A
simplified look at the Spice Girls’ insane amount of success would most
likely lead one to day say it was the result of hitting the public eye
at the right time with the right image. Grunge was over. Riot Grrrl was
over. Sure, Bikini Kill’s Singles would come in 1998, but that didn’t reignite the spark. Things had changed dramatically in just the two years since Reject All American,
and it’s not surprising that the change involved hyper-sexualized,
somewhat cartoonish women selling a thought-free brand of feminism. Now,
to 9-year-old me, the phrase “Girl Power” meant something, and I’m glad
it did. I hadn’t completely been ossified by cynicism, and I didn’t
know a damn thing about PR, image building, target marketing, or the
overall way everything, including a complex set of ideas and theories
like feminism, eventually gets destroyed in the process of becoming a
product. So, I was able to blissfully dance all day on the two feet of
empty floor in the room I shared with my stepbrother without ever
thinking about what I was really buying when I saved up grade card money and bought a Spice Girls album.
I didn’t think to myself, “Wow, Ginger Spice is only wearing black underwear and a shirt with only two buttons in that photo. That’s an odd thing to market to a girl my age.” I thought, “Ginger Spice is fucking pretty. They’re all so pretty. I want to be like that.” The Spice Girls were a very sexual group, both lyrically and in their wardrobe choices, but a lot of that was lost on me then. I didn’t think in terms of sexiness. My precocity didn’t extend that far. I just knew I had never been attractive or particularly well-liked, and the Spice Girls were both. I was sure the same thing would happen for me if I followed their example closely enough.
There were only a few things standing in my way.
My mother hates all things feminine, and she spent her childhood happily wearing nothing but jeans and softball shirts. I was somewhat different. From the first moment I was allowed to choose my own clothes, I chose the frilliest dresses within reach. For a few years she went along with it, letting me wear my dresses, tights, and Mary Janes constantly. Back then my hair was thin and fell in gentle curls, and I wasn’t wearing the thick, thick glasses that would dominate every school photo from first through sixth grade.
Seriously, I was fucking blind.
Something happened though, and I can’t pinpoint when exactly it happened, but one morning I wasn’t pretty anymore. This isn’t a long-winded compliment grab. My little child prettiness was gone, and that fact was immediately made clear to me by children and adults alike. Of course, physical beauty doesn’t last, it doesn’t make any more or less valuable, lovable, intelligent, the emphasis on women’s appearance is a way the patriarchy oppresses us, etc, but I didn’t know any of that. I had Anne Shirley crying about having red hair, because, you know, it’s the worst fucking hair color a girl can be cursed with apparently, and my classmates driving that point home at least once a week. So, when I first saw Geri Halliwell with her bottle-red Ginger Spice hair, I was overjoyed.
No sooner had I hit my ugly stage then my mother decided it was time to get in touch with my less feminine side. Oh, I hated my clothes. It felt like I was walking around in someone else’s body. That couldn’t be me in those plain jeans and T-shirt. I was made for lace and velvet and shoes that clicked with every step, not the clunky sneakers my mother insisted I wear. Later on, I embraced a slightly more masculine version of the same look for a while, because I didn’t have the money to even come close to dressing the way I really wanted to and also by that point I was so disassociated from my body I didn’t care. I wanted clothes that projected strength and didn’t invite anyone to look at me, and we all know femininity equal weakness.
Anyway, it wasn’t just that they were all gorgeous. More importantly, it was that they were a tight-knit group of friends. Despite whatever happened after Geri Halliwell’s departure, at the height of my Spice Girls love they represented the possibilities of friendship with other girls. I’ve never been one to have patience with women who claim to be “different” from other women and who “just can’t stand girls; guys are so much better to hang out with.” Sure, some women may prefer male friends, but the majority of the time phrases like that are uttered, it’s the result of internalized misogyny. I could do a whole rant about this issue, but that’s for another post. The point is, the fact that they were a group of women who heavily played up the idea that they were all good friends is still pretty fucking revolutionary for a successful mainstream pop act. They acted as a unit. There was no lead vocalist. There were no photos with one pushed closer to the front; they always appeared on equal footing.
As introverted as I am, I still really want a small group of people to be close to, and that’s never really happened. I’m not saying I don’t have wonderful friends. I do. I just can count them on one hand, and they don’t really overlap. The appeal of the Spice Girls for me, especially after seeing Spiceworld, was that they were like a puzzle, with each member providing a vital piece. They had all the camaraderie of a group that’s known each other for years and spent a lot of time together. I responded to that a lot; it was exactly what I had always wanted. Sure, they were all picked by a record company, but by the time they became international superstars they had already spent a few years living and working together. Things may have fallen apart later on, beginning, I would argue with the departure of Geri Halliwell, but there was a time when they actually enjoyed being in the same room together. I haven't read any criticism specifically targeting the implosion of the group on a personal level, but I'm sure it's out there. "That's what happens when you get a group of girls together, you know." The thing is, no-one ever snits about whether the Beatles liked each other or not at the end--because boys get along always, you know, and when they don't it's respected. Also, no-one ever seems to feel the need to comment on what dicks the Beatles could be either. Those are separate rants, though.
When the Spice Girls were at the height of their success, there really weren’t any girl pop groups to compete with them, and I think that’s very important. It had a lot to do with how unique they ended up being. When the Britney-Christina-Mandy-Jessica-Other Girls I Can’t Remember the Names Of Wars began each girl was defined in opposition to the other girls. You could pick which brand you liked best, but I really never saw that much difference between them. I had the first two Britney Spears albums, but they were played most often by my stepbrother. Singing along to syrupy songs about love didn’t appeal to me, in part because the kind of love I dreamed about was too fucking epic for a 3 minute pop song written by a songwriting team, and also because I was just getting over pop music in general.
The Spice Girls' first two albums sound incredibly dated when compared to the pop music of 2012, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're bad. I'm not saying they're good. They're just not bad. They're catchy as hell, which is Requirement #1 for a pop album. I still remember every word to every song, and I can sing them with ease. One of the things that makes the first two Spice Girls albums so interesting is just how much creative input the Girls themselves had. Officially they're listed as "co-writers", but even that's kind of impressive. According to Geri Halliwell's memoir If Only the ideas and most of the lyrics for their first album were thought up while the Girls were sharing a house and waiting for the record company to do something with the group it had assembled. Now, they and their team of professionals were not gifted songwriters. You won't find lyrics worthy of Bob Dylan or Tori Amos, but the songs were never meant to be works of art. Maybe the Girls themselves would disagree, and after reading If Only I wouldn't be surprised if Geri Halliwell disagreed. If taken for what they were intended to be, their songs are actually pretty dark and interesting in comparison to other pop songs, especially most of what I hear on the radio these days. I wouldn't say they were a feminist group, but there are definitely feminist elements at work, even if that wasn't the original intention.
They never begged for male attention. They always set the terms, and they always came from a place of confidence. Repeatedly they refer to a strong support system of female friends, and again, I can't stress how fucking revolutionary that is. There are no songs about how far they'll go to get the guy, no songs about that bitch who took him away, no Madonna/Whore complex bullshit. They sang sexual songs that weren't dirty. The Girls were all at least 23 when their rise to fame began. It makes sense for them to approach sex and relationships from a perspective a 16 year-old wouldn't, and they did. They didn't apologize about having sexual desires nor did they use them to make some bogus statement about how "empowering" it is to fuck someone. Listening to "2 Become 1" now, I hear a lot of corniness in the lyrics, but I'm still a little impressed that a mainstream pop group managed to make a song about safe sex sound so classy and romantic (by pop music standards.) I can't help but think if one of them had made a foray into the glorious land of the lesbians and felt the urge to write a song about it what they ended up with wouldn't have been nearly as offensive and just plain awful as Katy Perry's "I Kissed a Girl."
Which brings me to my last point. When women get together in groups without men bad things happen. Homophobia is a tool of sexism, after all, and I understood that before I read Suzanne Pharr, even if I couldn’t put it so articulately. For me, loving the Spice Girls was an act of rebellion, and they'll always have a special place in my fangirl heart for that very reason. Every time I walk into one of those "antique malls" and see a booth full of pop culture memorabilia that includes Spice Girls merchandise I get a little giddy, and for a moment I'm 9 years old again, only this time I can have all the campy Girl Power-infused goodness I want. My mother didn't spend much time objecting to the content of the Spice Girls' songs--she never actually listened to one, as far as I know--or the skimpiness of their clothes. My mother is too unique for that. Instead she focused her criticism on a few lesbian rumors she'd heard. Yes, dear readers, my mother lectured me endlessly about liking a pop group rumored to have lesbians in it, and when that had no effect--well, that's a kind of twisted story. Suffice it to say if my mother could have sent me to True Directions, she would have. I find it incredibly ironic how gay I turned out considering her efforts began well before I reached the age of sexual awakening.
I may do a post reviewing If Only, which was a surprisingly good book, if anyone's interested.
I didn’t think to myself, “Wow, Ginger Spice is only wearing black underwear and a shirt with only two buttons in that photo. That’s an odd thing to market to a girl my age.” I thought, “Ginger Spice is fucking pretty. They’re all so pretty. I want to be like that.” The Spice Girls were a very sexual group, both lyrically and in their wardrobe choices, but a lot of that was lost on me then. I didn’t think in terms of sexiness. My precocity didn’t extend that far. I just knew I had never been attractive or particularly well-liked, and the Spice Girls were both. I was sure the same thing would happen for me if I followed their example closely enough.
There were only a few things standing in my way.
My mother hates all things feminine, and she spent her childhood happily wearing nothing but jeans and softball shirts. I was somewhat different. From the first moment I was allowed to choose my own clothes, I chose the frilliest dresses within reach. For a few years she went along with it, letting me wear my dresses, tights, and Mary Janes constantly. Back then my hair was thin and fell in gentle curls, and I wasn’t wearing the thick, thick glasses that would dominate every school photo from first through sixth grade.
Seriously, I was fucking blind.
Something happened though, and I can’t pinpoint when exactly it happened, but one morning I wasn’t pretty anymore. This isn’t a long-winded compliment grab. My little child prettiness was gone, and that fact was immediately made clear to me by children and adults alike. Of course, physical beauty doesn’t last, it doesn’t make any more or less valuable, lovable, intelligent, the emphasis on women’s appearance is a way the patriarchy oppresses us, etc, but I didn’t know any of that. I had Anne Shirley crying about having red hair, because, you know, it’s the worst fucking hair color a girl can be cursed with apparently, and my classmates driving that point home at least once a week. So, when I first saw Geri Halliwell with her bottle-red Ginger Spice hair, I was overjoyed.
No sooner had I hit my ugly stage then my mother decided it was time to get in touch with my less feminine side. Oh, I hated my clothes. It felt like I was walking around in someone else’s body. That couldn’t be me in those plain jeans and T-shirt. I was made for lace and velvet and shoes that clicked with every step, not the clunky sneakers my mother insisted I wear. Later on, I embraced a slightly more masculine version of the same look for a while, because I didn’t have the money to even come close to dressing the way I really wanted to and also by that point I was so disassociated from my body I didn’t care. I wanted clothes that projected strength and didn’t invite anyone to look at me, and we all know femininity equal weakness.
Anyway, it wasn’t just that they were all gorgeous. More importantly, it was that they were a tight-knit group of friends. Despite whatever happened after Geri Halliwell’s departure, at the height of my Spice Girls love they represented the possibilities of friendship with other girls. I’ve never been one to have patience with women who claim to be “different” from other women and who “just can’t stand girls; guys are so much better to hang out with.” Sure, some women may prefer male friends, but the majority of the time phrases like that are uttered, it’s the result of internalized misogyny. I could do a whole rant about this issue, but that’s for another post. The point is, the fact that they were a group of women who heavily played up the idea that they were all good friends is still pretty fucking revolutionary for a successful mainstream pop act. They acted as a unit. There was no lead vocalist. There were no photos with one pushed closer to the front; they always appeared on equal footing.
As introverted as I am, I still really want a small group of people to be close to, and that’s never really happened. I’m not saying I don’t have wonderful friends. I do. I just can count them on one hand, and they don’t really overlap. The appeal of the Spice Girls for me, especially after seeing Spiceworld, was that they were like a puzzle, with each member providing a vital piece. They had all the camaraderie of a group that’s known each other for years and spent a lot of time together. I responded to that a lot; it was exactly what I had always wanted. Sure, they were all picked by a record company, but by the time they became international superstars they had already spent a few years living and working together. Things may have fallen apart later on, beginning, I would argue with the departure of Geri Halliwell, but there was a time when they actually enjoyed being in the same room together. I haven't read any criticism specifically targeting the implosion of the group on a personal level, but I'm sure it's out there. "That's what happens when you get a group of girls together, you know." The thing is, no-one ever snits about whether the Beatles liked each other or not at the end--because boys get along always, you know, and when they don't it's respected. Also, no-one ever seems to feel the need to comment on what dicks the Beatles could be either. Those are separate rants, though.
When the Spice Girls were at the height of their success, there really weren’t any girl pop groups to compete with them, and I think that’s very important. It had a lot to do with how unique they ended up being. When the Britney-Christina-Mandy-Jessica-Other Girls I Can’t Remember the Names Of Wars began each girl was defined in opposition to the other girls. You could pick which brand you liked best, but I really never saw that much difference between them. I had the first two Britney Spears albums, but they were played most often by my stepbrother. Singing along to syrupy songs about love didn’t appeal to me, in part because the kind of love I dreamed about was too fucking epic for a 3 minute pop song written by a songwriting team, and also because I was just getting over pop music in general.
The Spice Girls' first two albums sound incredibly dated when compared to the pop music of 2012, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're bad. I'm not saying they're good. They're just not bad. They're catchy as hell, which is Requirement #1 for a pop album. I still remember every word to every song, and I can sing them with ease. One of the things that makes the first two Spice Girls albums so interesting is just how much creative input the Girls themselves had. Officially they're listed as "co-writers", but even that's kind of impressive. According to Geri Halliwell's memoir If Only the ideas and most of the lyrics for their first album were thought up while the Girls were sharing a house and waiting for the record company to do something with the group it had assembled. Now, they and their team of professionals were not gifted songwriters. You won't find lyrics worthy of Bob Dylan or Tori Amos, but the songs were never meant to be works of art. Maybe the Girls themselves would disagree, and after reading If Only I wouldn't be surprised if Geri Halliwell disagreed. If taken for what they were intended to be, their songs are actually pretty dark and interesting in comparison to other pop songs, especially most of what I hear on the radio these days. I wouldn't say they were a feminist group, but there are definitely feminist elements at work, even if that wasn't the original intention.
They never begged for male attention. They always set the terms, and they always came from a place of confidence. Repeatedly they refer to a strong support system of female friends, and again, I can't stress how fucking revolutionary that is. There are no songs about how far they'll go to get the guy, no songs about that bitch who took him away, no Madonna/Whore complex bullshit. They sang sexual songs that weren't dirty. The Girls were all at least 23 when their rise to fame began. It makes sense for them to approach sex and relationships from a perspective a 16 year-old wouldn't, and they did. They didn't apologize about having sexual desires nor did they use them to make some bogus statement about how "empowering" it is to fuck someone. Listening to "2 Become 1" now, I hear a lot of corniness in the lyrics, but I'm still a little impressed that a mainstream pop group managed to make a song about safe sex sound so classy and romantic (by pop music standards.) I can't help but think if one of them had made a foray into the glorious land of the lesbians and felt the urge to write a song about it what they ended up with wouldn't have been nearly as offensive and just plain awful as Katy Perry's "I Kissed a Girl."
Which brings me to my last point. When women get together in groups without men bad things happen. Homophobia is a tool of sexism, after all, and I understood that before I read Suzanne Pharr, even if I couldn’t put it so articulately. For me, loving the Spice Girls was an act of rebellion, and they'll always have a special place in my fangirl heart for that very reason. Every time I walk into one of those "antique malls" and see a booth full of pop culture memorabilia that includes Spice Girls merchandise I get a little giddy, and for a moment I'm 9 years old again, only this time I can have all the campy Girl Power-infused goodness I want. My mother didn't spend much time objecting to the content of the Spice Girls' songs--she never actually listened to one, as far as I know--or the skimpiness of their clothes. My mother is too unique for that. Instead she focused her criticism on a few lesbian rumors she'd heard. Yes, dear readers, my mother lectured me endlessly about liking a pop group rumored to have lesbians in it, and when that had no effect--well, that's a kind of twisted story. Suffice it to say if my mother could have sent me to True Directions, she would have. I find it incredibly ironic how gay I turned out considering her efforts began well before I reached the age of sexual awakening.
I may do a post reviewing If Only, which was a surprisingly good book, if anyone's interested.
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