In 1997, I was living in Paris, existing on cigarettes and coffee (but still horribly fat), dating a musician called Jean-Pierre, and writing a thesis on decolonisation of the French empire and its demographic effects on the Parisian Jewish community. I qualified as a manicurist, worked at a salon called Jusqu’au Bout des Ongles, and dyed my hair pink.
Back in London, Five Feisty girls were jumping around in their platforms, banging on about Girl Power. And now the Spice Girls are back.
An article I read this week downplayed the cultural significance of the Spice Girls and the media interest their reunion has generated, dismissing them as of their time. I have to disagree. The Spice Girls represent more than mere transient, poptastic fun. 1997, devoid as it was of i-pods, Facebook and funky ringtones, was a highly significant year, in the way that the final years of a century always are. In 1997, the foundations were laid for the culture in which we exist today, and this was never epitomised better by anyone but the Spice Girls (except perhaps Peter Mandelson, but that’s another story…) Here’s why:
Around 1997, we started to see a new, different kind of openness in the media. Journalistic discourse shifted to the more confessional, with John Diamond writing about his battle with cancer in the Times, Ruth Picardie doing the same in the Observer, and Helen Fielding and Candace Bushnell semi-biographically diarising the relationship dilemmas of the modern woman. Around the same time, Germaine Greer started to lose the plot (it would be 2 years before she insulted F at an academic conference) and suddenly, we were talking about post-Feminism as though the Second Wave had never happened.
Spin ruled over substance. The rise and rise of the PR person, satirised in Absolutely Fabulous, seeped into politics in more aggressive ways than before (New Labour, anyone?), and celebrity ruled. Everyone became an idol. Tony Blair fashioned himself as the leader of the People; Diana was the People’s princess. In the Netherlands, a little known show called Big Brother was in production. It would later come to the UK, playing on our materialistic aspirations, encouraging us to reach the dizzy heights of vacuous celebrity for having achieved nothing.
One may, then, be forgiven for dismissing the emergence of any new celebrity phenomenon in such a fast -paced and short-lived vacuum as a five minute wonder. This may be true of Big Brother contestants, but not of the Spice Girls.
In an era of Feminist uncertainty, the Spice Girls redefined our way. Post the emasculating Thatcher years, the only Feminism we knew was homogenising and reductive, decidedly unfeminine and arguably excluded self expression. The Spice Girls introduced multiplicity into our discourse. They had balls and boobs and non gender-specific categories of identity.
That 4 of the 5 girls are now mothers and 3 of them have been plagued by persistent rumours of eating disorders is immaterial to their success. It is amazing and rare and absolute testament to their cultural significance that the Spice Girls have been able to achieve that level of success without critics reducing them to their biological function.
Now that’s Girl Power.
Back in London, Five Feisty girls were jumping around in their platforms, banging on about Girl Power. And now the Spice Girls are back.
An article I read this week downplayed the cultural significance of the Spice Girls and the media interest their reunion has generated, dismissing them as of their time. I have to disagree. The Spice Girls represent more than mere transient, poptastic fun. 1997, devoid as it was of i-pods, Facebook and funky ringtones, was a highly significant year, in the way that the final years of a century always are. In 1997, the foundations were laid for the culture in which we exist today, and this was never epitomised better by anyone but the Spice Girls (except perhaps Peter Mandelson, but that’s another story…) Here’s why:
Around 1997, we started to see a new, different kind of openness in the media. Journalistic discourse shifted to the more confessional, with John Diamond writing about his battle with cancer in the Times, Ruth Picardie doing the same in the Observer, and Helen Fielding and Candace Bushnell semi-biographically diarising the relationship dilemmas of the modern woman. Around the same time, Germaine Greer started to lose the plot (it would be 2 years before she insulted F at an academic conference) and suddenly, we were talking about post-Feminism as though the Second Wave had never happened.
Spin ruled over substance. The rise and rise of the PR person, satirised in Absolutely Fabulous, seeped into politics in more aggressive ways than before (New Labour, anyone?), and celebrity ruled. Everyone became an idol. Tony Blair fashioned himself as the leader of the People; Diana was the People’s princess. In the Netherlands, a little known show called Big Brother was in production. It would later come to the UK, playing on our materialistic aspirations, encouraging us to reach the dizzy heights of vacuous celebrity for having achieved nothing.
One may, then, be forgiven for dismissing the emergence of any new celebrity phenomenon in such a fast -paced and short-lived vacuum as a five minute wonder. This may be true of Big Brother contestants, but not of the Spice Girls.
In an era of Feminist uncertainty, the Spice Girls redefined our way. Post the emasculating Thatcher years, the only Feminism we knew was homogenising and reductive, decidedly unfeminine and arguably excluded self expression. The Spice Girls introduced multiplicity into our discourse. They had balls and boobs and non gender-specific categories of identity.
That 4 of the 5 girls are now mothers and 3 of them have been plagued by persistent rumours of eating disorders is immaterial to their success. It is amazing and rare and absolute testament to their cultural significance that the Spice Girls have been able to achieve that level of success without critics reducing them to their biological function.
Now that’s Girl Power.
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