FORMALISM and the SPICERS

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

the bez = gerri
the xander = posh
the GG = missy elliott
the julia lennon = ron tr4ino

Comments

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

GG = derived from BIG BROTHER = the participant who provides the excuse and/or cover for a PARTICULAR CROWD to participate/spectate eagerly and comment thereon EVEN THOUGH THEY SHOULD HAVE PARTICIPATING/SPECTATING ANYWAY

next year = green gartside

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

can you run through all these categories for me again? I keep having them explained to me, but forget, as I've never seen Buffy, but they are v interesting

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

the bez = doesn't DO anything but has to BE there for everything to work
the xander = secret central character: the entire project is THEIR story
the GG = see above
the julia lennon = essential member of group never actually present -- bcz eg DEAD -- and discounted from membership by all incorrent (=rockist) metrics

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I think Victoria is both the Bez and the Xander: Geri played far too much of an actual singing-writing-unofficial-frontwomanning role to be the Bez! But I can't see Mel B as crucial as Victoria.

Is there a name for the one whose story everyone assumes it is? The opposite of the Xander, this would be.

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

there may be a (formalist) case for arguing that the bez and the xander MUST be difft (in which case posh = bez and sporty = xander)

[blue-russian.livejournal.com]

This is actually kind of difficult as I think through it. Initially I said Baby/Emma as the Xander (it was only years afterward that I realized that she actually did a fair bit - at the time I saw her as just playing the blond role in the same way Victoria did).

I think Geri has to be the 'opoosite Xander,' doesn't she?

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Would the opposite Xander be...the Buffy? Geri definitely that, anyway.

I think there'd be a good argument for Emma as the Xander - she was crucial to the Spice Girls but not as IN-YA-FACE as any of the others (Mel C = singer; Victoria = tab-friendly quite early on; Mel B = loud; Geri = Geri), so she was definitely quiet and secondary. But she is the only one who has really come into her own (as, ahem, an artiste) since. Of course Victoria has also come into her own (also as an artiste!) but if she is the Bez she cannot be the Xander.

NOT THE BUFFY

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

clearly the "buffy" is not CALLED the "buffy" (reason: "into each generation a slayer is born" = there can't just be one in every single girl group, rockband etc)