Josie and the Pussycats Was a Film Misunderstood for its Time, But Has Gained a Cult Following.
2001’s Josie and the Pussycats had a lot going for it. It was based off a popular Archie comic. It also had two popular teen stars in it. Rachael Leigh Cook starred in 1999’s She’s All That. That same year, Tara Reid was in American Pie, which attempted to revive the R-rated teen sex comedy. The two films were amongst a tide of teen comedies that were coming out that year including Drive Me Crazy, Never Been Kissed, and 10 Things I Hate About You.
Josie and the Pussycats had hoped to mock that trend, which was ironic. Before Josie, directors Harry Elfont and Deborah Kaplan had hit it big in 1998 with Can’t Hardly Wait, a teen comedy that helped usher in the trend to begin with. It was as if Elfont and Kaplan realized they had created a beast and were hoping to kill it.
Josie and the Pussycats’ satirization of teen comedies was overlooked by many of the critics of the time. The heavy amount of product placement and shallow dialogue left some critics scratching their heads as to what to make of it.
Rotten Tomatoes sums the film up as such:
This live-action update of Josie and the Pussycats offers up bubbly, fluffy fun, but the constant appearance of product placements seems rather hypocritical.
Roger Ebert was also not a fan saying,
Josie and the Pussycats are not dumber than the Spice Girls, but they’re as dumb as the Spice Girls, which is dumb enough.
Josie and the Pussycats’ formula would not prove to be very successful at the box office. The movie lost an estimated $24 million at theaters. Still, a few months later another takedown of the teen comedy would prove to be a success. Not Another Teen Movie went on to become an absolute success, proving that sometimes parody works better than satire.
Josie and the Pussycats has gained a resurgence in the last few years thanks to a small following of fans who still feel the film deserves the respect it was due.
If you want to hear our review of Josie and the Pussycats, click here!
