Hey, remember 1997? Sure you do. Bill Clinton was president. Titanic shattered box office records. In a suburb north of San Diego, 39 people donned shiny new Nike sneakers and poisoned themselves to death in an attempt to board a spacecraft they believed was following the Hale-Bopp comet.
And lo, like a sparkly spandex ship appearing slowly over the horizon, Spice World made its spastic, terribly acted way from the U.K. to American shores — and the term “girl power” would never be the same.
Yes, our collective cultural understanding of feminism still has a way to go in 2016. But should you ever need a reminder of exactly how far it’s come in the past two decades, look no further than the Spice Girls’ feature film debut. If I remember correctly, the plot of this movie is that fame is really hard, and also that some vaguely evil newspaper man wants to destroy the band. Then there’s a madcap chase scene on a tour bus that’s funny because none of them can drive (haha!) but thankfully the girls get out of nearly every terrible situation by flirting with a policeman, and it all ends with a performance of “Spice Up Your Life” that (of course) breaks the fourth wall? I’m probably forgetting something. Also Elton John is in it.
So, look, this is an insane time capsule of a movie. Roger Ebert declared it “the worst film of the year” three weeks into the year. And, like all remarkable works of camp, it has amassed a devoted cult following that’s directly proportional to the level of vitriol lobbed at it upon the film’s initial release.
