Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains (1981)

Hey, I'm back in the USA! Exciting. Thanks for the well-wishes during my hiatus. It was a mostly pleasant journey through several German cities followed by a visit with distant cousins in Dublin and Donegal, Ireland. I learned that the Germans aren't very good at organizing road construction, and Guinness tastes better than I remember. Now, I have some serious movie watching to do!

I've had a while to ruminate about this movie, and I still haven't quite pinned down my feelings about it. This may be a bit rambling (moreso than usual, even!) but please bear with me, since I think this is an interesting film that should be talked about. Written by Nancy Dowd (under pseudonym Rob Morton allegedly due to her dissatisfaction with the final cut), Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains is dismal look at a young all-female rock group preempting the riot grrrl movement. A nigh-unrecognizable Diane Lane stars as 15-year-old Corinne Burns (aka Third Degree Burns) who, after her mother's death, convinces her reluctant little sister (Marin Kanter) and rebellious cousin (Laura Dern) to go out on the road as an opening act for The Metal Corpses' (a washed-up metal band) comeback tour.

Their band The Stains has only had three rehearsals (though admittedly, "they were real long ones"), but Corinne is determined to support her small family and get out of her depressing town. What they lack in experience, Corinne makes up for with audacious style and brutally honest stage banter at their first performance boiling down to: "We're The Stains, and we don't put out". The next day her "skunk" look is replicated by some audience members, who were inspired by her forthright comments, and soon more and more young women are mimicking the singer in a stylistic and lifestyle phenomenon whose publicity helps the band's popularity rise very quickly.

After a member of the Corpses dies from an overdose, the tour continues with only The Stains and the other opening act, The Looters, a British punk act fronted by Billy (Ray Winstone). Throughout the tour, Corinne and Billy oscillate between admiration and backstabbing, with the former stealing their main song and the latter badmouthing The Stains onstage during a huge show. Corinne stops at nothing to become successful and is adamant about getting her considered-radical views heard. She wants women to stop being groupies and take over the music world without reliance on old men, while maintaining control of their sexuality. Unfortunately, her inexperience and over-confidence may prove to be The Stains' downfall.

Hmm. I wish I could get a handle on this movie. As I watched it, I thought it was ok. It takes a long time to get going and then suddenly moves very fast, and never really seems to know what it wants to say. There's barely any climax, and everything is a bit too minimalist, especially the dialogue. I just kept expecting more to happen, and then it didn't. I also felt like none of the characters got much attention except Corinne, and while she is interesting enough to be the focus and Diane Lane is amazing in the role, there were all these other people constantly hanging out onscreen who never do much. (Although Laura Dern's thing with her mother's news interview was quite touching.)

Initially it was also hard for me to sympathize with Corinne. She's clever and stylish and she's definitely got balls, but I hated that she steals The Looters' song "The Professionals" and that becomes the only song they ever sing otherwise. I like the first one, "Waste of Time", which has a nice, raw quality to it reminiscent of The Slits. It frustrated me that though they have basic musical ability and Corinne obviously has something to say in her songs, they continue to use a stolen track about military recruitment. But the more I think about it, the more I respect and understand her for being so cutthroat at such a young age, especially when she perceives The Looters as antagonistic toward The Stains. She's resigned herself to the fact that she must be self-reliant and quick-thinking in order to protect herself and her family, and can't be nice about it.

Maybe I've never mentioned it here before, but I am a fan of lady bands of any type, and really dig the premise and themes of this movie. It's nice to see young women breaking into the music industry on their own terms, and crafting their own image encouraging experimentation and individualism. They get taken advantage of by a money-hungry, exploitative manager, but learn from it. It's not full of glitz and glam and perks. The music is great, with a soundtrack full of punk-rock, angry ladies, hair metal, and reggae, and I love the stage sequences splattered throughout.

I also really liked the news segments interspersed within the story, with the initial reports of Corinne's on-air firing from a restaurant and subsequent candid interview about her views of love and living as an orphaned teenager without a high school diploma, followed by various commentary from an old-fashioned white reporter and his open-minded female counterpart. Their reports on The Stains and their obsessive followers ("Skunks") give an outside view of the band's surprise popularity and impact, and it's a nice narrative tactic.

I need to talk about the ending, so *Spoiler Alert* for this paragraph. The film originally ended with Corinne's short interview with the male reporter, and a confrontation with Billy. Her band is now infamous and hated by its former fans, but she sees a few girls dressed as Skunks hanging around, and smiles at their dedication. However, test audiences were dissatisfied with this ending, and a new one was filmed. It's just a very 80's music video with a poppy, bland makeover version of The Stains gleefully singing "The Professionals". I think it was supposed to show that everything turned out ok, and they found success and happiness. But my first reaction was "wow, this is so incredibly cynical and on-target!". They spend the whole movie forging themselves into an edgy, honest, unique group who resist the influences of accepted standards only to end up another girl pop band with a video on MTV. I liked that cynicism and bluntness. When I found out that wasn't the original ending, and was presumably filmed to make it more crowd-pleasing, I was just confused about the overall meaning of the film.

Ok still working things out here, sorry, I know this is all a bit scattered and rambling. Final thoughts: while watching Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains, I was underwhelmed. Its reputation as a cult film about a bold female rock band led to high expectations for a movie less sparse and more fun. But it turned out to be a more dramatic, slow-moving story of desperate teenage girls trying to do what they love despite the barriers of age and experience. It expounds on the fickleness and manipulation of fame, and (in my interpretation) the disgust of selling out. It stuck with me for weeks after seeing it, and I like it better the more I think about it. I think it will improve upon watching it a few more times, which I guess is one of the marks of a cult film. It definitely makes an impact. Also now I kind of want to be a Skunk for Halloween... does that make me a conformist?

4/5