EARTH GIRLS ARE EASY
With Geena Davis, Jeff Goldblum, Jim Carrey, Damon Wayans, Julie Brown, Michael McKean, and Charles Rocket.
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Tashlin, the satiric poet of plastic and Day-Glo colors, was responsible for some of the best Jerry Lewis pictures and at least three other major comedies (Son of Paleface, The Girl Can’t Help It, and Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?), all of which have yet to receive their due in this country. Although Tashlin’s filmography has its share of undistinguished entries, these and a few others are (along with the original Mad and the major works of Spike Jones and Tex Avery) the most exhilarating and formally inventive satiric celebrations that we have of American vulgarity in the 50s, as well as some of the most enduring modernist texts to be found in pop culture. (Tashlin’s early film work was in cartoons, and the proximity of these figures to the world of cartoons is far from coincidental.)
Among the more Tashlinesque aspects of Earth Girls Are Easy are a flurry of affectionate references to 50s icons, the use of a ‘Scope format and heavily saturated colors (which directly emulate the brilliant colors in the yellow range offered by Technicolor), a satiric use of brand names (a beauty parlor known as Curl Up & Dye, a “cuticle convention” called Nail Expo), and an unforced appreciation of the silly excesses of current technology, glamour, and pop culture. Where Temple differs most strikingly from both Tashlin in the 50s and Godard in the 60s is in his postmodernism–a distinctly different cultural attitude.
The dumbness of the characters exists on many levels at once. When the aliens see voluptuous skiers on a TV ad for Finland, one of them asks, “Is Finland here?” and Valerie replies, “This is the Valley. Finland is the capital of Norway.” Candy Pink, on the other hand, is a mistress of the mixed metaphor, as in “Have a mental margarita” or, more philosophically, “Men–give ’em enough rope and they’ll dig their own graves.”
The failure of Absolute Beginners to score with American teenagers was most likely due to the remoteness of its subject–London’s race riots of the 50s. That was a much more ambitious movie; but it might be argued that Earth Girls Are Easy, cheerful dumbness and all, is within its more carefully defined and modest limits a more successful one. It’s opening about half a year later than was originally intended, because the company that initially financed it, Dino De Laurentiis’s DEG, went bankrupt, but Ted’s “George Bush for President” bumper sticker is really the only detail that dates it. It’s probably asking too much, but with another genocidal Indiana Jones romp just around the corner, I’d love to see this tender piece of merchandise give the forthcoming Spielberg film a healthy run for its money.
