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glitter_n_goreWay, way back in the late 90s, after I first started writing fanfiction but before I knew it was a Thing outside of the world of my spiral notebook, I wrote a crack-fic starring Trent Reznor and Britney Spears. The basic plot was that Britney was tired of her candy-coated pop star image and wanted to do something else, but was struggling to break away from that artistically. So she tracked down Reznor for help, looking for a mentor who was completely different stylistically than anything she'd done before.
I say "crack-fic" because it's the kind of idea that's so outrageously far from reality it could never possibly happen. Then I watched "Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too." Damn, I wish I'd pitched that story before someone on the Black Mirror team beat me to it.
SPOILERS BELOW!
Basic plot of this episode: Ashley O (Miley Cyrus) is a huge pop star with a candy-coated image stuffed with positivity and catchy self-empowerment anthems, the tunes and lyrics for which come to her in dreams. Rachel (Angourie Rice) and Jack (Madison Davenport) are sisters who lost their mother, and whose father is so preoccupied he almost forgets Rachel's birthday. Rachel is a massive Ashley O fan. Jack is . . . not. "Ashley Too" is a new product associated with Ashley's brand, a desk-sized robot with programmed responses based on Ashley's real personality. Except it isn't that at all.
As you can probably guess, Ashley's bubbly on-stage persona is a carefully crafted mask that she lets slip as soon as she's out of the spotlight, because things are not as pristine as they seem. This would have been easy to dismiss as another poor-little-starlet story about how fame isn't as awesome as it seems, except for two things: 1) Miley Cyrus's performance is fantastic, and 2) All of Ashley's songs are retooled, saccharine versions of Nine Inch Nails songs.
It's disturbingly catchy. Also her cover of the real song, played over the end credits, is incredibly satisfying once you watch the whole thing.
I've read a handful of reviews for this episode so far, and while the music is mentioned once or twice, you really need the context of a fangirl, with a fangirl's priorities and encyclopedic knowledge of trivia, to appreciate the subtext. Which is why I'm here.
Everyone's heard "Head Like a Hole" before, and it's not hard to make the connection between that and Ashley's sugary single, "On a Roll." The line "Bow down before the one you serve / You're going to get what you deserve," is easy to parse, and it's not surprising to learn that Reznor wrote this as a response to various record executives trying to tell him what to do. (This is a pretty common theme in the rock world. See also: Hanson's "Strong Enough to Break," and Thirty Seconds to Mars', "This is War.")
But the song I really want to talk about is "Right Where It Belongs." It's the closing track from NIN's With Teeth album, the first studio release after The Fragile. And this is a really interesting choice because not only is it relatively unknown as compared to "Head Like a Hole," it's a much slower, softer piece than the grinding industrial tracks he's known for:
This song is also featured in the episode, but the context for how it's introduced is completely different. We see Ashley composing this in the early morning on the piano, alone, still disheveled from sleep. This is the only time we see her play completely for herself, the only time she's not making some kind of performance. It's just her, and her notebook, and the piano.
I find it interesting that this song is the one we hear from Ashley as her most unadorned, authentic self. Not the loud, angry thrasher, but the introspective, melancholic ballad. If it's not obvious by now, Ashley trying to break away from her public persona and just be herself, without a filter, is the main conflict here. That song is all about being able to look at yourself in the mirror and figure out if you've become someone you can be proud of. That is Ashley's journey in a nutshell.
It's both empowering and chilling when you compare it to the real life adventures of Miley Cyrus, who, to put it mildly, has been through some shit. I have been a bit judgey about her in the past myself, and that's my own crap to deal with, and my opinion of her both as a performer and a person have softened considerably. But I was, and still am, a sucker for sugary pop music, and I am not unfamiliar with her past as a Disney Princess.
Hands up: who here has seen the Hannah Montana movie? Anybody? Just me?
Okay, plot summary: Hannah Montana is the onstage pop star persona / pseudonym of Miley Stewart (Disney is hilariously obvious about these things), who is trying to live a double life as a successful pop star and a normal teenager at the same time. No one seems to question why Hannah and Miley are never seen in the same place at the same time, despite a blond wig being LITERALLY the only difference between them. It's kinda like Jem and the Holograms.
So in the movie, she goes back to her hometown in Tennessee, and there's a lot of awkward bad writing and lying and convoluted nonsense and obligatory musical performances, during which she tries to find herself as a person existing separately from her onstage persona. Then there's this big concert finale at the end, because of course there is, where she's supposed to perform as Hannah Montana again. And then THIS happens:
Now, I know what you're thinking: meh, decent message about being yourself, kinda cheesy, but we can roll with it. Right? Yeah, the movie doesn't end there. After she does this song, the audience flat-out CHANTS at her to put the wig back on and be the fake pop star again. You could interpret it as the hometown folks being supportive of her secret identity, not necessarily bullying her into doing something she literally just told them she wanted to stop, but it is extremely dicey. One could even say they're suggesting she find "happiness in slavery." (Heh.)
This matters because Miley Cyrus's character here is so unnervingly similar to Ashley O, except the Black Mirror version obviously takes a much darker turn. How many times has she tried to reinvent herself over the years? And how many times have people--both her fans and the general public--given her shit for it or told her to go back to "the old Miley?" She really knocked it out of the park, and this story would not have worked as well with anyone else.
I only wish we'd been able to hear a full-length version of her playing "Right Where It Belongs."
Go watch this and get back to me. I can't be the only dork who watched this with a working fandom knowledge of both Disney pop stars and 90s industrial rock. Meanwhile, I need to mine my old fanfic notebooks for more futuristic sci-fi ideas.
I say "crack-fic" because it's the kind of idea that's so outrageously far from reality it could never possibly happen. Then I watched "Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too." Damn, I wish I'd pitched that story before someone on the Black Mirror team beat me to it.
SPOILERS BELOW!
Basic plot of this episode: Ashley O (Miley Cyrus) is a huge pop star with a candy-coated image stuffed with positivity and catchy self-empowerment anthems, the tunes and lyrics for which come to her in dreams. Rachel (Angourie Rice) and Jack (Madison Davenport) are sisters who lost their mother, and whose father is so preoccupied he almost forgets Rachel's birthday. Rachel is a massive Ashley O fan. Jack is . . . not. "Ashley Too" is a new product associated with Ashley's brand, a desk-sized robot with programmed responses based on Ashley's real personality. Except it isn't that at all.
As you can probably guess, Ashley's bubbly on-stage persona is a carefully crafted mask that she lets slip as soon as she's out of the spotlight, because things are not as pristine as they seem. This would have been easy to dismiss as another poor-little-starlet story about how fame isn't as awesome as it seems, except for two things: 1) Miley Cyrus's performance is fantastic, and 2) All of Ashley's songs are retooled, saccharine versions of Nine Inch Nails songs.
It's disturbingly catchy. Also her cover of the real song, played over the end credits, is incredibly satisfying once you watch the whole thing.
I've read a handful of reviews for this episode so far, and while the music is mentioned once or twice, you really need the context of a fangirl, with a fangirl's priorities and encyclopedic knowledge of trivia, to appreciate the subtext. Which is why I'm here.
Everyone's heard "Head Like a Hole" before, and it's not hard to make the connection between that and Ashley's sugary single, "On a Roll." The line "Bow down before the one you serve / You're going to get what you deserve," is easy to parse, and it's not surprising to learn that Reznor wrote this as a response to various record executives trying to tell him what to do. (This is a pretty common theme in the rock world. See also: Hanson's "Strong Enough to Break," and Thirty Seconds to Mars', "This is War.")
But the song I really want to talk about is "Right Where It Belongs." It's the closing track from NIN's With Teeth album, the first studio release after The Fragile. And this is a really interesting choice because not only is it relatively unknown as compared to "Head Like a Hole," it's a much slower, softer piece than the grinding industrial tracks he's known for:
This song is also featured in the episode, but the context for how it's introduced is completely different. We see Ashley composing this in the early morning on the piano, alone, still disheveled from sleep. This is the only time we see her play completely for herself, the only time she's not making some kind of performance. It's just her, and her notebook, and the piano.
I find it interesting that this song is the one we hear from Ashley as her most unadorned, authentic self. Not the loud, angry thrasher, but the introspective, melancholic ballad. If it's not obvious by now, Ashley trying to break away from her public persona and just be herself, without a filter, is the main conflict here. That song is all about being able to look at yourself in the mirror and figure out if you've become someone you can be proud of. That is Ashley's journey in a nutshell.
It's both empowering and chilling when you compare it to the real life adventures of Miley Cyrus, who, to put it mildly, has been through some shit. I have been a bit judgey about her in the past myself, and that's my own crap to deal with, and my opinion of her both as a performer and a person have softened considerably. But I was, and still am, a sucker for sugary pop music, and I am not unfamiliar with her past as a Disney Princess.
Hands up: who here has seen the Hannah Montana movie? Anybody? Just me?
Okay, plot summary: Hannah Montana is the onstage pop star persona / pseudonym of Miley Stewart (Disney is hilariously obvious about these things), who is trying to live a double life as a successful pop star and a normal teenager at the same time. No one seems to question why Hannah and Miley are never seen in the same place at the same time, despite a blond wig being LITERALLY the only difference between them. It's kinda like Jem and the Holograms.
So in the movie, she goes back to her hometown in Tennessee, and there's a lot of awkward bad writing and lying and convoluted nonsense and obligatory musical performances, during which she tries to find herself as a person existing separately from her onstage persona. Then there's this big concert finale at the end, because of course there is, where she's supposed to perform as Hannah Montana again. And then THIS happens:
Now, I know what you're thinking: meh, decent message about being yourself, kinda cheesy, but we can roll with it. Right? Yeah, the movie doesn't end there. After she does this song, the audience flat-out CHANTS at her to put the wig back on and be the fake pop star again. You could interpret it as the hometown folks being supportive of her secret identity, not necessarily bullying her into doing something she literally just told them she wanted to stop, but it is extremely dicey. One could even say they're suggesting she find "happiness in slavery." (Heh.)
This matters because Miley Cyrus's character here is so unnervingly similar to Ashley O, except the Black Mirror version obviously takes a much darker turn. How many times has she tried to reinvent herself over the years? And how many times have people--both her fans and the general public--given her shit for it or told her to go back to "the old Miley?" She really knocked it out of the park, and this story would not have worked as well with anyone else.
I only wish we'd been able to hear a full-length version of her playing "Right Where It Belongs."
Go watch this and get back to me. I can't be the only dork who watched this with a working fandom knowledge of both Disney pop stars and 90s industrial rock. Meanwhile, I need to mine my old fanfic notebooks for more futuristic sci-fi ideas.