Theme: Candy Pop - LEN
One million years ago I came up with a movie pitch that was essentially Mean Girls meets The Death of Stalin, which, of course, I called The Death of Stacy (w/t DONUT STEEL).
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| This is a parody edit I made from some tumblrcore feminist agitslop, which only makes it funnier. |
I even wrote a first draft of a short screenplay, but never really cared for it enough to bother with a second. Fortunately, someone or other in the 90s had the same basic insight: that clique flicks must be structured like mob movies. Jawbreaker is basically a Scarface or Goodfellasesque rise-and-fall narrative set within the shiny halls of that familiar celluloid vista, 25-y/o High.
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| Trooning out solely so I can go into the girls' bathroom and make cat noises obnoxiously as they beef. |
Scream's Rose McGowan plays the usurping Casey whose prank kidnapping of alpha queen Stacy Charlotte Ayana cuts short her reign and life, leaving McGowan presumptive leader of the pack. Sycophantic Macy Julie Benz has her back but conscience-addled Laci Rebecca Gayheart (Urban Legend) wants out, which incurs the ostracism of the newly crowned Stacy (no, they don't actually have rhyming names, like in my screenplay, but they should).
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| #relatable #justgirlthings #xoxo |
Yet the coverup is jeopardised by incidental witness Becky (not her name either) (Judy Greer), who Rose McGowan buys off with a Faustian offer of popularity. But will the new Casey get too big for her designer heels? Will there be tears, recriminations, character assassinations, catfights, double-crosses, sass and sabotage? Of course, but, better still, there's heightened art direction that makes everything you've ever seen look phoned in.
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| Round shapes as of the titular candy haunt the characters' headspace... |
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| Hang like an albatross around their necks... |
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| Or loom overhead like the sword of Damocles. |
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| Here, the Jawbreaker (1999) looks like the planet from Eraserhead... |
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| "I've seen Blue Velvet too!" - director |
Oh, don't mistake me, this is 100% a Stacy-bashing high school angst revenge fantasy. The director clearly favours the gay-theatre-kid and tryhard-scenester side characters, wilfully blind to the fact they're every bit as cliquey and bitchy as the very meanest hot girls IRL. The name of the school, Reagan High, also speaks to soybitch resentment (yeah, I hate Reagan too, but for based and redpilled reasons. Hollywood libs hate him because they think he was good).
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| "Classic Americana MUST be rotten with hypocrisy, otherwise I'd be the one who's wrong, and that's impossible" - Cope & Seethe, Attorneys at Law. |
But, like all mob movies, they can't help but make their villain protags look cool, making Jawbreaker as hard a self-own as Starship Troopers and The Joker. The reason rappers see Scarface not as a cautionary tale but as a wish fulfilment fantasy isn't despite Tony's violent downfall, but because of it: going down in flames at the height of your glory is part of the dream; to burn out, not to fade away. No one wants any less to be a cool Stacy at the head of a clique after seeing Jawbreaker. Get real!
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| I come not to bury Stacy, but to praise her. |
