Best and worst films about women in music
Issue #33
Hollywood loves a good song, but they love a wounded songbird even more (continued from the fall 2007 issue)
By Sheba White
Published: September 1st, 2007 | 12:00am
From the moment that Marilyn Monroe jiggled onto the train platform in Some Like it Hot to the making of the latest Janis Joplin biopic, filmmakers have long held a fascination with women in popular music. Though the emphasis tends toward the romanticized biopic, over 60 movies have featured fictionalized portrayals of women in music and their various roles as producers, musicians, singers, songwriters, and production crew members. What comes across most clearly is that women’s musical roles have slowly evolved in film. No longer are they mere props and muses, but artists seriously practicing their work. We look at the best and worst music films featuring women in music — whether fictional or biopic — and attempt to show the arc of women’s portrayal in music cinema.
LADY SINGS THE BLUES
RATING: 4
DIRECTOR: Sidney J. Furie
PRODUCER: Jay Weston, Berry Gordy, and James S. White
YEAR: 1972
TRIVIA: Frequent James Brown Revue performer and soul legend Yvonne Fair appears in a small chanteuse role, purposely singing off-key.
SIMILAR FILMS: With a Song in My Heart (1952); Love Me or Leave Me (1955); The Helen Morgan Story (1957); Piaf (1974); Coal Miner’s Daughter (1980); Sweet Dreams (1985); The Josephine Baker Story (1990); What’s Love Got to Do with It (1993); Selena (1997); Callas Forever (2002); La Vie En Rose (2007)
Eight years before gritty portraits of women in music became a staple with Bette Midler’s The Rose, Berry Gordy and gang released this Diana Ross-vehicle loosely chronicling the turbulent life of the legendary Billie Holiday. Like most biopics made after the death of a legend (Holiday died 13 years before this film was made), factual errors abound and too much attention is given to her paramour rather than to the music or the success of the artist. In the case of Lady Sings the Blues, the controversial ex-husband, Louis McKay plays an inaccurate and central role throughout. No surprise, as McKay served as a consultant for the film. Here Holiday is portrayed as a simpering junkie who somehow stumbled into a singing career and not as the prolific and savvy jazz pioneer who climbed her way over many social mountains to practice her art. It’s no wonder that when this film was released, it was met with severe criticism by Holiday fans and family alike, considering that most of the dates, times, and people involved are largely composites and impressions stemming from an imaginative and admittedly Svengali-like production team. Still, it remains one of a handful of films to focus on the impact of Black women in popular music and does address several key obstacles that faced female performers in her day: lack of radio support, segregation while touring, and the prejudicial revocation of performing licenses.
ALICE DOESN’T LIVE HERE ANYMORE
RATING: 6
DIRECTOR: Martin Scorsese
PRODUCER: Audrey Maas, David Susskind, and Sandra Weintraub Roland
YEAR: 1974
TRIVIA: In one scene, a film with a similar plot about a lounge singer (Coney Island with Betty Grable) plays in the background as Alice argues with her son.
SIMILAR FILMSBaja Oklahoma (1987); Light of Day (1987); Blue Valley Songbird (1999); Double Platinum (1999); Mary Proud (2006)
“I sing better than Alice Faye,” says a young Alice Hyatt during the opening Oz-like sequence of Martin Scorsese’s first female-focused film. “I swear I can. You wait and see. And if anybody doesn’t like it, they can blow it out their ass.” Twenty-seven years later, Alice Hyatt is chastising her precocious son for loudly playing Mott the Hoople and manipulating her husband, with nary a music career in sight. Not to worry: the husband dies, the kid and Alice hit the road for Monterey, California (the site of Alice’s last stint as a singer), and for a while Alice uses the only skill she’s got to support them: her voice. What makes this film especially worthwhile is its focus on the sustainability of a music career after the initial plan has withered away and new plans — in this case, a child to support — keep an artist firmly rooted in the practical. It’s a subject that wasn’t often explored with women in music until this movie, the fight between being a good mom and following a necessarily selfish artistic inclination, without giving either one up. After a series of failed and sometimes dangerous experiences, Alice opts for work as a waitress and life with a doe-eyed rancher who talks yields and turkeys. “If I’m gonna be a singer, I can be a singer anywhere,” says a hopeful Alice to her son. Yet it’s clear that, like Oz’s Dorothy, Alice has been returned to the fold with ideas too big for most ordinary places.
SPARKLE
RATING: 4
DIRECTOR: Sam O’Steen
PRODUCER: Beryl Vertue, Peter Brown, and Zvi Howard Rosenman
YEAR: 1976
TRIVIA: Sam O’Steen went on to edit Silkwood, Heartburn, and Postcards from the Edge, among many other films with strong female leads.
SIMILAR FILMS:Fame (1980); The Josephine Baker Story (1990); What’s Love Got to Do with It (1993); Selena (1997); Glitter (2001); Dreamgirls (2006)
In Spike Lee’s Girl Six, a young, White, urban audience–seeking director (ironically played by Quentin Tarentino), says to an aspiring Black actress that he’s going to make the “greatest African-American film ever made.” Lee undoubtedly meant to point out a controversial issue that comes up with the making of a film like Sparkle. But his argument parallels how women of color in music are often perceived by music packagers. Loosely based on the story of the Supremes and focused on a generic, sentimental, and narrow interpretation of early ’50s Harlem music history, Sparkle is the rags-to-riches story of three singing sisters who eventually fall into clichéd stereotypes of what purportedly happens to women who reach for autonomy through music: One sister overdoses, another sister sublimates her artistic power to a man, and another sister actualizes her dreams, but pays a heavy spiritual cost. This idea of female musical acts who suffer breakdowns because of their thirst for fame, especially among performers of color, will resurface in later films time and time again. And though some attention is given to the real elements that usually break up such acts: shady managers, broken record contracts, slick promoters, and cutthroat bookers, and other hangers-on, there’s still a sense that the sisters brought it upon themselves by reaching for control of their own story and creative license. Can we get an Amen from Lauryn Hill?
ROCK ‘N’ ROLL HIGH SCHOOL
RATING: 3
DIRECTOR: Allan Arkush
PRODUCER: Roger Corman
YEAR: 1979
TRIVIA: Riff Randell’s infamous line: “I’m Riff Randell, rocknroller.”
SIMILAR FILMS: Beach Party Movies (1963-1966); Sid and Nancy (1986); Times Square (1980); Smithereens (1982); Hairspray (1988)
Believe it or not, the original concept behind this cult classic was Roger Corman’s idea for a movie titled Disco High. The concept was immediately shot down by director Allan Arkush in favor of a “hipper” rocknroll theme; hence, a low-budget, campy, and mindlessly fun Rock ‘N’ Roll High School was born. Rock ‘N’ Roll High School is the story of über-Ramones’ fan Riff Randell. P.J. Soles brings a lot of energy and some killer outfits to the role, but the enthusiasm is largely of the teen idolatry kind, despite the underlying premise that Randell has a talent of her own. “I know I can write for the Ramones,” she says confidently. “All I have to do is get my songs to them.” Before that can happen, there’s a lot of poster kissing and a weed-fueled sexual fantasy, including a somewhat creepy scene where Joey Ramone rubs his torn, patchy crotch on the near-naked teen fan. Teen fandom fervor is also evident in a silly fight with another fan (laughingly named Angel Dust), who, after reciting all the places she’s seen the band, elicits Randell’s jealous response: “Oooooh, you’re a groupie.” Odd, considering that for most of the film, Randell seems like just another groupie, herself — more in love with the band than the music. It’s a theme that will play itself out in future films involving women and music. See: Almost Famous.
SMITHEREENS
RATING: 7
DIRECTOR AND PRODUCER: Susan Seidelman
YEAR: 1982
TRIVIA: The movie has the Richard Hell Factor (Also known as the John Doe Factor): A term used to describe the phenomena of brief cameos by either of these rocknroll musicians in most rocknroll films.
SIMILAR FILMS: Times Square (1980); Sid and Nancy (1986); Tokyo Pop (1988)
Two years after the success of the low-budget movie, Times Square, director and producer Susan Seidelman upped the ante with this fictionalized tale of a wannabe band manager who lurks New York’s seedier parts looking to break into punk music. Though unlike the protagonist in Times Square, played by a mesmerizing Robin Johnson as the street-savvy Nicky Marotta, Smithereens’ protagonist, Wren (Susan Berman), is solely out to make some cash and garner fame. In the process she hooks up with two men: one amiable dope and one doped abuser, but neither can help her achieve her dreams. Preceding Sid and Nancy by four years, this movie paints a portrait of a talentless woman who’s looking to make it strictly off of other people’s kindness and creative energy, and in the process reinvent herself through others. It’s a theme that comes up time and again in Seidelman’s work (see Desperately Seeking Susan), but it also plays itself out in many late-’80s movies from this time period. These women are not DIY A & R pioneers or savvy business ladies, they’re desperate über-groupies leeching off the power of more creative artists, though the artists portrayed tend to always be less creative and savvy.
SATISFACTION
RATING: 2
DIRECTOR: Joan Freeman
PRODUCER: Aaron Spelling and Alan Greisman
YEAR: 1988
TRIVIA: Trini Alvarado would later star as another young teen aiming for musical fame in Times Square. Britta Phillips is now part of the band Dean & Britta and once was the voice of cartoon’s Jem.
SIMILAR FILMS: Half-Cocked (1995)
If you were a teen at any point in the late-’80s to mid-’90s, you’ve probably seen this film a million times more than you’d care to see it. Starring Julia Roberts, Justine Bateman, Trini Alvarado, and Britta Phillips, this movie has been rotating on network TV like a bad album on repeat. Once past the stoner and van sex clichés, Satisfaction amounts to a thinly-plotted teen comedy that focuses on four girls and one guy, in a mislabeled band called Mystery. Mystery head to the East Coast for a possible gig as a summer shack house band, despite the fact that they can’t play, and the only song they seem to know is “Iko, Iko.” Passed up is the potential for a good rocknroll road trip story (as with a later film: 1995’s Half-Cocked). Instead, the film focuses on the ill-matched romance between the lead singer, Jennie Lee (played by Bateman), and the club’s owner, Martin (played by Liam Neeson) and never seems to justify the record contract the band is offered in the end, because, as happens with so many women in music movies, the ladies never have to practice. They’re just too damn cute.
COYOTE UGLY
RATING: 1
DIRECTOR AND PRODUCER: David McNally
PRODUCER: Producer Jerry Bruckheimer, Chad Oman, and Mike Stenson
YEAR: 2000
TRIVIA: Violet’s highly unlikely debut night bill features Eve 6, Verbena, and Beth Hart, as well.
SIMILAR FILMS: Spice World (1997); Josie and the Pussycats (2001); Brave New Girl (2004); Raise Your Voice (2004); Cinco Amigas (2005)
The tagline to this movie should read: All you need is a boyfriend with an accent, and all your music dreams come true. Produced by the prolific Jerry Bruckheimer (of Pirates of the Caribbean and Con Air fame), Coyote Ugly is the story of Violet (get it) Sanford, a New Jersey waitress at film’s start, with dreams of becoming a songwriter in New York. Why she doesn’t think she can be a songwriter in New Jersey — Ani DiFranco, anyone? — is not made clear, but after a girl’s-night-out sendoff (“I Will Survive” in the background) Violet sets off to the Big Apple, naysayer parental unit be damned. “I’m a songwriter,” she says to the first bartender she meets. “Is there someone here I can talk to about my songs?” And right on Hollywood queue the gum-smacking bartender says, “I’ve been a struggling sax player for six years. Is there something I can get you from the bar?” The hoots and hollers don’t stop there: Violet practices on the rooftop so as not to upset her neighbors (in New York?) and eventually takes a job as a dancer/bartender at the Coyote Ugly when she’s (gasp) robbed of her fallback bankroll. The most realistic aspect of this film is how many creative women in music have to take crappy jobs just to eat and the kinds of leech-hobo characters who orbit around them from the stink of desperation.
LAUREL CANYON
RATING: 10
DIRECTOR: Lisa Cholodenko
PRODUCER: Scott Ferguson, Susan A. Stover, and Jeffrey Levy-Hinte
YEAR: 2002
TRIVIA: The inspiration behind the Jane character was Joni Mitchell.
SIMILAR FILMS: Prey for Rock & Roll (2002)
One rarely sees women in positions of power in music films. In general, they are muses or ingénues. And when they are in positions of power, as was Hairspray’s fictional radio station owner, Velma von Tussle, they are bitter, cruel, and vindictive. Laurel Canyon, then, with its positive look into the work of a female record producer, is an anomaly. Jane (Frances McDormand) is a record producer working with an English band who is attempting to wrap up the last song on their new album to appease a marketing-hungry record company. “I give them a gorgeous single, and they come back with ‘there’s no single,’” she says to her uptight son. She’s obviously successful at what she does, but the son (Christian Bale) plays down his mother’s business acumen to his girlfriend (Kate Beckinsale), instead preferring to focus on Jane’s loose and easy California lifestyle. It doesn’t matter that she talks music appreciation with the best of them, carries her own weight with mostly male performers, and fends off aggressive label marketers; he’s more concerned about what others may think of her lackadaisical lifestyle. It’s true that Jane is as flaky in her personal life as the pot-smoking hippie he labels her as. But when it comes to music, she’s focused and ambitious. In one telling scene, she eviscerates a label executive’s pushy demands with precision: “Let me tell you something, Claudia, for your own soul. Pushing Christmas in radio play will never amount to anything but a lot of shit in wrapping paper.” By the end of the film, Jane becomes a bit more sensitive to her son’s needs, but the sense is that she’ll never stop living with complete faith in the skills she does possess as a talented woman in music just to appease outside pressures — another first in music film standards.
Read about 10 additional “best and worst films about women in music” in the fall 2007 issue of Venus Zine.
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