January 22, 1998. It was the monumental day when the Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky scandal broke wide open and the Unabomber agreed to a "guilty" plea-bargain. But that was all second-page news to the hundreds, possibly thousands, of giddy pre-preteen girls perched on the bleachers lining Hollywood Blvd. Something far more important, far more newsworthy, was afoot--like the Hollywood premiere of the Spice Girls' new movie. It's a Spice world, after all.
In honor of the Spice Girls' latest blatant grab for world domination--the major motion picture Spiceworld--Hollywood Blvd. had been transformed into some kind of British-themed amusement park attraction, complete with stone-still Buckingham Palace-style guards in full Beefeater regalia (although a couple of them sported Doc Martens on their feet) and Bobby cops entertaining the huddled masses who had come to spice up their lives. A wide screen of Dodger Stadium proportions, set up in front of the historical Mann's Chinese Theater, played the Spiceworld trailer in a continuous loop, and without fail, every time Scary, Ginger, Sporty, Baby and Posh Spice exploded onto the full-color screen, the little girls screamed bloody murder. All the while, the Beefeater guards were the epitome of self-control, never moving a single muscle during the whole event.
"GIRL POWER! GIRL POWER! GIRL POWER!" As these fanatical schoolgirls chanted this sacred mantra over and over, I finally understood what "Girl Power" meant. I'd always thought the Spice Girls' "Girl Power" trip was just empty sloganeering, a silly, meaningless way of disguising their super-bimbo schtick as faux feminism. But this evening, I must admit I got a slight thrill out of hearing a virtual army of impressionable young girls--the Generation Next, if you will--brazenly shout this simple message of female supremacy across the Hollywood streets. Maybe it was all empty sloganeering, maybe the fans in the bleachers weren't even paying much attention to what they were yelling. But then again, maybe in some subliminal way the message was sinking in, and that couldn't be a bad thing.
So here I was in the middle of all the chaos, in the roped-off press area, wondering what the hell I was doing there. Toting my cheapo disposable camera and Radio Shack hand-held tape-recorder, I felt like I belonged in the bleachers with the Spice freaks, not sandwiched between the cut-throat photojournalists with their boom mikes and tripods and pro TV cameras. But nevertheless, I lay in wait with the paparazzi behind the velvet rope--knowing that at any moment the Spice Girls would be there, in the flesh.
Meanwhile, various celebrities and quasi-celebrities were strutting down the red-carpeted walkway as they filed into the Mann's Chinese. Everyone who passed by looked like they were famous--some even balanced cell phones between their ears and shoulders--but I just couldn't be sure, and from the befuddled glances exchanged by the press folks in my general area, I could see that everyone was having a tough time determining whether or not each passerby was "somebody." Thankfully, a couple of facilitators working at the event walked a few paces ahead of the B- and C-list celebs, furtively whispering, "That's Andrew Keegan of Party Of Five" or "That's so-and-so of Suddenly Susan," thus eliminating our confusion.
According to a press release supplied by the movie's publicist, a fleet of major superstars was expected tonight, including such Hollywood royalty as James L. Brooks, George Clooney, Andy Garcia, Spike Lee, Demi Moore, Danny DeVito, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kelly Lynch, Adam Sandler, Joel Schumacher, Will Smith, Steven Spielberg and Bruce Willis, as well as lesser stars like Tim Allen, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Rhea Perlman, Dana Delaney and even Tony Danza. But none of these famous faces appeared in the crowd--if they showed up at all, they must've taken a secret route through the back of the theater. So who was there? Giraffe-like supermodel Rachel Hunter, sans hubby Rod Stewart (who had been listed on the press release); Full House moppets Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, whose very presence caused the entire crowd to erupt in inexplicable shrieks of delight; Sister Sister twins Tia and Tamera Mowry, who paraded along the red carpet quite gracefully until the Spice Girls arrived, at which point they began jumping up and down most excitedly; and spiky-haired, bespectacled tike Jonathan Lipnicki of Jerry McGuire fame, who received the most shrill, crazed response of all. The only "celebrity interview" I got out of all of this was with Party Of Five bit-player Andrew Keegan, and only then because he walked right up to my face and gasped incredulously into my tape-recorder, "This is insane! The Spice Girls are HUGE!" Talk about stating the obvious. When I politely asked the obligatory "Who's your favorite Spice Girl?" question, he seemed to give the matter some actual thought before deciding. "I really dig Scary Spice, because she's got the cool 'do. Yeah, I gotta go with Scary Spice!"
But the dearth of major celebrity sightings didn't seem to bother the Spice-obsessed crowd, who probably considered the Spice Girls far bigger superstars than any of the old-timers immortalized in the cement outside the Mann's Chinese or on Hollywood's Walk Of Fame. The real stars, the only stars tonight, were Baby, Sporty, Ginger, Scary and Posh. And never was that more crystal-clear than when the Spice Girls' double-decker bus, boldly painted like the Union Jack (just like the one in the movie), came careening down the street, the five Spices proudly standing on top and waving to the adoring masses like Rose Parade princesses on a prize-winning float. Suddenly these self-appointed icons of '90s femininity--stars of a PG-rated movie possibly more popular with little girls than Anastasia--seemed as wholesome as apple pie (or maybe steak-and-kidney pie).
The crowd was going nuts; the screams were positively deafening; even the Sister Sister twins were freaking out. When the Girls climbed out of the bus, resplendent in their second-skin white tuxedos and white satin push-up bras (I suspect the Spice Girls have a lucrative endorsement deal with the Wonderbra company), the volume level of the screaming elevated several painful decibels. "GIRL POWER! GIRL POWER! GIRL POWER!" Finally the screams grew so loud, so plaintive, so demanding, that the Girls crossed the street to sign autographs and talk to the ecstatic fans. A SWAT team of men in black--more than I've ever seen accompanying the President--swiftly surrounded them every step of the way, ensuring their safety of England's national treasures.
Once the Girls returned to the other side of the street and were close enough for scrutiny, I was shocked to find that in person they were much prettier, and much less skanky and garish, that they look in their many unflattering photos. Granted, they probably were more made-up and primped than they ever had been in their lives, but hey--whatever they did, it sure worked. All five had smooth, dewy complexions, enviable cleavage and surprisingly slender figures. Even Ginger Spice--whose bloated, round, reddened face often makes her look like a blue-ribbon beet at a county fair, and whose flab-flaunting trapeze-artists leotards caused audience members to groan at regular intervals during a separate, public screening of Spiceworld the night following the premiere--looked absolutely fabulous.
Suddenly, the Spice cadets were smack dab in front of me, their Spice racks thrusting in my direction. Caught off guard, I dorkily asked them if they had hopes of planting their platformed feet in the Mann's Chinese cement someday. "Oh, hopefully," cooed sweet-faced Baby Spice, a.k.a. Emma. "We just did that at Planet Hollywood yesterday!"
"Was that totally crazy?" I asked.
"Everywhere we go is crazy!" Sporty Spice interjected with the somebody-pinch-me enthusiasm one would expect of the most plucky, athletic Spice. "Everywhere we go is more exciting than the next!"
"Oooh, look at her glasses!" Ginger then suddenly remarked, elbowing Scary Spice--who was for reasons unknown yelling, "Crank it up! Crank it up!"--and pointing at my antique frames. Scary leaned in and clucked, "I like your glasses!" in her thick accent. "Thanks! I like yours too," I reciprocated, admiring her octagonal lavender-rimmed specs. Oh, what a nice moment of fashion-related girl bonding! Later, I wondered if I should be too thrilled that a woman who topped Mr. Blackwell's Worst-Dressed Of '97 list had complimented my choice of accessories. (And when Scary exclaimed, "Oooh, I like your glasses!" to Elton John in the very first scene of Spiceworld, I began to question whether she used that line on any four-eyed person who happened to cross her path.)
Then, after all that wait time and preparation, it was all over. The Spice Girls rushed to share 10 or 20 seconds of conversation with the other journalists before going up onstage in front of the wide screen to deliver a speech, which ended up being 100% unintelligible due to the crowd's frantic, ceaseless screaming. (All I could make out was something about Girl Power.) And then the Spices were whisked away to more photo-opps and into the dark confines of the movie theater, leaving the Spice fans in the bleachers to slowly scatter like confused ants across Hollywood Blvd., scavenging for any discarded Spice-related souvenirs they could find.
And so, how was the movie? C'mon, does it really matter? With the Spice Girls, anything they actually do, any product they actually put out, is purely incidental. The Spice Girls are not about the music, or the movie--with them, it's all about the phenomenon, plain and simple. And in that respect, Spiceworld was everything one would expect and hope it to be: mindless, plotless, pointless entertainment. Nothing more, and it wouldn't be possible for it to be any less. Between numerous ludicrous costume changes and celebrity cameos (Meat Loaf reprises his busdriver role from Roadie by driving the Girls' double-decker home-on-wheels, and finally reveals what exactly it is he won't do for love; Elvis Costello utters a single monosyllabic line in his blink-and-you'll-miss-it scene; Bob Geldof lets Scary give him a scary makeover at a backstage soiree; Roger Moore plays Charlie to the Girls' Angels as their behind-the-scenes Svengali; George "Norm!" Wendt and under-appreciated Kids In The Hall alumnus Mark McKinney play a couple of smooth-taking filmmakers pitching ideas for the Spiceworld movie-within-the-movie), there isn't much room for an actual storyline. Still, the Girls squeeze in a close encounter with some friendly aliens, capsize in the Thames River during a high-speed boat chase, rouse a hospitalized fan out of his coma, take boot-camp-style dance lessons, foil an evil tabloid reporter and even help their best friend give birth, all while changing their outfits and increasingly ridiculous hairstyles about 500 times and still making it to their first-ever live concert by the skin of their crooked British teeth.
Spiceworld has all the makings of a classic midnight movie--at the aforementioned public screening the night after the premiere, the audience was cackling, whooping, hollering, throwing popcorn and sassing back to the screen before the opening credits even started to roll. Everyone expected and even wanted it to be terrible--in fact, if Spiceworld had turned out to be an intelligently crafted work of upstanding cinema, the audience probably would have been sorely disappointed.
Yes, Spiceworld is poorly acted, skeletally scripted and edited with zero concern for continuity. And yes, I highly recommend that everyone go see it. But as the Spiceworld press release says: "Be warned--this Spice is HOT!"
