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 Girl Power Meets Gilligan & Co. By Stacey Richter WHAT IS SPICE? Many people believe spice to be a sort of condiment, or an odor, but this is blatantly wrong. "Spice" is in fact either a prefix or a suffix that can be used to modify any noun: Spice Bus, Baby Spice, Spice World and Spice Think are examples. If this doesn't seem completely obvious to you, you are without a doubt over age 13, and hopelessly square. Get over yourself, girl. Buy some giant shoes and a ticket to Spice World, the new Spice Movie, flecked with Spice Girls.
For example, Gilligan's Island contains seven stranded castaways cut off from the society of others. Spice World stars five vixens isolated on the island of their fame, who are unable to leave or make any decisions for themselves, except for things like "deciding to jump on a boat." The inmates of Gilligan's Island were doomed to endless repetition, fulfilling the destiny engraved in the narrow grooves of their characters, and it's the same with the Spice Girls! And not only that, they have the same characters! You see, Baby Spice is just like Mary Ann--cute and infantile and obsessed with her lollipop the way Mary Ann was deeply fixated on coconut creme pies. Posh Spice (who, from her wardrobe, could also be called "Call-Girl Spice") corresponds perfectly to the sultry, self-loving starlet Ginger, with a bit of Lovey thrown in for bite. Ginger Spice (Ginger!) is the Professor, because she's knows all sorts of information, for example that the manta ray is a fish. Sporty Spice is Gilligan himself--she's agile, and seems to be at the center of the group, maybe because she's the only one who can actually sing. Scary Spice is the Skipper, because she's bossy.
Of course, evil is afoot, and there's some bad guy with a saliva condition who would like to take down the Spice Girls and their philosophy of life, Girl Power. I was hoping he wouldn't win, because I knew it might be painful for the little girls sitting behind me singing along loudly with the hits--even though I was annoyed by their singing. But God knows adolescence is already painful enough without evil triumphing over good.
It's sort of cool, because they're like the female versions of teen idols, in that they hint at grown-up things like sex and independence without actually voyaging into the scary reality of it--but they're girls, and spicy ones at that! They know what they want. They want to have fun, Spicy Fun, and they want it now. They want it yesterday. Now everybody dance.
Spice World is playing at El Dorado (745-6241),
De Anza Drive-In (745-2240), and Century Park
(620-0750) cinemas.
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It's funny, but the brand "Spice Island" also comes
to mind when I think of Spice. Not that anything actually has
to make sense in 
Just how trapped they are on their personal three-hour tour (three-city
tour?) becomes clear when the girls play dress-up for a photo
shoot, and they all just end up dressing up like some other Spice
Girl that they are not. At least fame is fun, even when you can't
escape it. They get to sing while holding cordless microphones
and dancing the way teenage girls dance when they're alone in
front of a mirror. As an engineer comments during one of their
sessions, they're "perfect without actually being any good."
Luckily, Girl Power is a tough power to take down. Girl Power,
in case you're wondering, is feminism for little girls who might
be a bit scared at the prospect of being independent adults. It's
about being sexy and in charge of your life and commanding respect
even while being a Spice Girl who doesn't have sex (Baby Spice
says she has too many stuffed animals in her bed to make room
for a man), who lives in a big house along with all the other
Spice Girls (but with her own bedroom), who is never alone, and
who never makes decisions that aren't instantly corroborated by
the other four righteous Spice Girls. Plus, they have a sort of
big daddy (