How the 'The Spice Girls' Girl Power changed the music world
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| THE SPICE GIRLS in Las Vegas at the Billboard Music Awards Stock Photo |
How the 'The Spice Girls' Girl Power changed the music world
The documentary series “Spice Girls. When girl power changed the world ”, which is shown on SVT, draws a portrait of the most successful female music group ever. But it also shows that the female body is and remains a battlefield.
It's been twenty-five years since the Spice Girls released their first album "Spice". It begins with the monster hit "Wannabe", whose angular production, impatient energy and bright music video aesthetics paved the way for a colorful women's collective that, despite shortcomings, showed a whole generation of young girls and boys that you do not just have to be one thing.
You can be several, play with roles. Be Baby, Sporty, Scary, Posh or Ginger - alternate between being sweet and cycling, between giving answers to speeches and being cool. All under the slogan — girl power, initially popped up by the group's chief Geri 'Ginger Spice' Halliwell.
Male Dominated Music Industry
The music video for the breakthrough song is in a way congenial - because, the pop quintet composed by the industry really kicked in doors. The music world dominated by boy bands in the 90's. Take That, Backstreet Boys, NSync and Westlife were already conquered the world of music, the Spice Girls were odd birds and were treated accordingly.
Its becomes painfully clear in the British documentary series "Spice Girls. When girl power changed the world” as now show on SVT. Like the New York Times documentary "Framing Britney Spears", the series about the Spice Girls becomes a time documentary of a particularly misogynistic time in pop history. One where the body was currency and battlefields, cellulite and pregnancies were front-page material, one's own morals that need to be defended and the creative declaration of incapacity as constant as central.
The Spice Girls Look Out For Each Other
But unlike Britney Spears, Mel B, Mel C, Geri, Emma and Victoria had each other. It was the cohesion and sisterhood that made the Spice Girls smashed open the door, which was closed by the society before them. They did not ask for permission. They were five loud working-class girls who already shut everyone during their first showcase gig asked what the music industry could do for them.
Together, the group managed to, if could not break the glass roof, at least create irreparable cracks in it. They broke away from managers, from the men who initially hooted them together, shaped the content of their songs and took discussions about sexism and racism.
The Spice Girl's Struggle and Misogyny they faced
The three-part documentary series is less about the music, but all the more about the group's struggle and the massive misogyny that they endured in the media, partly because of the success, partly because they pushed the boundaries of what a pop group of five young women were allowed to be.