You don't fool me for a minute. I know all about you.
You came here tonight thinking you’d see some cute and wonderful rockstar. And you thought he’d take one look at you from up on that stage and he’d fall in love with you just like that. Then your savior could take you out of this dump of a town you live in. You could be different from all the other girls. Suckers!
Be yourselves.
These guys laugh at you. They've got such big plans for the world, but they don't include us. So what does that make you?
Just another girl lining up to die.

That's when Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains grabbed hold of me and got my full attention. It was so lucid.
It's what Corinne shouts at the audience after her band The Fabulous Stains is heckled off stage. It's their first show, and they've revealed themselves to be a sort of cross between The Shaggs and The Misfits (from "Jem and the Holograms"). This crowd came to hear the all-male headlining bands, one of which likes to write songs about that point in a relationship, you know, where it's necessary for the man to hit his "old lady" because words just don't cut it.
But the Stains (Corinne, her sister Tracy, and their cousin Jessica, a very young Laura Dern) are desperate to succeed. They're in their teens. Corinne and Tracy's parents are dead; Jessica's mother is uninterested and absent. There's no future in their hometown. They have to get out of there.
And so they do. And they quickly make a name for themselves. Their style is different. They don't dress like the other girls around.

When their manager instructs the Stains to dress in sexy, tight leather outfits, Corinne refuses and opts for an olive trench and a red beret instead. (My personal favorite look from the movie.)

Corinne is also (in)famous for her outbursts and speaking her mind. (At one point she tells a news reporter: "Every girl should be given an electric guitar on her sixteen birthday." Amen.) She's also good at plugging her band whenever she is interviewed by the press, further spreading the word of the Stains and creating an impressive fanbase.


But what happens when you aren't sure if your fans are really listening or if they just want to look like you? What does an influential band to do when it gets boiled down to a marketable look? What do you do when the youth subculture is something to be capitalized from? Are you a sellout, or what? These are questions that are brought up in The Fabulous Stains.
It's a short movie, but there is enough material in it that had me deep in thought the next day. I was also really inspired by the film. There's something about it. It's not perfect, but that's okay. I felt empowered.
What is most important (besides their awesome songs) are the ideas and situations brought up. It's the kind of movie that says the things I've always felt but never saw in a movie.
It made me want to start a band. It made me want to be myself.
It has that effect.
xo
craig hunter