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Let me preface this by saying that I love this movie. I will defend this movie with my life. If you hate fun teen movies, I have only one word for you: LEAVE!!!

One of the more notable names from the Archie Comics Universe, which I regrettably was never quite familiar with before the live-action Riverdale series airing on the infamous CW Network (in my defence I was always more of a Peanuts girl instead), I only had a passing knowledge of Josie and the Pussycats. However, as a fan of teen movies and the much-maligned “chick-flicks” of the early 2000s, I found this movie on Letterboxd from the glowing reviews of users with similar taste whilst scrounging for more movies to add to my mile-long watchlist.

Unfortunately, due to the appearance of the poster and the brief description on Letterboxd, I was misled into thinking the movie was just a fun, turn-your-brain-off teen movie typical of your standard DCOM fare, so I put off watching it for a long time. As I would later come to realize, I was blinded by my own hubris. Indeed, I had been ignorant of the greatest musical-visual spectacle to come out of the teen movie boom for far too long, but now that I have seen the light, I can confidently preach the gospel of what is genuinely one of my favorite movies. And no, Citizen Kane (1941) is not on that list.

Light spoiler warning here, because I will have to discuss parts of the plot to illustrate the full brilliance of the minds of co-directors and co-writers Deborah Kaplan and Harry Elfont.

The universe of The Pussycats is set in a dystopian, hyper-consumerist society where the evil executives of fictional conglomerate MegaRecords, named Fiona (Parker Posey) and Wyatt (Alan Cumming) conspire with the governments of various nations to deliver subliminal messaging through music and movies in order to get teens to participate in whatever ploy benefits them. Meanwhile, the Pussycats, a struggling band stuck in the small town of Riverdale, made up of lead singer Josie McCoy (Rachel Leigh Cook), drummer Melody Valentine (Tara Reid) and bassist Valerie Brown (Rosario Dawson), are the bestest of friends but can’t seem to secure any kind of traction for their music. Their luck changes when they are approached by Wyatt however, who offers them a record deal seemingly completely out of the blue, making bona fide stars out of the Pussycats in only a week’s time.

Stories about the well-meaning teens going against the big bad who win through the power of friendship is by no means anything groundbreaking, but it’s how filmmakers choose to portray basic narratives that defines the strength of a film.

The stylish but subtly off-putting, futuristic y2k visual style is immediately evident from the opening scene, which employs the same nightmare-sequences as seen in Aronofsky’s famous drug-fueled drama Requiem for a Dream (2000), but far less somber. This is probably because the cinematographer for both movies is Matthew Libatique, but I like to think that the stylistic similarities also stem from a similar contempt held by the filmmakers towards the world it portrays.

Every scene of this movie is purposefully tinged with brands you’d find in supermarket isles. Immediately in the funny but starkly realistic opening scene, members of the (fictional) boy band DuJour board their private plane plastered in giant Target logos amidst a screaming hoard of teenage fans who have all purchased some form of merchandise. When the Pussycats arrive at the big city, the McDonald’s Golden Arches are a prominent feature of the skyline. The twin towers are wrapped in brightly lit ads that completely overtake the city’s skyline. The commentary here wouldn’t quite work if the directors were actually paid for product placement, but here’s the fun part – they weren’t! The blatant commercialism of the sets are indeed so egregious, so overtly crass that it adds to the surrealist, exaggerated tone of the movie.

And yet, in a world of thanking sponsors in the middle of videos, fast fashion hauls and stadiums being named after the stupidest-sounding brands to ever be created, the world that Josie and the Pussycats is set in feels more real than ever, albeit with the bright, gaudy colors and textures replaced with an even more aesthetically depressing minimalist, millennial grey. Of course, this wasn’t the directors pulling a Simpsons and predicting the future – the landscape of the US in 2001 was no stranger to consumerism, especially when it came to pop idols and marketing towards teens. But unlike similar movies of the era who derided teen girls for the fanatic craze over teen idols and lauded their female protagonists for not being like other girls, this movie takes a further step and directly (and accurately) points the finger to the marketing companies (and the government) for deliberately promoting this drivel.

This is where Josie and the Pussycats manages to distinguish itself from teen movies of the same crop. Where you might see the protagonists of movies like She’s All That and Princess Diaries take pride in their rejection of feminine activities like shopping and dating, the Pussycats are just normal teen girls. Instead of shying away from fashion, the characters embrace it. Sure, Cook’s Josie might be a car mechanic, but she and the rest of the Pussycats proudly adorn their fuzzy cat ears and delight in the makeovers the exec provides. In this sense, their low-rise, purple and animal-print outfits help them realize their identity as a group, instead of detracting from it. The lead protagonists scream all the time in delight, and this is celebrated as a sign of friendship instead of immaturity.

The end of the movie sees the girls reconciling and tricking the execs into broadcasting their trickery to the masses. In a movie so densely packed with jokes, where various common tropes are played for jokes – like the villains’ tragic backstory and the Pussycats’ rise to fame, the only thing it earnestly portrays is female friendship, so strong that only literal secret government brainwashing tech can destroy. Rather than appearance/romance-based conflict, the girls’ friendship is instead torn apart by deliberate meddling from the executives, who seek to alienate the girls by using their insecurities against each of them in order make them easier to control – a fact which the record label proudly states they’ve been using for a long time – “ever wonder why so many rockstars die in plane crashes? Overdose on drugs? We’ve been doing this a long time” MegaRecords exec Fiona sardonically says to a group of impressed government officials from across the world.

Even though the setting is fairly Orwellian, the movie is wholly uninterested in despair even as it acknowledges that the protagonists probably won’t change that much, as the movie acknowledges in its ending where the government confides that they’ll just use movies to brainwash the youth instead (into joining the army, no less). Instead, it simply urges its audience to cherish human connection over material possessions, and for people to be a little more conscious of the media they consume.

Aside from the branding, the movie also stands out immediately with its extremely 2000s aesthetics. Costume designer Leesa Evans worked extremely hard to bring the story of the movie, especially the evolving dynamics between the characters, to life, as detailed in this Vogue article. Evans knew that she would have to do a bit of predicting, and ended up taking the fashion of the time to the extreme, having to custom-make most of the opulent, flashy pieces in the movie. “Smaller, shorter, shorter.” She remarked, regarding her observation towards clothing trends. As some examples of the attention of detail paid to the vibrant colors in the movie – as orange is declared by Fiona’s factory-line cronies to be the new pink, even record exec Wyatt isn’t immune to his own shenanigans as he changes his sunglasses to fit the new trends. When Val increasingly begins to feel alienated from the Pussycats band, she wears blue whilst the other two girls wear their signature purple and animal print.

In one of the scenes depicting my favorite set from the film, the main villain Fiona shows the Pussycats her fully pink room, decked out with giant portraits of herself, snacks, and all sorts of toys that would be the subject of envy from any 5 year-old girl. It’s an overt expression of her arrested development, and a pointed commentary on how materialism is often used to compensate for a lack of human connection, whilst leaving you never feeling quite satisfied enough.

You’d also think that a B-movie catered to teens might mean that the actors are all phoning it in a bit, but the performances are some of the best parts of this movie, especially Cumming and Posey’s performances – you can absolutely tell that they are having the time of their life playing these roles. There’s no way to describe their performances except as having gone full camp. The three leads also put on extremely earnest performances in addition to fully rocking every single outfit donned in the movie – particularly Reid, who evidently fully understands the sweet, dim-witted Melody she’s playing. My favorite is Dawson’s Val, however, who looks genuinely ethereal in every scene she’s in.

The original music written for this movie is pretty great too, from the Lonely-Island-esque Backdoor Lover that parodies the Backstreet Boys so well that I would probably have assumed it was a forgotten hit if not for the obvious references to certain adult activities. After the movie ended, I couldn’t stop listening to Pretend to be Nice, and before I knew it I was bumping the entire album on my morning commute. It fits that pop-rock sound of the time like a glove.

Sadly, it looks like a lot of people were misled by the generic teen movie trailer and marketing of this movie. The movie bombed initially at the box office grossing just over $14 million on a $22-39 million budget (source), and was panned by critics on release. It was obvious that a lot of reviewers took one look at the sleek, bubblegum surface of the movie, and immediately deemed it to be the very product of the crass commercialism that it was criticizing. I think this is reflective of the mold certain audiences have for social satire – that they have to display visually dreary dystopias with equally grim stories in order to be taken seriously.

I reject that of course, if it hasn’t been clear enough already by this point in the article. If anything, I think we have enough cautionary tales and Orwellian dystopias. As I grow older, I find myself turning instead to stories about hope that I think Josie and the Pussycats, in all their fuzzy pink glory, fully embodies – after all, if the future will happen, why not try to envision a better one?