Spice World: Strength and courage in a wonder-bra!

“Their only hope of breaking the cycle of poverty lies with the middle sister, Melanie C, who’s convinced she could become an olympic ski jump champion. If only she could get over her fear of heights... and snow... and if she could just get her hands on a pair of skis.”

Spice World (Spiers, 1997) is one of my favourite films of all time, but I could not accurately tell you the plot if you paid me. I am going to try, however, to summarise this film to the best of my ability to give this article a bit of a background; but be warned, so much happens that it feels like a 90 minute episode of Eric Andre, complete with dozens of celebrity cameos. The main plot focuses on the Spice Girls preparing for their first ever live concert with help from their tour managers, Cliff and Deborah, through fun sketches with aliens, photographers, and a campy army commander. In any other film, that would be more than enough, but strap in, because that doesn’t even take up a third of the screen time. In order to get a good story, an executive at a newspaper hires a detective to follow the Spice Girls and take anything they say out of context (“Spice Girls Doubt Whether Pope is Catholic!”). Not just that, but their pregnant friend Nicola names the girls as godmothers to her new baby as they try to find time to hang with her and live life to the fullest. Throughout the film, there’s also a documentary crew following them around and movie producers pitching film ideas which, by the end of Spice World, begin to seep in until the viewer doesn’t know what’s real and what isn’t. Whether you saw it years ago or didn’t even know this film existed, I would highly recommend that you take a viewing now, because I genuinely think it is insanely funny and original, not to mention actually empowering in a lot of ways.

In fact, the female characters are portrayed as simultaneously intelligent, strong, fun, aggressive, and kind. It’s this portrayal of women as complex and contradictory, that feels so unique, especially for a film that comes off as surface and superficial from the outside. It’s important to acknowledge that the Spice Girls didn’t choose their identities up to this point: they were created by a record company and nicknamed by a tabloid journalist, so this is the first time the girls could flesh out their characters outside of one-dimensional stereotypes. While the feministic twist on their personas often comes off as silly and shoehorned in (“Girl power! Equalisation between the sexes!” - Ginger Spice), it can also be a source of genuine moments of empowerment through friendship and individuality. When Nicola’s baby is born, Sporty comments “With hands like that, she’ll make a great goalie one day!”. It’s such a simple moment, but it validates any young person who feels like they have to choose between masculinity and femininity, or that anyone can’t like makeup and sports. It’s not just the Spice Girls who are portrayed like real people; Deborah (Claire Rushbrook) is consistently witty and organised, not afraid to put Cliff in his place: “I have a degree in politics, philosophy and economics, and I spend my entire life worrying whether Mel C. is wearing the right Nike Air Max.”.

The third rule of the Bechdel-Wallace test is that the conversation cannot be about a man.

So, without further ado, let's dive into times when the movie fails and how the men are portrayed. In short, the men are either camp, incompetent, or both. The

only time the girls themselves show any romantic interest in men, they tell the documentarian that, in an ideal world, you could order men to your specifications like a pizza, and one would just show up. Unfortunately, the question of whether or not this is problematic is complicated. In a way, since the film is aimed at young people, telling them that all men are rubbish could be damaging. On the other hand, it serves as a counter for any film where men are portrayed as heroes and women as either bimbos or spinsters. On their last night of freedom before Nicola’s baby comes, the gang heads out to a gay club for an impromptu performance. Of course, the film doesn’t specify the nature of the dance club, but based the number of men in mesh and wigs (including one stunning white medusa headpiece), one can safely assume. Aside from the fact that that clubbing with a woman about to give birth may not be a good idea, the film does a great job in slipping in these moments where the main women have mindless fun by themselves, despite being surrounded by men (even if they’re gay men).

One of the most important factors in assessing the male gaze (as theorised by Laura Mulvey) is in the costuming. The costume designer for Spice World was award winner Kate Carin. The fact that the girls look consistently comfortable and confident, even in their skimpier outfits, is a key indicator of how Carin avoided objectification. I also want to give a special shoutout to Mel C’s astronaut couture and the sheer number of huge platforms that are so prevalent throughout the film. As Cliff puts it - “Fire in their eyes, hunger in their bellies and great big shoes on their feet”.

The closest Spice World really gets to sexism is probably in the infantilisation of Baby Spice, which really teeters on creepy. Unfortunately there’s also a distinct lack of diversity in race and body type throughout the film, although blame for this lies on the creators of the band just as much as the casting director of the movie. Overall, Spice World is a distinctly feminist film, which plays with genre and subverts expectations at every turn, because “That’s the power of girl power, man”!