Josie And The Pussycats: An Overlooked Musical Satire
Written by Patrick Pickett
This past weekend I re-watched Josie And The Pussycats (2001) for the first time in over a decade. This was a movie I would watch constantly during my days as a pre-teen, as it was always on cable at least once a month from 2002–2004. I was drawn to the movie because of its goofy humor, upbeat spirit, catchy, pop-punk soundtrack, and charismatic leads. While I never forgot about it completely, as I got older, this movie started to fade from my mind, and I went a long time without revisiting it.
Since April is the month of comedy, and this whole COVID quarantine put me in a bit of a low mood, I felt inspired to watch it over, purely for nostalgia’s sake. Upon seeing it again, I was pleasantly surprised not only by how well it holds up, but how ahead of its time it actually was. In addition to being a funny, sweet, and earnest musical-comedy about staying true to yourself, it also manages to be a sharp (yet goofy), self-aware satire; serving as a critique of corporate greed/corruption, mass media exploitation, and consumer culture.
Of course, there’s a bit of intentional irony with that second point: for those who are too young to know, Josie And The Pussycats is an adaptation of an old comic book and cartoon series that ran from the 1960s to the 1970s about an all female pop-rock band who also solves mysteries (think Scooby-Doo, but with three women, and no talking dog). In the film Josie, Valerie, and Melanie (played by Rachel Leigh Cook, Rosario Dawson and Tara Reid respectively) are discovered by record label executive Wyatt Frame (Alan Cumming) and chosen to be the next big American pop sensation following the mysterious disappearance of famous music collective, DuJour (the film’s spoof of The Backstreet Boys and N*Sync).
After the band signs with Mega Records, their career goes through a rapid shift, complete with fame, a private plane and a huge following. However as things escalate, the group learns they are pawns in an evil plot set up by Frame and his boss, Fiona (Parker Posey) to control the youth of America through subliminal messaging and mass propaganda.
From there, The Pussycats are manipulated and pitted against each other to serve the villains’ agenda before they see the error of their ways, get back together, save the day, and prove themselves to their fans on their own merits.
Now, there are a couple of important things to note about this movie, and the period it was released in:
First, Josie And The Pussycats was unfortunately a box office flop that made back only about half of its almost $40 million dollar budget, and perhaps caused some damage to the careers of its two leads, Rachel Leigh Cook and Tara Reid, as well as its writer/directors (The film “took us out of the movie industry,” said co-writer/director Deborah Kaplan in an interview with BuzzFeed in 2017). Critics weren’t kind either, with the primary criticism being that despite it’s apparent anti-capitalist message, it featured an excess of product placement which seemed hypocritical to many at the time.
Upon a deeper look at the film, it’s clear this product placement was meant to be shoved in the audience’s face purely to drive the movie’s message home. From the opening sequence inside DuJour’s plane, which is filled with about a dozen instances of the Target logo, and boxes of Bounce detergent that are suspiciously stacked together and right in front of the camera for no reason, to the ominous image of the MTV logo almost magically appearing center-frame moments after the film’s villain disappears a free-thinking teenager who is too smart for her own good, the logos are meant to show the power of the villains’ influence throughout, and perhaps even to get the audience to re-think these brands in the context of the real world (Parker Posey’s character even makes a direct reference to this midway through the movie).
It seems more likely that a 2001 audience just wasn’t sharp enough to pick up on this, as this level of self-awareness has since become more prominent and has generally been better received in more recent films like the 21 Jump Street series (2012 and 2014) and Deadpool (2016).
Speaking of the film’s release year, this movie came out on April 11, 2001, literally five months before 9/11 changed everything. That timing effectively makes this one of the last movies to capture the spirit of post-Y2K, pre-9/11 optimism.
While the movie does dabble in some dark subject matter, it mostly has a very light-hearted and optimistic tone, filled with cultural references that were very “of the time,” including the popularity of boy bands, pop-punk, MTV, AOL, and Mr. Moviefone, just to name a few. This gives Josie And The Pussycats a sort of “time capsule-like” quality that has only made it more interesting in the nearly 20 years since its release.
Despite the reception it received upon release, the movie has since evolved into something of a cult-classic, with some critics going so far as to re-evaluate it entirely. In 2017, the film’s bright, pop-punk soundtrack (which went Gold, and was co-written and produced by Babyface and Adam Schlesinger) was re-released on vinyl, and to coincide with this, Alamo Drafthouse screened the film at the Los Angeles Ace Hotel along with a panel that featured Rachel Leigh Cook, Rosario Dawson, and Tara Reid.
Josie And The Pussycats is a highly enjoyable, and thoughtful movie that gave me one of the most intense nostalgia trips I’ve ever had. While it’s unfortunate that it went overlooked and wasn’t taken seriously by many when it came out, it’s incredible to see it finally getting its due. Watching it as a 28 year-old brought back feelings I had when I was 10, and yet, now being old enough to pick up on its deeper implications, I was also able to see it with new eyes and appreciate it for different reasons too. I recommend it to anyone who appreciates goofy, over-the-top satire, but if you’re someone who was born between the late ’80s and early ‘90s, it will hopefully resonate with you even more; not only reminding you of what life was like when you were younger, but possibly showing you things you were too young to notice at the time.
