I still can't believe people don't get this film

Josie and the Pussycats perfectly encapsulates the American capitalist consumer aesthetic that was present when I was a 17 year-old teenager in 2001 (and always has and seems like it still does exist as strong today in late 2009), when the film was first released.This film is also eerily close to September 11th too. But this is probably just a coincedence.

The character Josie obviously is an allegorical representation of early capitalism in America. She is hesitant early on when becoming big with the new record deal that helps her from struggling in the world, but she soon accepts it. The racial tension is felt between Josie and Valarie. This is perfect of the relationship between whites and blacks since after slavery was abolished and the dynamic was beginning to change from the master/slave relationship that helped build American companies early on. You can see at the end of the exchange, after Valerie and Melody were almost hilariously killed by Carson Daly (which represented a “Cancer” of the music industry), how condescending Josie is to Valerie, which white corporate America can be said to have toward lower income blacks. The racial tension is so overt in this film. I am surprised that it was even allowed to be made, since this film was marketed towards the 13-17 year old crowd. More than likely no one got it, except for the writers of course.

The best part of this film is the relationship dynamics between all of the main characters. The most next most noticeable is the character of Melody, who I think represents blind optimism. This could be a reference to how naïve children are early in life, compared to what happens when they reach the real world and realize they have been taken-for-a-ride. I think it is also commenting on the fact that we use consumerism in order to keep us younger and more attractive, or dare I say “cool”. The pivotal scene in the film for the Melody character is when Josie is confronted by the two girls, in what seems like an uncomfortable business-like corporate environment. In this scene Josie is no longer the “small business” that was prevalent in an early capitalist system. Josie has become the “big corporation”. And the band members represent the low level employees that have no say in anything important. This is obvious in the new business attire wardrobe that the Josie character is wearing. She also seems very disconnected emotionally and on a personal level from her employees (the other band members). This represents how the employer and employee relationship has evolved today. You work for a large business more than likely and you very rarely see anyone with significant power. Chances are your boss is just a low wage middle-man.

In the scene I mentioned above, Josie basically crushes the blind optimism (Melody) that once drove America’s early success in the country’s underdog rise to glory, by telling her numerous hurtful things that almost seems like an alcoholic father would tell a child after getting too drunk one night after work. She bluntly stated that someday Melody was going to die, confirming her own mortality to her child-like self (mortality is a hard thing to accept, especially in a consumer driven culture we currently inhabit, and maybe always inhabited, where people are reaching for their credit cards to buy and stay young… and entertained. Could this be a possible by-product of that tendency held deep within humans utterly to fear death and our own mortality? Think of how many religions have sprung up since the dawn of humanity to try and erase this tragic reality from our conscious).

“Not all people get a happy ending, Muffin,” Josie says with a devilishly evil look. This for me is the death of text book capitalism as we know it, and the birth of symbiotic corporate capitalism that appears to keep the populace fat and happy, but merely keeps them unaware of how the structure has been systematically increasing its power over the citizens throughout the years. The citizens depend on this new state now and not on themselves like they once did. So basically the new culture of living where everyone wants to become rich and powerful, changes from early colonial history when people just made ends meat and got the bare essentials themselves.

The last thing I want to mention is how the film eerily comes off as an American capitalist piece of propaganda. The scene with Eugene Levy is very similar to the nazi propaganda films that were shown in WW2. Eugene Levy is Jewish too, so this could be a subtle hint of that by the writers too.


"I'm bleeding, making me the victor."

- Wimp Lo (Kung Pow 2002)