Josie and the Pussycats edition

As we begin our newsletter we wanted to briefly discuss what we will be doing. For the time being we will be doing a series on tv, music, films, etc. that we love(d). We want to have the space to discuss things that bring us joy in these bleak times and share them with you in the process

Ahhh 2001, a time when pop culture may or may not have been arguably at it’s best or worst, depending on who you talk to. Lately when we speak in terms of pop culture, it’s nostalgia based, with everyone reminiscing on things they used to love and or hated. We’re going to follow suit and talk about the most iconic movie of all time, a movie that was 100% truly ahead of its time and got thrashed by critics and the box office. A movie so game changing, that nineteen years later, it’s finally getting the recognition it deserves. Josie and the Pussycats came out in the spring of 2001 and as Drake would say, nothing was the same. Released on April 11, 2001 (five months before everyone’s lives changed via the September 11th attacks), Josie and the Pussycats was a movie that should’ve been destined for success. It had everything, a great cast, great fake pop songs, cultural commentary and phenomenal looks; and yet it flopped...and horribly. So this is our visual love letter to one of the greatest and most enjoyable movies of all time, because after all, nothing says consumerism is king than the movie that commentated on capitalism via American materialism, the illuminati and brainwashing, and subliminal messages in media conspiracy theories better than anyone else in the last nineteen years.

Carli: Josie came out when I was 5 years old and purchasing the movie is one of my earliest memories. My mom was tired of us at the grocery store and told us to go dig through the bin of movies that was at the front of the store. Immediately I was captivated by the VHS, because it was the early 2000s and tacky clothes and girls in bands meant more to me than anything else. Josie had everything I needed: TRL, interesting clothes, McDonalds, and girls playing guitars.. As I’ve gotten older, I was able to finally understand the incredible way they touched on the horrors of the music industry and consumerism. And the fashion became even better to me. It was a movie Beyoncé, Aaliyah, and Left Eye could’ve all been in. It has a soundtrack that includes Letters to Cleo vocalist Kay Hanley and Travis McCoy from Gym Class Heroes(he did vocals on the DuJour tracks). It also has that one really incredible jacket Rachael Leigh Cook wears.

Lanice: I was clearly a kid who was an only child and grew up watching a lot of MTV, VH1 and BET. I remember being 9 years old and more than likely was watching TRL when the trailer for Josie and the Pussycats came on. I was immediately captivated and stunned, here was a movie I had been waiting for all my life. It combined all my interest in girl bands, leopard print, brand consumerism, and peak MTV “culture” (whatever that means) wrapped into one. I briefly knew about the Archie comics because I used to read them sometimes as a child, so I knew Josie and the Pussycats had come from that world but there was something about this movie that was totally different and in a lane of its own. I knew I HAD to see this movie in theaters when it came out and so I begged my mom to take me. My mom, much to her annoyance, did take me to see the movie two weeks after it released and just like when I saw Spice World for the first time, my little ass was HOOKED. I felt so much happiness and joy watching the movie on the big screen, it was such a formative experience for me and it’s one of the cinema moments I remember the most. I remember rushing out to buy the soundtrack and the movie when they were released on their respective mediums and wearing them down into the ground to the point I nearly destroyed them. Now as an adult and I use this term loosely, watching the movie now makes me appreciate it so much more. In the hellscape of peak capitalism we live in today, Josie and the Pussycats commented on how pop culture and consumerism go hand in hand, how the music industry sucks the soul of its artist making them just another cog in the machine and how having a set of true friends can really nurture the soul. Josie is a movie unfairly criticized as gimmicky and cringeworthy but at the heart of it, the movie is about three women who love and care for each other and that spoke to me as a young girl.

Fashion

Carli: Leesa Evans was the costume designer for Josie, before this she was the assistant costume designer for Clueless(Mona May was the head costume designer), this is something that I believe shows throughout and in delightful little ways. Mostly in how memorable and delightful each individual look is. After Josie, Leesa went on to do the 2002 and 2004 Scooby movies. Iconic.

There’s an outfit that Fiona wears during a scene where they’re discussing brainwashing/subliminal messages that I think of often. It’s most likely due to the fact that she looks like a cat toy, with feathers perfectly framing her face. It’s perfect, it’s campy, and it’s the outfit I immediately think of when the movie is mentioned. Fiona very well might be the best dressed villain of all time…maybe.

Lanice: The Mega records dress to me was my number one fave look (sans of course the blue leopard coat). From a design standpoint, the dress shouldn’t work. It’s patches being held together by safety pins on top of what looks like a tacky blue wedding gown. It immediately reminded me of all the punk kids I knew who had the DIY aesthetic of shittily hand sewing their fave patches onto their jackets. As a person who used to make clothes (I’ve retired but that’s another story) the construction of this dress excited me. The look of the patches also to the eye or to me at least, look like stickers glued onto a dress, everything about this looked screamed do it yourself make your own clothes punk ethos. I think this was a moment that Fiona’s brand of wanting to ultimately sell herself via the label comes through in her fashion.

Lanice: The other important look to me that really shaped me as a person is Josie’s leopard print suit with the “stripper” heels. For some reason as a youth I was OBSESSED with stripper heels because of how “taboo” they were, but honestly I just thought they looked cool. Very early I had the mindset of the higher the heels the closer to god and those shoes completely changed my life. The fact that she had an entire suit made out of leopard print boggled nine year old me since leopard print had really truly been my livelihood. To this day, I can’t believe I don’t have a leopard print suit and no one has offered to buy me one.  The clothes, the make up, the hair, Leesa and the entire hair and makeup department did what they needed to do.

Carli: Even though it becomes more over the top once they’re signed, each girl still maintains elements of their pre-fame aesthetic. It begins as some form of a dELIA*s catalog meets Sketchers ad and becomes a hodgepodge of early 2000s fashion, and it's done seamlessly. You can clearly see the “elevated” looks after they’re signed, but for the most part it’s still them. Especially Mel. Mel stays the same, the fabrics just got better. Leesa captured the mishmash of 2000s style in a way that is so enjoyable to revisit. It feels like a time capsule of some of the best things the era had to offer.

Lanice: Another underrated factor of this movie for me was how the comedy of the movie influenced the overall style and looks of the characters. The movie is campy as fuck and funny as fuck and the clothes of every single character reflected that. They weren’t taking themselves too seriously and every character was individualized via their own style. Also a special shout out to the Sid shirt, just because it was cute.

Music:

Lanice: The soundtrack is phenomenal and everyone should really say thank you to Babyface (who makes a cameo), as he was the executive producer and his ex wife Tracey was a producer for the movie, but most importantly Kay Hanley. The original singing voice for Josie was supposed to be someone else (Tracy Bonham and Anne Previn both did test vocals) but Babyface felt like she didn’t fit the vibe of an “all woman Blink-182 power punk pop band” so Kay Hanley was contacted and the rest was history. All three leads sang background vocals and actually learned to play their instruments, and the soundtrack had writers from bands like Letters to Cleo, Counting Crows, Bif Naked, Jellyfish and The Go-Go’s all contributing to the soundtrack. Despite the movie flopping critically, the soundtrack performed better and sold more than 500,000 copies earning it a gold album status.

To me, the soundtrack might be the best thing about the movie because if there’s anything I love more than good clothes, it’s a fun pop song I can shake a lil ass to. The soundtrack complimented the fun lighthearted nature of the movie and I would perk up anytime a song would come on. I remember rushing out to buy this soundtrack with money I had saved up for this specific purpose. Despite 2001 being peak MP3/iPod era, I bought the CD and it stayed in my walkman (god I’m old) for MONTHS and has been through countless moves and being tossed around and I’m glad I still have it. For me, a girl who really loves pop music, the Josie soundtrack fit right in with my *NSYNC and Spice Girls cd’s as well as my Destiny’s Child, TLC and Aaliyah cd’s. My three favorite songs from the soundtrack are "You’re a Star", "3 small Words" and the incomparable emo classic “You Don’t See Me”. If someone who hasn’t seen the movie asked me to describe the overall tone and vibe for the movie I’d show them these three songs. I think they show versatility in the style of the band and show how much Josie and the Pussycats really shaped the pop punk genre without technically being a “real” band. This movie inspired so many of these new pop punk bands, girls to pick up instruments and start bands, write songs and inspired a cult following. To me, this movie and the music never truly get the actual credit they deserve because of how critics treated it and how people assume it’s a “guilty pleasure” type ordeal. The movie should’ve been incredibly successful at the time it dropped but the disconnect between the storyline and marketing that ultimately was the undoing. A special shout out to the DuJour songs, more specifically “Backdoor Lover” because who knew a pop song that MAY OR MAY NOT be about anal was so fun to sing along to. You won’t beat my ass and tell me *NSYNC or BSB (specifically AJ McLean) wouldn’t have bodied this had they recorded it.

To conclude our first newsletter…

In 2001 Roger Ebert said, “Josie and the Pussycats are not dumber than the Spice Girls, but they're as dumb as the Spice Girls, which is dumb enough.” I don’t think that the Spice Girls or Josie and the Pussycats are dumb in any way, but I do believe that men who write reviews are always more critical of media whose immediate audience is young girls. The point and the beauty of whatever is created is missed because it doesn’t serve them. Josie was/is a perfect early 2000s movie, it lives in a delightful realm of nostalgia and the product placements only add to it(which none of the companies paid for), plus it exists within the same universe as Legally Blonde. It served its purpose well and gave us the best fake rock band of all time. DuJour means seatbelts. DuJour means crash positions.