| Product: |
Geri Halliwell in general |
| Date: |
24/04/01 (371 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: example of how to suceed depsite the odds, Not bad singer after all
Disadvantages: like she says, she's schitzophonic.
I remember reading from someone who worked as a career officer in a deprived inner city school that the problem with the children underachieving was not, as commonly thought, that they had low expectations. It was actually the exact opposite. They were all convinced that they were going to be rich and famous but with uncertain ideas about how this was going to achieved. Inevitably, the discrepancy between what these kids want and what life has in store for them is going to go haywire.
I was constantly reminded of this while watching Molly Dineen's film about Geri Halliwell's life on leaving the Spice Girls. In particular where the ex-Ginger pitched career goals to an agent: female villain in the next Bond movie, Hollywood, Oprah-type show when she's 36 ("I don't think TV now as I don't want to downmarket myself too soon.") Watching the likeabley chubby, strawberry blond, hair pulled into a chignon (because of course, that's what serious actresses wear) pitching for the role of sultry East European villainess, this gap between expectations and the obtainable was a mile-wide chasm.
Of course Geri's already achieved far more than most and far more than could be expected from her limited talents. She's first to admit she's not a great singer (footage of her recording her album was painful for every reason), dancer, songwriter or actress. And despite all the dieting and make up, she's never going to be a great beauty. But like Madonna, she's made a little go a long way by ambition and force of personality alone. Unlike Madonna who possesses scary control over herself (I always think she had a business conference to decide whether to "accidentally" flash her left or right breast) Geri, removed from the emotional safety-net of the Spice Girls, came across as a floundering, unhappy character, uncertain of everything except maintaining her fame at all costs.
The pursuit of fame was
a key theme of Dineen’s film in particular, what makes Geri, who's been chasing it all her life want it so much. Unlike the deprived kids looking for a way out, Geri comes from a comfortable, seemingly stable background. What exactly is she trying to escape from? The answer Dineen returned to again and again was herself. Geri, former anorexic/bulimic seems to be an example of the theory that those who crave celebrity do so to appease a deep dissatisfaction with themselves. As Geri's PA tellingly put it "those that are happy in their lives really don't have any desire to dress up and be a whole different person."
As always though when watching a documentary you have to remember your idea of the subject is being filtered through the film maker’s perspective. Too often documentary makers who become "friends" with their subjects seem like Mafia assassins, clasping them in an embrace and simultaneously sticking the knife in. The camera may never lie but directors always have editing facilities. I wonder with this film which footage was left on the cutting room floor because it didn't fit Dineen's agenda.
To be fair Geri's didn’t seem to do herself any favours in this film. From the overwhelming amount of evidence Geri seems chronically worrying, a mess of contradictions veering from laughter to tears in an instant and mainly coming across as a terminally unstable airhead. It’s a shame as I don't think Geri is stupid or mad at all, she just seemed completely unable to consider anything other than herself for more than about 5 seconds, something that causes most of her problems.
This is most apparent when Geri was appointed UN ambassador for women's health. She was touchingly overwhelmed ("I feel like I have a proper job at last") and too self-obsessed to realise it's true nature, a role promoting contraception and abortion in Catholic third world countr
ies, is doing the UN's dirty work for them. This mistreatment is apparent when Geri went to UN headquarters in New York. A press conference was called almost as soon as she got off the plane and an ill-informed Geri had to address the world's press about issues she's clearly totally ignorant of: "I was going to say I was pro-choice and pro-life and until someone told me Pro-life was one of the anti-abortion groups." The ensuing press conference where the journalists took a sadistic delight in asking Geri impossible questions about population levels resembled nothing more than the Christians and lions show at the Coliseum.
Its tangibly unclear exactly what Geri wants that's worth this ridicule, loss of privacy, dignity (the top-less photos got a good outing) as well making it almost impossible to form lasting relationships and maintain friendships. The shot of Geri roller-blading through her achingly empty mansion was a potent image of the gilded isolation of celebrity. And Geri seemed to treat the camera itself as her replacement best friend seemingly unaware that a documentary maker's tool of the trade is not the greatest confidante. The scene where Geri exchanged "I love you"’s with a group of young fans looked like fame as a substitute for genuine human interaction. Geri: "I didn't think they were responding to me as a famous person, I thought they were responding to me as a real person... Of course I've never met them."
I can't help thinking Geri's story isn't going the have a happy ending. Especially since the last few months have seen her drastic diet and makeover. It’s strange that the press who spent years condemning the naturally-thin Kate Moss should spend so much space celebrating Geri's starved Barbie clone look. Don't people find the serious weight loss of someone with a history of eating disorders and low self image, just slightly disturbing? I c
an't help worrying the media is going to have another Karen Carpenter on its conscience.
I'm not sure what Geri has to say about the fame in the 1990s but maybe she should be used by psychology students studying personality disorders. Most tellingly Geri constantly spouts from self help books, those inevitably read by people with no sense of self in the first place. "Do I have a void? Well I think everyone does". Even inviting a camera crew to trail her everywhere, seems less of a vanity act than a primal need to refine and improve her own shaky sense of "Geri", like a contemporary Norma Desmond constantly re-viewing her films and losing herself in the glorious image on the other side of the camera. She's watching us, watching her, watching us, ad nauseum.
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