OY, THEY'RE SPICY:
Funny Girls Upset The Balance Of Power
by Diane Flacks
It's happened to you too, hasn't it? I'm not the only one, am I? You
wake up next to your beloved who practically glows with the
warmth of contented sleep, her hand resting obliviously on your
guiltily butterflying stomach.
Butterflying because you, you cad, have had one of those dreams. Those nocturnal admissions of yearning for someone else.
Now, in order to maintain monogamous bliss--as we all know, bliss,
like a long bath, must be constantly monitored like mildew--it's
perfectly healthy to fantasize.
But what if the dream is about something completely outlandish? Someone about whom entertaining any thought--even non-sexual--is mortifying.
Someone like...Posh Spice. Yes! Not Sporty of the floor exercises
and the not-so-subtle lesbian subtext, or Ginger of the
now-ubiquitous hair-streaks and the Marilyn Monroe-ish gay targeting,
or Baby--oy, don't even go there with Baby--or Scary of the piercings
and dildoesque pony-tails!
No! Posh. Privileged, personality-deprived, numbingly hetero,
soccer-boy-submitting Posh.
Okay, in the dream, all the other Spice Girls want me, too. I am, after all, the soon to be embraced, imitated, and despised Kikey
Spice, also known as Dykey Spice, or KD Spice. And just because the
dream took place in a sofa-cushion fort in my parents' basement does not
mean it won't happen.
After my beloved finishes laughing at me for my incomprehensible
choice of stuffy old Posh, she voices the obvious question: Why am I
fantasizing about Spice Girls when there are Olympic women speed skaters
to ponder?
I confess, the Spice fascinate me. And not in a cynically
dismissive, waiting-to-eviscerate way. I stare with my head cocked
like my German shepherd/husky cross at their "Spice Up Their Life"
video, occasionally leaping up to do a sloppy, Jewish samba.
Are they empowering or diminishing? I can't tell--I'm too swept up
in the groove. But I've begun to pay close attention to the
anti-Spice backlash.
The powers-that-be are terrified of these young women (though it
wouldn't surprise me if they were all actually 37). You see, The
Spice have neglected the "balance of power" rule. Jefferson Airplane
knew it well; In the pop cultural milieu, one woman is supposed to
balance out five men.
As a result of extensive scientific research (watchin' TV), I have concluded that one woman in a band, or sketch troupe, or Sixty
Minutes team, or Hollywood movie, is expected to balance out a cast of
up to 35 men. That is to say: As long as you got one woman, even if she
plays the girlfriend, waitress, or corpse, you can claim gender equity
in casting.
If you have more than one woman, you run the risk of being
categorized as a "women's movie" or a "girl band," and dismissed as
less important than, for instance, those all-male action things that do
so much for the world, like Braveheart.
And do not be seduced into thinking that this imbalance indicates a
belief that one woman is as powerful as 35 men. No. It exists
because women are so underrepresented and narrowly portrayed that just
one is an oddity, almost overwhelming.
So that's why I love the Spice Girls. They are increasing the
public's familiarity with female characters by presenting five
different "girl" identities (none of whom seems to be dependent for said
identity on a "boy"). The more familiar an identity, the more readily
it can be embraced by the public as an individual, not as a sub-set of
the ever-present norm--the straight, white male.
This is probably my favorite article I've ever read about the Spices. I got goose pimples when I first read it. And no, the reason why I like it is not because of the sexual stuff in it, if you would look away from that and look into the deeper meaning of this article, you'd find the reason why I like it so much. Its positive towards not only the Spice Girls, but its also supporting women in general. Girl Power!