The ’90s have reared their head, and there are a few autobiographies that take me right back to my platform takkie days.
Matthew Perry’s Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing is a must for all fans of Chandler Bing. He writes about his struggles with sobriety and fame, and it’s laced with his take on the ubiquity of Friends, as well as anecdotes about the cast. Could it be more interesting? (Sorry, not sorry).
Another is Lauren Graham’s Have I Told You This Already: Stories I Don’t Want to Forget. She starred as Lorelai in Gilmore Girls and though technically it’s not ’90s (the first season came out in 2000), it still harnesses that decade’s sentimentality.
But one particular memoir has me gripped. I have had the Spice Girls’ Wannabe on loop in my head for a couple of weeks, and every now and again I sing the chorus out loud and do a little shoulder jig. I think Gman is a bit concerned about my outbursts of “zig-a-zig-ah”.
It’s hard to fathom it was more than 25 years ago that Spicemania took hold. It’s all so fresh to me and even more so now due to Melanie C’s memoir, Who I Am: My Story.
Known to the world as Sporty Spice, Melanie takes us through her early years growing up in the surrounds of Liverpool, enjoying being a dancer and gymnast, working at a chippy (fish and chip shop), going to The Doreen Bird College of Performing Arts in Sidcup, then becoming part of a global phenomenon and all that it comes with it — the glam but gruelling business of showbiz.
One of my fave paragraphs lists what made her ’90s. “‘Hasta La Vista, Baby!’, ‘Eat my shorts!’, ‘Not!’, ‘Big Mistake. Huge!’, Pringles, The Prodigy, Kurt and Courtney. You Can’t Touch This. Acid House and house parties. ‘Just Do It’, Chokers, bling, Maharishi’s and Mitsubishis and crop tops. Microwaves. The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and Twin Peaks. Jason Priestley and Luke Perry. Blur vs Oasis. Motorola vs Nokia. Biggie vs Tupac, Robbie vs Gary. Opal Fruits vs Starburst. The internet, Hotmail, Ask Jeeves!. Cindy, Christy, Naomi and Tatjana. Kate Moss. Thelma and Louise, Leo and Kate, Pam and Tommy, Monica and Bill. ‘I did not have sex with that woman.’ The Real World. The whole world read Harry Potter and played Sonic the Hedgehog. We all got lower-back tattoos and belly button piercings ... ”
It’s not all lighthearted bumf though.
Melanie talks about the glittering world of being a Spice Girl and masking the darkness that engulfed her. She relates how their controlling manager tried to take away their “Girl Power”; how she had an eating disorder; was sexually harassed, shamed and exploited; and how her mental health took a toll.
It’s an insightful, sometimes sad, sometimes hilarious behind-the-scenes look at what it took to be a Spice Girl. It’s simply zig-a-zig-ah.
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