Josie and the Pussycats

Josie and the Pussycats is a fun, silly satire about teen obsession for bands and a mild criticism of the commercialization of the music industry specifically, the entertainment industry more generally. Steve Madden, Hostess, Puma, Reebok, Rite Aid, Starbucks, Motorola, McDonalds, John Frieda, Bugles, Target, TGI Fridays, Bloomingdales, Adidas, Revlon, TJ Maxx, Evian, Sega... all of these brands and more are visible in the movie. Certainly this is nothing new nor absent 9 years later - in Lady Gaga's video for Telephone, several brands are represented. Of course, with the increased availability of digital music, it's harder for artists and record companies to make a profit, so this promotion is mutually beneficial.


The filmmakers of Josie and the Pussycats, taking a critical look at this commercialization, inserted the brands voluntarily and without compensation, and Lady Gaga apparently did the same in her video. The idea the entertainment industry uses subliminal messages to sell products really doesn't require much of a stretch of the imagination. Today it's nothing so sinister as Mr. Movie Phone reading a back track to pop songs telling listeners that Blue is the new Orange, but product placement is ever more prevalent in the media. iPod ads in Park Street Station, Coca Cola cups before the judges on American Idol, Miracle Whip in a music video - the very amount of saturation is sure to effect attitudes of those most vulnerable to absorbing and internalizing this information - children.

Marketers understand that children have a huge influence over household purchases, so when they see the Idol contestants goofing off in a Ford ad, these message-sensitive viewers are meant to associate the brand with fame and success, concepts which, in the era of YouTube and Hannah Montana are highly desirable. I'm not saying that this is brainwashing the youth of America, because as they grow and mature, we (I still consider myself to be part of the 'youth' demographic) are taught to become critical thinkers and observe this sort of cultural phenomena with a wary eye. TRL had a huge influence on me and my friends up until the time I was 12. By then I began to look beyond MTV for cool new music and such, but it wasn't until high school when I really started to notice the amount of product placement in my daily life.

How about the girls of Josie and the Pussycats? Based on the 1970's cartoon of the same name, which is itself based on a comic book series, Josie, Valerie and Melody are a struggling all-girl band who make it big (in just a week) after signing with Megarecords, who need to replace the boyband "DuJour" who were eliminated by a "Chevy to the Levy" move by the record label. Prior to signing with the label, the girls were just The Pussycats. Now they're Josie and the Pussycats, so Rachael Leigh Cook's character gets the most focus because she is the lead singer. She is the only Pussycat with a love interest, and to make her character seem deep and interesting beyond her musical talent, she is inexplicably able to fix cars. Valerie (Rosario Dawson) struggles the most with Josie's position as the face and name of the band, while Melody (Tara Reid) is a portrayed as a dumb blonde fixated on puppies and rainbows, although she's not actually that oblivious and stupid (see quotes below). The writers did give Melody's character one interesting scene, where she meets Carson Daly (who was dating Tara Reid at the time), for a little meta-humor. In all of the movies I've reviewed so far, the characters are set up in almost this exact same dynamic - the main character has a love interest and drives the plot of the story, and the beta-friend(s) are just there as backup, like the bassist or drummer to the lead guitarist/singer.

Melody
Memorable quotes: "Oh yeah, like how he ordered a triple cappuccino and scooped up all the foam. Why not just get an espresso. Plus how he kept folding his napkin like he's afraid he doesn't have any real friends, just people who want to use him because he's just a big music guy." "If I could go back in time, I would want to meet Snoopy."

Valerie:
Memorable quotes: "You know, does anyone have change for a tampon?" "Wyatt, you messed with the wrong pussy!"