DuJour reunion.
Josie and the Pussycats is fighting a cultural battle that was lost long, long ago. We’ve all come to accept the corporate branding and cultural export as the dominant forces in American popular art. And while there’s nothing wrong with singing a jingle for fast food (just ask NSYNC) one wishes Kpop stans, in particular, understood that they also have a MegaRecords in Seoul.