I was sent this link this morning: How the Spice Girls have killed feminism, subverted morality and embarassed us all. Well, you gotta love the title. I was sort of bemused by the notion of blaming the Spice Girls so much; I didn’t pay much attention to them at the time (being too old for teenybopper music) and I find it hard to believe that they had quite so much influence as all that. Though I’m perfectly happy to agree that their brand of Girl Power was hardly what I would call feminist.
But then, I wasn’t living in Britain, and IIRC the Spice Girls were much, much bigger over there than they were this side of the pond. So that’s really my question: how big were they? I presume they didn’t quite measure up to Madonna, but I get the impression that they were bigger than Britney Spears.
The worst part is that ever since I read the article, that song has been in my head, the one about “If you wanna be my lover, you gotta get with my friends.” Argh!
Seeing the sidebar on that page is “I only loved one twin: the shocking confession of a depressed mother” I’m finding it a bit hard to take the paper even remotely seriously.
Is it a real paper or something you’d normally pretend not to be reading in line at the supermarket?
Well, they were enormous. Huge. Short-lived, sure, but gigantic for a time. And what’s more, their fans had an average age of about twelve, if that. So I don’t know if it’s right to blame them for the downfall of whatever, but they were monstrously big and their fans were extremely impressionable.
It’s the Daily Mail. That’s insightful reporting, especially when it comes to slutted up entertainers!
Spice Girls are just filling a need. I don’t think they’ve created a market that wasn’t already there. They are liable for nothing, except encouraging the use of too much makeup.
Meh. First there was that article about how ordinary women with their bikini waxing and stilettos killed feminism. Now the Spice Girls and their lacquered nails? I predict the next one will be blaming Carrie Bradshaw and her Manolo Blahniks and penchant for ending her columns with questions.
Seriously, we get it. No one’s living up to the feminism ideal. Let’s cry about it.
Yeah, it’s hard to tell! But I wasn’t taking the article seriously–that’s my question, how big the Spice Girls really were. I don’t see how they could possibly be that important; I’d say they were more of an indicator of how society was already going. I’m just curious as to how big they got in the UK as opposed to the US, where they were pretty much the equivalent of N Sync as far as I know.
They were more like the Backstreet Boys in their heyday. As in HUGE, if you were a little girl (or, in some cases, an oldr girl with questionable taste). They did get a whole freaking movie made based on little more than their lip syncs.
I was 12 when the Spice Girls hit it big and I will openly admit that a lot of my ideas about being female came from them. It sounds silly, I know, but remember: I was 12.
That said, the lessons I learned from the Spice Girls were good things. I learned that there isn’t one cookie cutter WOMAN- you can have your own interests that are special to you, your own style, and your own looks.
In the movie Spice World, they make it very clear that Geri is the brainiac of the group- she goes off on random tangents about manta rays heh. Mel C is, as her nickname would suggest, into sports. Victoria loved fashion. On and on.
Also, when I watch old videos of the Spice Girls now, I find myself shocked by how, well, thick they were. Even skinny Victoria wasn’t so skinny, by today’s standards at least. Hell, Emma was downright chunky for a long time there. But ya know, I realize now that having such a wide range of body types in the group also helped me realize that there are different standards of beauty that are all equally beautiful.
Cheesy? Betcherass, but they certainly had their effect on me.
