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popculturebuffet · 4 years

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Scooby Doo (2002) Review: The Most Punchable Fred Jones of All Time

It’s one last hurrah for Halloween as I take a look at the often derided 2002 Scooby Doo Movie! See what happens when you combine future superstar director James Gunn with .. the guy who thought directing the Smurf’s movie and Big’s Mama’s House were good ideas. Oh and with a splash of the guy who wrote the loveable family film Cheaper by the Dozen and the utterly loathed Percy Jackson film. It’s as messy as you’d expect with that.. but is it BAD? good, so bad it’s good, just sorta okay? Come with me as I try to find out under the cut with a full review.

I’ve always loved Scooby Doo. I grew up with the guy, watching reruns of the non-scrappy classic series from Where Are You to the Scooby Doo Movies, the three Superstar 10 movies (Boo Brothers, Ghoul School and Reluctant Werewolf), or the at the time brand new What’s New Scooby Doo. And later in life i’d absolutely adore Mystery Incorporated.. minus the whole Shaggy, Scooby Velma love triangle, but i’ll likely cover that at some point or sooner, you can comission reviews from me for 5 bucks each, 5 dollars off group orders if you really want to make me suffer through that that bad. But getting off self promotion point is I loved and still love the franchise. While I”ve yet to see “Scooby Doo and Guess Who”, though given there’s Weird Al, Kristan Schaal and Urkel episodes you can be sure i’m going to eventually, and Scoob was VERY ehhh even if Dick Dastardly was awesome. But despite my history with the great dane much like with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, despite my rich history with the franchise I haven’t dove in yet and with a friend who could use a nice halloween suprise and loves scooby doo, I figured now was the time to take a look at it. And since i’d been wanting to take a look at it again anyway, and decided going big wasn’t a bad way to start, i’m taking a look at the 2002 Scooby Doo movie. I saw this flim first run in a drive in, and saw the sequel the same way and loved it as a kid, and fondly remember checking out the Sountrack Preview page back before youtube existed to make checking out soundtracks easier. It was a simplier time. And even rewatching it later with my nieces, I found myself liking it. And the thing was almost every time this film comes up it’s with a turned up nose. The CGI, the confused audience, the deciding to cast Freddy Prinze Junior.. all terrible decisions that overshadow the film, when it’s not that bad. It’s not GREAT, but it’s not TERRIBLE either. So what is it then? Well i’ll tells ya. Let’s start with

PRODUCTION: Wait James Gunn Wrote This?

At the turn of the millneium Scooby Doo was back on top. After waning popularity during the Scrappy era, the advent of the warner affilated Cartoon Network meant a whole new generation of kids (raises hand) got to experince Scooby Doo for the first time. This new audeince lead to Scooby Doo on Zombie Island, the first of the franchises 80 or so DTV movies that will continue on long after the earth dies, and brought back the franchise after it’s long slumber. Scooby Doo went from dead to as popular as he was in his hey day again. Naturally Warner wanted to cash in and thus this movie was born. Originally the film was supposed to be a more adult project, a send up of the franchise with more sex jokes and what not than made the final cut according to writer James Gunn. Yes, the same James Gunn who wrote and directed the Guardians of the Galaxy movie and whose currently saving the suicide squad. It was one of Gunn’s earlier films but just from when he’s talked about it, you can tell he genuinely cared about the project. Along for the ride with our future Guardian was his co-writer, Craig Titely, who i’m convinced only came in to do punch ups as the guy has only written three other movies. One of them was being one of MANY writers on Cheaper by the Dozen and thus likely not doing much of note with that, and the other.. is being the only writer on Percy Jackson: The Lightning Thief’s movie adaptation.. aka the movie the fanbase and general audiences rejected in droves yet SOMEHOW got a sequel. Which is somehow still worse than his other film, one that asks “was the moon landing a hoax?” Spoilers, it wasn’t. Point is this isn’t a resume that screams co creator and more screams “Guy brought in to kid freindly this up”. More on that in a minute. The director is another less than reassuring face: Raja Gosnell, whose credits BEFORE this film were Home Alone 3, Never Been Kissed and Big Momma’s house.. so already he dosen’t have the best track record but somehow got worse because AFTER this film and it’s sequel he directed both live action Smurfs Movies and the universally hated Show Dogs, aka the film that thought dog rape was funny. The fact this film isn’t out and out terrible is a miracle.

Even more so because naturally, as Studios tend to do they interfered: The film was supposed to be more adult, cracking jokes about common things fans of the series growing up thought like Velma is Gay or Shaggy’s a stoner, and having both be fully true. But wanting to appeal to kids, Warner gradually lightned it, hence Craig, and Raja clearly having no shame gladly took it instead of you know.. standing his ground. So Velma has a love intrest thrown in and her kiss with Daphne is gone, while Shaggy’s toke smoking was lowered to subtext.. because either of those things is bad apparently? I dunno the 2000′s were fucked.

Point is THAT’S why these films are so tonally confused and why I don’t hold it agains the film now I know: It wasn’t James Gunn or even, as dumb as he is, Raja Gosnell’s fault that the film had some tones clashing when the studio was demanding it, instead of you know, thinking this through at all and realizing more kids cared about Scooby Doo than they would’ve josie and the pussy cats instead of bringing it up DURING production, when most of the adult stuff was in there. It’s also why the sequel has no real adult stuff, though it’s STILL damn good, but i’ll get to that some other day.

The film was also shot at an actual theme park in australia. Neat.

So yeah the film’s humor kind of ping pongs between knowing adult winks and kids stuff. We get Scooby dressing like a grandma in the same film shaggy enhales his demon possed love intrests breath like weed. The jokes themselves on average are pretty good: Some of my faviorites include the grandma scene, everything rowan atkinson does, Velma getting drunk off her ass, and the instructional video bit which is easily my favorite bit of the episode and one of my faviorite scooby doo jokes period:

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This is even FUNNIER to me on rewatch, as we now know this is an instructional video for demons.. and that Scrappy clearly had enough problems with his demon horde to have to pay for this thing. It tis glorious. However there also are also a few that HAVE NOT aged well, are very creepy at best and disgusting sexual assault at worst with Daphne getting her ass grabbed by the Luna Ghost at the start being treated as a joke and Fred oggling Daphne’s body when he’s in it being treated as a ha ha and not...

So yeah the humor’s USUALLY good, but the slipups are noticable and do bring things down a bit when they come by. So the humor is decent if mixed and the production’s a nightmare, how’s the plot? The Plot: Scoob, We’re Getting the Band Back Together!

I won’t be as through as usual because this is a 90 minute movie, I’m running behind as is and it’s 20 years old,

We start with your standard mystery inc case with the Luna Goose, aka Old Man Incel who resented Pamela Anderson for not boning him. But Fred hogging the glory during the resulting News Cast leads the gang to start fighting over lingering tensions: Velma is tired of Fred hogging all the credit when she does most of the legwork solving things, Daphne is tired of being kidnapped and being mistreated by Velma and Freddy who laugh at the idea of her doing more, and Fred..

We’ll get to him later. Shaggy is the only one wanting to stick together, but no one’s having it and the group breaks apart and Matthew LIllard REALLY sells Shaggy’s heartbreak over his friends all abandoning him well.

Two years later though, with Shaggy and Scooby naturally getting stoned and eating large quantities of food on the beach, have made peace with retirement, and have apparently had to duck tons of people coming to them to solve mysteries since they aren’t about that. The latest in that line is a man representing Emile Mondovarius, the owner of Spooky Island, a vast island resort and theme park. Naturally since it has spooky in the name the boys want nothing but Mondovarius does what honestly every previous guy coming to them should’ve done: offers them an all you can eat buffet. Since they’ve done more traumatizing for Dog Treats, they agree and it soon turns out the entire gang was invited, though none of them but Shaggy and Scooby are happy to see each other. I will say one of my complaints about the film is it never tackles the emotions behind the breakup: while the teams slowly repairs there are never any outright apologizes or scenes of them recociling or scenes of Shaggy chewing them out for abandoning him due to their spat. It just skips over the emotional bits to either wave a joke for the kiddies around or scream

Really the jokes aren’t bad, the film just has trouble with actual emotion or depth that could’ve been there and tries for it once in a while, but dosen’t really do anything with it. The gang splitting up’s a good concept, and at this point on Scooby Doo on Zombie Island had really used it, and that was one where they were clearly still close friends and were still in touch they just quit mystery solving for a while till Zombie Island happened. Mystery Incorpreated would finally give this story justice later: Instead of over a petty ego squabble, the gang broke up over underlying tensions: The revelations about Fred’s dad caused him to go try and find himself, Velma alienated herself by hiding things from them, and Shaggy was shipped off to Military School and Scooby doggy prison camp... thankfully the last two didn’t last and Scooby rescued Shaggy with a tank but the tension DIDN’T go away: While the gang mostly reunited, Velma took time to forgive them and also tried bringing in the friend/girlfriend she’d made in the meantime only for her friends to isolate her and throw her out while Daphne took her time to return due to being hurt by fred. It’s complex and good stuff versus here where it’s just “WE’RE APART BECAUSE WE HATES EACH OTHER. And now we’re NOT”. It’s just a waste of a good concept and i’ m glad the franchise got around to doing it right.

But my gripes aside our heroes head to the resort and meet Mondevarious, who admits outright to having tricked then and with confronted with the gang being broken up, makes it clear he knews. “That’s the thing about broken things.. you can put them back together.”

And so he did. He needs the Gang’s help as he’s worried about the island and something going wrong there: The teens are leaving polite, well behaved. and clearly not themselves as one reacts to an old friend by neck lifting him and tossing him aside. Something’s deeply wrong here and the gang’s intrest is piqued enough to stay though everyone but Shaggy is determined to solve it themselves out of ego. Mondvarius is played by Rowan Atkinson and while I watched the bean movie as a kid this is where I fell in love with the guy, with later watches of Blackadder confirming that in my college years. Rowan just brings a fun dorky energy to the character and a nice earnestness too but when he later takes a turn for the bad, he does that well too. Atkinson is HIGHLY underated in my opinon and easily the MVP of this film’s supporting cast. So the investigation begins, and we get our supsects: The first we met on the plane, Mary Jane, a kind blonde played by Isla Fisher who got the job becasue Gosnel, in a rare good decision, saw how talented she was and while still picking Sara Michele Gellar for Daphne, made sure she had a part. She’s a nice sweet girl who Shaggy falls for and Scooby’s annoyed by it.. though unlike earlier the film beats mystery inc easily here as it’s a more understandable conflict and dosen’t act like Dog Issues is a thing people says. Again i’ll get to that clusterfuck of an arc some day. The other two are N’Goo Tuna, a shady worker at the park who spouts off the legends of the island. In a nice twist, he’s NOT the vilian, as is obvious but is his right hand man. He also has his own right hand and muscle in Zarkos a cool looking Luchador and N’Goo’s muscle. Also N’Goo may be one of the worst names in Scooby Doo History, and that includes Dabba Doo. But the legend claims the island was once owned by demons who want revenge since the resort took the island from him.

The other is probably my faviorite non Rowan Atkinson character, Voodoo Maestro, played by Miguel Nunez. He’s basically just a guy who lives on the fringes of the island and also hates the resort and tries using voodoo curses. He’s honestly a delight from his attempt to sacrifice a chicken (An already dead one at that), to his general hammy and annoyed at dealing with these teenagers demeanor. NAturally he has nothing to do with this but he’s still a fun addition and I wish he was in more scnenes than the two he gets. But with what they’ve gathered the gang all end up at a spooky castle attraction, with Scooby and Shaggy of course being bribed by daphne while Velma and Fred show up indpeendntly and end up finding the weird training video from earlier but all get caught when the traps are activiated> There’s also a farting contest which.. eh not funny to me but i’ve seen so much worse i’m not even remotely upset. But then the traps trigger though during the chaos Fred and Velma are forced to work together and finally start doing so, and Daphne finds a clue: A mysterious pyramid known as the damon righus and finally gets some, if not nearly enough, credit. So the gang is back together.. even if it’s a tenative peace, the high from solving this and relay to their boss the suspects, including him, though Fred assures Mondovarius it’s just because he’s spooky and rowan’s character’s delight over that is fucking glorious. So the gang enjoys some down time at the local bar, with Fred and Daphne doing their own look ins, Scooby and Shaggy eating and encountring mary again and Velma getting hit on by a dude while looking over the ritus, revealing it’s some sort of soul sucking aparatus, and going into their history... which is really just an excuse to bring Scrappy in who in this universe, is a horny egotistical little shit whose abandoned as a result. ANd before anyone boos he’s not a puppy here, he’s got.. dog dwarfisim.. which while .. how does that even work... means he’s a grown ass man and deserved this. We also get drunk velma and Linda Caredenlli is a delight

The night gets interupted by terrible cgi monsters, the aformentioned emon who soul suck most of the college kids present and also get fred and velma who both find out these are very much real. We also get the best song on the soundtrack, man with a hex. It slaps. But it makes good chase music as with Mondvarious, Fred and Velma captured, the rest of the gang and mary escape. The next morning we get a surreal as hell scene as everyone’s partying, Fred’s talking in slang and Velma with clevage, thank you, is chatting up.. Sugar Ray? For those younger of you they were a band at the time. They were a big thing. Not half bad but faded away. They looked as 2000′s as hell though. WHy Smash Mouth gets all the memes and not them is beyond me. Look at lead singer Mark McGrath!It’s like the early 2000′s gained sentience and took a human form. But the gang is quickly forced to run from sugar ray, though they get Daphne in a deleted scene. Why it was deleted I dunno. Point is Shaggy, Scooby and Mary are all alone.. oh and Mary’s possessed. Shaggy and Scooby argue over it because Shaggy just thinks Scooby is jealous and while he is .. why would he lie about this? He’s as cowardly as you are. But Scooby falls through the floor, and Shaggy is now going solo but luckily finds his friends souls, and eveyrone elses in a massive cool looking vat and frees them all. Velma, when the demon leaves her and confronts her, finds out sunlight kills the demons and saves Daphne from hers... only to find Fred in her body. Daphne is naturally horrified and we do get a great bodyswapping scene.

Our heroes reconvince on the beach where htey find the Maestro who explains what’s going on to a point, with the gang’s clues filling in the blanks: The ritus, which they stole back earlier, is used for a ritual that will allow the Demons to rule over the earth for “a thousand years of darkness” but it requires a pure soul to work. Cue our big bad talking Scooby into being their willing sacrifice since Scooby dooes not understand what a sacrifice is. Shaggy naturally rallies the group to go save him after their understandably worried since they usually dealt with weirdos in costumes and not the apocalypse.. well okay Velma and Fred aren’t, Daphne dealt with this kind of thing once a week back in Sunnydale. So they set up a plan to destroy all the demons at once by unleashing the soul bath, setting them all loose and then using a spooky disco ball from one of the attractions rigged up over the ritual area to shine the light in. It’s classic scooby doo.

Things naturally go wrong as while Shaggy goes to rescue scooby and makes up with him, he’s caught, so are fred and velma and they have to scramble, while Daphne looses a fight with the luchador up top while trying to let the light in to finish the trap. Meanwhile Shaggy saves Scooby’s soul just as Mondovarious sucks it out by shoving the guy.. revealing him to be a robot! DUN DUN DUN. And inside is Scrappy.. which you all probably knew already but try to act suprise who wanted to conquer the world as revenge for the gang abandoning him and because again, in this universe he’s kind of an asshole. He absorbs the souls gathered so far and merges with the damon ritus, because we’re operating on video game rules now apparently, so final boss time. But we get a great climax as Scrappy chases scooby, Daphne goes buffy on Zarkos ass , and as a result he shatters the glass and lets the light in releasing the disco ball the kill the demons.. man I love that I get to type things like that. Scooby removes the ritus and defeats his nephew and the day is saved. Velma hooks up with random guy, Daphne and Fred get together, I die inside a little and Shaggy and Mary Jane bond. At the press Fred does his good deed for the movie by letting Velma explain things and get the spotlight and the group have firmly reunited. THE END. Overall it’s a solid plot, that works well, comes together in the end and was well put together, it’s more the filling that causes it to tilt back and forth a bit, but overlal outside of the issue I mentioned it’s a good scooby doo plot. While some have pointed out it is similar to zombie island, a case reuniting the gang, the person who brought them there wanting to sacrifice them, or just scooby here, monsters being real, it works because everything else is so different. But since there’s more to break down and it’s easier to give it it’s own section let’s look at...

THE CHARACTERS: NOT HALF BAD, FRED CAN GO FUCK HIMSELF.

So we’re down to character.. and since there’s a blonde, preeening, selfish, arrogant, sleazy, sexist, obnoxious, loud mouthed, useless elephant in the room, let’s start with Fred. And to quote it’s always sunny....

Yeah so that fury of a thousand crashing waves (Cracks Knuckles): Fred is the worst part of this movie, the worst version of the character across the entire franchise that i’ve seen with the sincre doubt that there is ANY version worse than this. Everything I said above is true and THEN some. He is one of the most unlikable characters i’ve seen in a film that wasn’t INTENDED to be. There’s just NOTHING to like about him. Nothing. He treats his “Friends” like garbage, all four of them: He basically ignores shaggy and scooby at best and treats them as if they were nothing. For Velma he’s your classic power abusing douche who pushes her to the side and often steals the credit for things she did. He’s still a good mystery solver, but he acts like he does all the work to the press and takes all the credit when Velma works as hard as he does if not harder. And worst of all is Daphne, who he basically either treats like some moron who gets kidnapped due to incompetence and not because creepy old dudes want to feel her up, which given the intro is VERY likely the reason she’s the resident victim of the group, and not like a person, or like a pair of boobs and legs he wants to bang or feel up creepily while he’s in her body. For fuck’s sake his reaction to finding out he’s in her body is a creepy and smug “I can see myself naaaakeddd” If that dosen’t make you want to smack him get off my blog. And they get together in the end!

Who who wanted that. I genuinely want the presumibly original ending where Daphne and Velma hook up and Fred falls off a pier and is never seen again. The acting does not help. While the other four gang members are expertly cast Fred was given to Freddy Prinze Junior, who made a career out of playing arrogant dicks who are somehow the main character so I can’t fault the casting but I can fault that he can’t delver any line without that smug air of trying to be cool douche and it’s at it’s worst with Fred since Fred’s already written as the biggest creepiest douche in the world and Freddy somehow makes it WORSE. He also has zero chemstiry with Daphne, which would be weird given he and Sarah Michelle Gellar had dated for 2 years at this point and as of this writing have been together for 20 overall and have two wonderful kids together... but given how badly written Fred is here, I can’t blame either of them. And i’m sure FPJ is a swell guy, loves his kids loves his wife seems like a really plesant guy, nothing against him as a person, but at least at this point in his career he wasn’t very good. And I am actually planning on trying to seek out one of his later works in his career to see if he’s gotten better in recent years, and willing to give him the benifit of a doubt that he probably has. I just don’t like him here, and while the script does most of the work he only makes it worse.And works before this (Pup Named Scooby Doo) and after this (Mystery Incorperated) would prove you can give fred a personality that’s not dick tip, so fuck this character, fuck the writing.. and I hope Freddy is having a happy halloween with his loving wife and children, seriously I meant it I have nothing against him as a person. A terrible actor can still be a WONDERFUL guy.

Now that’s thankfully put to bed, let’s pivot over to Shaggy, whose easily the best of the cast. Matthew Lillard looks the part pefectly, has the right combination of heart and goofus and has some great comedic timing. Granted Scream had already proven the guy’s got genuine talent, but still he’s great here and is currently playing Shaggy in most films and productions, except Scoob which.. was far from it’s only mistake but easily the biggest. There’s not much else to say: the guy IS Shaggy and is the only person whose taken up the roll to equal Kasey Casem in it. As for how he’s written.. he’s basically the same and apart from one line of him wanting to leave everyone to their deaths, which feels like it was added later, he’s written really well and is easily the most likeable of the group.

Scooby is alright. Not the best version but funny and charming enough when he needs to be and while I hated the CGI at one point.. it’s honestly not that bad. It’s not GREAT, but time has actually been very good to it both in how it’s held up and in the fact we’ve gotten SO MUCH WORSE with so much better techlogies. I mean.. Cats exists.. Marmaduke Exists.. the Bill Murray Garfield exists. This was offputting at the time but now it’s just okay. But character wise he’s good and again not much diffrent.

Velma is the second best casting of the movie. Played by Linda Cardenelli, who i’ve harbored a crush on for a good few decades now and admire mostly for her talent and charm, Linda kills the roll and easily slips into it as easily as Matt did, and while not picking it up full time like he did, still did it a few times afterword and played hot dog water in mystery incorperated, so she did finally get to play a Lesbian Velma it just took a while. And while Velma being gay is kind of sterotyping, it would’ve been nice to have been kept in instead of edited out for bullshit reasons. But overal her character is decent: While she ALSO bullies and belittles daphne like fred, unlike fred it comes less from just being a douche and more from insecurity. As her scene at the bar makes clear she feels undervalued like the other, like the nerd who the cool kids LET hang out with them instead of part of the team. While it dosen’t make her treatment of Daphne OKAY, it makes Velma understandable. We also get Velma Clevage which.. okay not sure if the world needed that but whatever. Point is it’s throughly likeable portryal that I wish got some character growth. Finally out of the main 5 there’s Daphne, whose alright. Not as good as the other two, as it feels they lean a bit too heavily on her having taken self defense and wanting ot be tougher, but Sarah Michelle Gellar gives her a ton of charm and likeablity that her husband’s character sadly lacks. There’s just a fun, adorable energy to daph that ends up coupling with her buffy style badassery at the end and Sarah plays both beautifully. The script didn’t give her a ton to work with, though that’s the same for all four of htem, but Sarah really made the character work and made her somewhat memorable despite not being as good as Linda or Matthew. Basically not the best, but still a comfortable third ahead of scooby doo and jackass jones.

As for the rest of the cast, Rowan Attkinson i’ve covered and is utterly fantastic as is the Voodoo Maestro, and both should get hteir own hbo max spinoff together. The minons.. stupid name and luchadoor are decent enough, nothign special but they have presence and do the job of goon well. And Mary Jane is alright.. the joke is WAY too on the nose to be funny and she’s mostly just there to be sweet, but she’s harmless. Not good but not bad. So finally we have our big bad, Scrappy. And i’m.. mixed about this. On one hand, Scott Innes, who it turns out is also from Missouri good on you dude!, does a terrific job and I couldn’t tell it wasn’t don messick as Scrappy and he plays him as evil great. On the other.. it’s just kinda goofy. Out of all the tips of hte hat to scooby stuff this feels the most over the top. Scrappy was hated, including by james gunn.. so he’s the bad guy. It’s just a bit on the nose, and the twist is pretty easily teligraphed since Scrappy suspciously is mentioned in one scene so him showing up at all is pretty easy to see coming. It’s not terible but it’s not great. His demon minons also just suck.. the designs are wonky and their cgi, unlike scooby and scrappy’s, is just REALLY bad and dated, and even as a kid I never liked them.

FINAL THOUGHTS: Scooby Doo is a decent but messy movie. The clashing tones, dated humor and godawful version of fred drag it down at times, and it’s very clear this had a lot of hands in the pot. But.. I still enjoy it. It’s not the best scooby ever, tha’ts mystery incorpeated, but it has great atmosphere, some good ideas, an utterly spectacular with one exception cast, and some really funny jokes. I genuinely feel the film is overhated when it’s a unique, weird and wonderful slice of Scooby. For better or worse there’s no other Scooby doo property quite like it, and that’s what makes it so fun. And it has enough good performances and jokes to smooth out the edges. It’s not the best, it’s a mess.. but sometimes a mess is fun and I like this flim for being a fun mess I can enjoy with my nieces and talk about to all of you. And sometimes that’s all you need. Thank you for reading this. If you like this you can comission your own review: 5 bucks for a tv episode, 15 for a movie, 10 for an hour long special, and 5 dollars off when you order more than one episode of a show at a time. Just send me a direct message or ask on here and we’ll get started. Until then you can check out my backlog of reviews, check this space every monday for ducktales reviews, and VOTE DAMMIT VOTE. Until we meet again it’s been a pleasure. Play us out Atomic Fireballs, it’s been a wonderful halloween.

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#scooby doo #james gunn #shaggy rogers #fred jones #velma dinkely #daphne blake #rowan atkinson #sarah michelle gellar #freddy prinze jr #linda cardellini #matthew lillard

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realsamcalloway · 7 years

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2/22/17 - Interview With Musician Brody Dalle “Style Evolution From AUS to The USA” (www.regardingstyle.com)

Originally posted February 22, 2017 and appearing on www.regardingstyle.com.

A Conversation with Brody Dalle, Regarding Style (And More)

By Sam Bone

The indie/punk rock/alternative music scene has been a desolate, lonely lull since 2014. It’s been nearly three whole years since fans of Brody Dalle’s haunting-yet-dangerous growl and lyrical prowess have heard anything new. If you’re a genuine fan of Brody’s (which I have no shame in admitting that I adore her immensely and forever!), then you’re probably one of the 300,000+ people who follow or “Like” her social media posts. It is from within this social media sphere, where fans grasp onto every tweet, photo and post in general, in hopes of a tour announcement or a Beyoncé-inspired surprise album drop.

This question has been an ongoing one for Brody Dalle since she and her (former) band of misfits, The Distillers, hit the punk scene in the late 90’s/beginning of 2000. The Distillers self-titled album was single-handedly the anthem record equivalent of ammunition of that time, and every record Brody has since released has only added as kindling to that raging fire. Back then during the “debut era,” fans of Dalle were in high school (or just out) and most of those fans have grown up right alongside with her. It didn’t matter what was happening, either.

Fans of Brody Dalle don’t “mess” around, and have stayed with her through it all, the good times and the bad. #Punx4Ever, right?

Since the debut in 2000, Brody released two more records under The Distillers moniker, Sing Sing Death House (2002), and Coral Fang (2003), followed by her Spinnerette project which saw the release of an album with the same name in 2009. Most recently, die-hard fans rejoiced when Brody flew solo with the powerful and equally as memorable Diploid Love (2014).

In January of this year the stage was set for me to interview Brody and in an attempt to tackle something she has never spoken about publically; her personal style and fashion sense. I know I’ve always been pretty curious about this subject, so I’m willing to bet that other fans share my feels.

Being a badass punk poster girl, plastered on the walls of both guys and gals the world over (her fans expand across both the Pacific and Atlantic oceans), Brody Dalle’s sense of style has a direct correlation to ethical fashion in that punk style requires a love of thrift store shopping. Tattered and torn hand-me-downs are always in high demand no matter what rock subgenre you identify.

Without further ado, here is our 2017 conversation with Brody Dalle, Regarding Style.

Hey there, Brody! I’d like to start off slightly unconventional by asking what’s got you angry lately?

The insanity right now-- the attitude and the words that come out of the Orange-Faced thing. Pence. Speaker Ryan and Bannon. He's terrifying and completely delusional and represents the Christian alt-right. Fuck all of them; their gross incompetence and their being unqualified, arrogant fucks. The lying, the misogyny, the racism, the homophobia and the unfairness of it all. The (Russian) hacking. The lack of people being held accountable. It's disgusting, embarrassing and horrifying. The hypocrisy of banning Muslims from entering the United States when this country was founded on freedom of religious beliefs.

It's baffling really. By the way, it’s only been a week.

I don’t want to get too into that here, because it’d be unending, but I will just say three words: I feel you. How are you, otherwise? How is your family? Congratulations on the birth of your newest son, Wolf!

Thank you so much! My family is wonderful! My son Wolf is a sunbeam rainbow baby, sweetest little munchkin ever. As far as myself, I'm doing better-- Going from 2 to 3 kids was a massive adjustment. Wolf is about to be one, and it's taken me about a year to get back on my feet. It's been a bit wobbly trying to balance the kids with no sleep, having to breastfeed, and issues with my health (rheumatic fever with chronic pain). Also balancing my husband’s schedule, kids school schedule, and then our family… friends… just our lives, in general… all while trying to balance my own personal life and get back to creating. Just started in the studio a couple of days a week.

How do we do it all though?! I asked my mum if life has gotten crazier and she said yes… life used to be much simpler, slower, and we didn't always have to be “on” and available.

I feel as though technology has much to do with society’s rapid pace, also that “rat race” you once spoke of is real. The struggle is real. Since the Distillers all the way through now, your style has influenced a lot of people, both girls and guys. Where did your sense of style develop? What are your earliest memories?

I guess it all started with the punks in Melbourne. I made a book for my mum when I was about 6 years old; it was of punks walking down the street whistling and girls doing handstands. I asked her why she thought I drew punks in the book with the mohawks and she had no idea, but suggested maybe I'd seen them on the street. Perhaps it was a prophecy ha!

I was in a movie about teenage delinquents called "Hard Knocks" when I was a baby, but I doubt I would have remembered it as I was 8 months old at the time. Right after that I went to see Cyndi Lauper at the Tennis Center, and Madonna was all over the TV and in the magazines-- I remember spending every waking hour putting those records on and dancing for hours in the living room with a black beauty mark drawn above my lip with my mum’s eyeliner.

My mum collected Vogue magazine, and I remember perusing though the 80’s ones and noticing all of the different angles, the neon colors and all of the multicolored make up. I sewed a pair of pants at my grandmother’s house once, but when I put them on they fell apart and I was discouraged with fashion after that.

I remember wanting certain things, the first thing I ever wanted, as far as fashion, was a purple feather in my hair for school photos when I was 5 years old. After that, it was a pale pink pair of sneakers at the tennis shop my dad would go to on the weekends… I begged him for months to buy them for me, and finally he acquiesced.

My first pair of Chuck Taylors were red and I got them when I was 8. My parents didn't have much money, so we shopped at Target for clothing which was the equivalent of Cole’s today, which I'm sure is way cooler than Target was back then. But it was mortifying, and I was teased mercilessly. Doc Martins were all the rage but they cost about $100 which, of course, my parents laughed at. So I ended up getting fake Docs… a mean girl at school made me lift up the bottom of my Docs and then ridiculed and teased me in front of the other mean girls, and well, that was that.

My Uncle Frazer gave me my first guitar and also my first surfboard; a Strapper Thruster with a giant red sun on it. I went through a surfer girl phase and got an undercut and wore giant rusty t-shirts and surfer boots and brands. I longed to be a pro surfer but there are no waves in Melbourne, the best waves were at least an hour away. Plus, I was pale as a ghost and I looked nothing like the tanned bleached blonde beach girls. I gave up surfing after being tossed around like a rag doll in 20 foot waves in Coffs Harbour, I thought “This really isn’t for me anymore" as I did full cartwheels underwater for a minute at a time.

One of the first records I ever bought was Mothers Milk by RHCP. When I was 12 and on my way to Vaucluse Catholic Girls college in Richmond, the RHCP got on our tram. They walked right up to me and talked with me for 5 minutes before getting off a few stops later… so weird to think about that, cut to The Distillers opening for them in German stadiums 12 years later. They actually remembered our encounter. Fucking weird mate.

I hated everyone and everything after that-- I got into Nirvana, Hole, Mudhoney, and Sonic Youth, and then I started going to All-Ages shows in

Melbourne. The bands I loved the most were The Meanies, Tumbleweed and the Hard-Ons.

Then, flares and ripped band t-shirts were the fash. Eventually I started working at Friends of the Earth when I was a 12-year-old hippy/anarchist. That was a Co-op that my parents shopped at. I bought my first item of clothing with the money I had earned; vintage orange and brown flares, which I wore to death to every Tumbleweed and Meanies All-Ages shows I ever attended in Melbourne.

Then it evolved to Dead Kennedys and Kyuss t-shirts. That's right, Kyuss... they were my favorite band. I also wore Levi's jeans, one pair at a time until there was NOTHING left!

After that, thanks to Courtney Love, it was 1940's tea dresses, nighties, and ripped fishnets worn with shitty, op-shop high heels and Chuck Taylors.

After that, I got into Discharge, The Exploited, Cock Sparrer, Oi Polloi and Last Resort. I got beat up by two street girls in the city wearing Bon Jovi t-shirts, and they fractured my arm... I was so pissed I shaved my head the next day into a Chelsea haircut and I dyed it blue. Also by now I could afford to buy real vintage stuff with the money I made from my jobs, and I also bought my own Docs and any op-shop find, especially plaid mini-skirts.

So my look was Courtney Love meets Skinhead. A lot of tops had to have the “Courtney Love white collar.” Then when I was 17 years old I saw “Betty Blue” (the film), and that changed everything-- I wanted black hair in a choppy bob. Black hair became my favorite thing! I got into do wop music and started cleaning up my look; black hair, up in a high ponytail with long side burns and big hoop earrings, Revlon Color Stay in Berry Red, black liquid eyeliner and Creepers-- plaid Creepers. Mini-skirts. Bomber jackets.

By this point I was in L.A., so I was being influenced by so much in Los Angeles and also New York, mainly trash and vaudeville. I was hanging around a lot of older, cooler punk chicks. My friend Tomomi made mohair sweaters.

I started cutting up my t-shirts after I'd seen a girl on the street with her t-shirt cut into tassels-- I didn't know that was an option and it changed the game. I became obsessed with, wore and collected Polly of California heels. I also discovered trashy lingerie and agent provocateur. I admired Vivienne Westwood. My friend Evelyn had a shoe store called Diavolina and I became obsessed with shoes.

I met Agatha Blois, who made most of my pants that I wore on stage… another game changer. Rosalyn Mazzola (“Casper Rose,” for you diehards out there) had these naturally occurring dark circles under her eyes and I loved the way it looked so I recreated it by using MAC's color 'texture', which is still my favorite for smoky eyes.

Right before we made Sing Sing Death House I met Rosalyn, and I fell in love. She was so beautiful and androgynous-looking, like jaw-dropping beautiful… I felt so ugly next to her. God I loved her so much. We kind of morphed into each other for a while although her thing was more gutter than mine. We dressed like dirty squatter boys and put our eyebrows on with black sharpie, it lasted for a week sometimes longer. I look back at old photos of us and think we looked pretty scummy but we weren’t, I swear! I’m a very hygienic person, my favorite smell back then was this raspberry body spray that smelt more like cotton candy. They stopped making it of course, they stop making everything that’s awesome. I had my managers hunt down the last box in America. I wear mostly vanilla these days. The way you smell, your scent, is as important and memorable as your clothes.

I will add this- my style icons in the past have been Kurt Cobain, Courtney Love, Lydia Lunch, the Misfits, Beatrice Dalle in “Betty Blue,” Discharge, The Exploited, Sex Pistols, DEBBIE HARRY ❤️, Vivienne Westwood, Oi, Agatha Blois, other punk girls.

Thank you for sharing all of those memories. I remember first hearing The Distillers on a sampler… I think it was one of those oi, garage punk compilations. Anyway, it had the rough cut of LA Girl on it, from the Oldscratch EP. It was of course this audio that lead me to visual curiosity so I checked out the band, and I remember the days of Rose and recall that she was very street punk, which obviously appealed to me. Moving on, do you have a vault of super-secret punk rock DIY designers that custom-make your garments? Who/what are some brands and designers that you respect?

Ha! I used to when I was touring more! I'm not much of a “fashionista.” I'm lucky to know and have some very talented friends who happen to be incredible clothing makers and designers. I'm not really too into brand names per se, it's more that I know what I like when I see it, or I’ll get inspired by something old and remake it. I did have a love for Vivienne Westwood, in fact my look in The Distillers was really a mash-up of Vivienne Westwood, Agatha Blois, t-shirts scoured from Goodwill, "wife beaters" from Target, Polly of California, trashy lingerie, vintage coats, various jeans, Submission, Very Bad Horse, spray-painted hooker boots from Hollywood Blvd, Agent Provocateur, very sick and cool shit from Japan and my old friend Tomomi (Fukuda) has a store called Camden Lock. I love Agatha Blois as a friend, and her designs had a big impact on me, she and I worked really well together. Ligia Morris made a badass jumpsuit and some stage clothes for Reading and Leeds festivals in 2004. Corey Parks makes the meanest leather jackets and pants ever. I love Hedy Slimanes, and obviously his influence made that company (Yves Saint Laurent, YSL) what it is today. Punk is Hedy's staple diet I think, not sure where YSL is headed now.

When it comes down to it, it's not the label, it's what I like in the moment.

That’s great, and it’s also very cool that a lot of those more indie-back-then designers have really sort of exploded in the sense that they are doing their thing with their boutiques and brands. I know you’re busy, thanks so much for your time. Lastly, what can fans expect from you next?

I’m slowly coming out of the 1-year baby fog of losing myself completely. It’s a scary process to unravel but I usually get songs out of it. My plan is to write two records which I’ve just started.

I know fans will love this news! Again thank you so much, nothing but the purest wishes for both you and your family!

You can stay up to date with Brody oh her Twitter and Instagram profiles.

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#brody dalle #the distillers #spinnerette #diploid love #coral fang #sam bone #trsb #regarding style #writing sample #author #author sample #interviews #australia #donald trump

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