DAMAGED Reconsiders: JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS!!!

JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS
Starring Rachael Leigh Cook, Rosario Dawson, Tara Reid
Directed by Deborah Kaplan and Harry Elfont
Universal Home Entertainment
Review by Louis Fowler

I don't believe in having guilty pleasures. If you feel guilty for liking something, you probably shouldn't be liking it in the first place. Especially if it's child pornography.

But as far as mainstream music or movies go, why hold back your fandom just because everyone much cooler than you have gotten together and decided that it's culturally lame? Why not stand up for what you like and be a defender of it? Why not grow some balls, man? I have had to stand up for so many of my favorite films from the early '00s, ranging from DETROIT ROCK CITY to FREDDY GOT FINGERED and, um, SPICE WORLD , but really, none of them are honestly as unfairly maligned as JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS.

Released in the wake of the SCOOBY-DOO revolution, when just about every classic cartoon was being option into fart-filled family fare, JOSIE was lumped in there and, even worse, marketed as part of some pre-tween girl-power flick that just double-killed its box office chances. But maybe it was for the best?

Starting off with a brutal parody of the then-popular boy band craze with a knock-off called DuJour (haha, “of the day”, I just got that), effectively mimicking the sly homoeroticism with a song called “Backdoor Lover”. It's in this opening that it becomes apparent that instead of subjecting itself willingly to the teen crowd, JOSIE not only bit the hand that fed it, but unleashed a torrent of hot urine on it. It caustically depicts teens as mindless automatons who follow the next trend with such brainlessness that they are easily manipulated by something as rote as subliminal messages. It's one of the most accurate depictions of the 13-18 crowd in recent cinema and, in retrospect, one that has even grown worse in the eight or so years since JOSIE's release. Seriously—today's teens are even bigger fucking idiots.

So, while teen-band DuJour represents the soulless boy-band pop of the day, Riverdale's Josie and her friends Val and Melody, collectively known as the Pussycats, represent the last remaining tenants of garage rock in an increasingly commercialized world. They're power-poppy and attractive enough for MegaRecords to sign them and, literally, become overnight sensations. Sure, the storyline is your basic rise and fall and “don't give up on your friends” and “remember what's important” tale, but the sheer spite that directors Deborah Kaplan and Harry Elfont (who also did the fun teen flick CAN'T HARDLY WAIT) have for the music industry and the sycophantic fans of their product is what makes the movie so subversive.

At one point, when label honcho Wyatt (a snarky Alan Cumming) delivers a new DuJour track to a record store, all the teens go nuts and start talking about all the new things they need to buy, like Puma sweats and Zima. A goth chick (in what I think is a Siouxie shirt) calls it “crap”, to which Wyatt says “Wow, you're a real freethinker!” and promptly silences her by throwing her in the back of a van and violently kidnapping her. It's a big, black-fingernail painted middle-finger pointed right at the audience. Like I said, subversive.

Speaking of the word “subversive”: you know, any douchebag NYU film student can film a performance artist taking a dump on the American flag and call it “subversive cinema”, but is it really? I don't think so; no one is really going to sit down and watch that for entertainment. Its not going to make a difference because its the type of shock value “subversiveness” that people expect. You fail. Your message only retains its “power” between your yes-men pals and pony-tailed pretentious professor. A+, dude.

But, and I firmly believe this, if you can make a piece of art that infiltrates pop culture, gets in the heads of the young and insults them without even knowing it, well, that's real subversiveness. Look at the Village People's “YMCA” for example: this song, about the joys of promiscuous sex in a gym's locker-room area is chanted en masse everyday at sporting events and the like. When you can get a stadium full of homophobic sports-fans to sing the praises of anally infiltrating “young men” complete with choreographed arm-waving, you are a master of cultural subversion. (Although, I guess because JOSIE didn't fare well at the box office, it only really half succeeded. And that's far more than anything a guy shitting on a flag has done. Pass the TP.)

Rewatching it right now, the only thing that really bogs down the film is an unnecessary minor romantic subplot with a local twink named Alan M., played by former model twink Gabriel Mann. But, whatever, it's over quick enough and all is forgiven as soon as Carson Daly tries to kill Tara Reid with a baseball bat. If only life imitated art!

The rest of the cast is perfect, with the “where is she now” Rachael Leigh Cook as the cynically-cheerful pixie Josie, the extremely buxom Rosario Dawson as the tough'n'sporty Val, and, incredibly enough, the possibly developmentally disabled Tara Reid earns special notice, giving her best performance ever as the definitely developmentally disabled Melody. If Sean Penn and Tom Hanks can win accolades for playing “special”, so should she. Retroactive Oscar, please!

Even more remarkable is the music. Usually in movies about bands, the music is pretty bad. Really bad. It's one of the fallacies of music movies—they spend so much time telling the story of the band they forget about the music and just throw some crap together that no one in the real world would ever buy. This has changed considerably in the past ten years, with filmmakers hiring actual songwriters and singers to create music that you would actually want to hear. In JOSIE's case, it comes courtesy of former Letters to Cleo lead singer Kay Hanley. I dare you not to fall in love with the irresistibly catchy “Three Small Words”. (Funnily enough, I can't remember any single Letters to Cleo song. It kinda makes you wonder why she didn't save up this song for her band and turn that into a hit...)

JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS should've been a bigger hit, but, for it to really retain its power, it's a good thing it wasn't. If it had been a hit, the satire would have been lost in sequels and merchandising, becoming the very thing the movie was railing against. It's a punk movie masquerading as pure pop for today's teens and ultimately deserving of reevaluation, especially in light of today's failing music business.

OK, and if none of that sells you, Rosario Dawson doesn't wear a bra in this whole thing and bops around. Like, a lot.

(NOTE: There's two versions of this movie out: a PG-rated “edited for family viewing” version which kid-friendlies everything and the harder-to-find PG-13 version. This write-up is based on the better PG-13 version and is available new for under $10 from Amazon.)

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JOHNNY MNEMONIC