Girrrrl Power

I'm a 90's kid. I grew up on a cocktail of Girl Power, chupa chups and Buffalo shoes.
I'm not proud of it.

I did, however, recently decide that, for a laugh, I would watch the Spice Girls movie again. I haven't seen that film since I was very young, with judgement clouded by fandom, and I figured it would be fun to watch it again, for the same reason I watched a Bratz film once - because it's laughably stupid.

Therefore I was surprised to find it was indeed laughable, because it was genuinely funny.

Look, this isn't a clever film in any way. The humour is based on a diversity of one-dimensional characters and general silliness. The story line is practically nonexistent. Yet I laughed out loud more than once. The jokes are funny, and bloody hell there's lots of celebrities in walk-on parts. Meat loaf as the bus driver is probably my favourite. It is so committed to silly that, even though I want to hate it, to enjoy it ironically and point it out as the worst movie ever, I can't. It's not taking itself seriously enough to be able to pick on it for being silly.


There is, of course, the surprising realization that, as female role models for young girls, I've seen worse. They may be one dimensional, but let's face it, more often than not the one-dimensional characters in media aimed for girls is just a copy-paste of the same one-dimensional character in different bodies, sometimes with slightly different budgets and fashion sense. The spice girls are 5 different ones, only one of whom is particularly interested in boys. This, as it happens, is a different character from the one that's primarily interested in clothes. 


Spice world: The movie is a film about girls, for girls, and not about getting a boy or conforming to some ideal, unlike most 'chick flicks' I can think of. Not that getting the guy is necessarily a bad goal, just... overused, and in media aimed at younger and younger girls it seems. Yes, Disney Channel, I'm looking at you.