Deep Thoughts about the Spice Girls

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I really really really wanna zig-a-zig-AH!

On this week’s episode of Deep Thoughts, Tracie and Emily delve into the global phenomenon of the Spice Girls. Tracie explains how she saw the inevitability of Spicy world domination while living in London in 1997 and decided to embrace the manufactured pop group’s grrl power, despite feeling leery of the mixed messages these sexualized young women were sending. Though the group became a feminism gateway for a number of young girls (and inspired Adele!) and emphasized the importance of friendship and solidarity, the sisters do have to grapple with the reality of Scary and Baby Spice’s horrifying nicknames and the overwhelming body scrutiny the women were subjected to.

Here’s the story from A to Z–you gotta throw on your headphones and listen carefully!

Mentioned in this episode

Ms. Mojo: Top 20 Celebs Who Shot Down Homophobic Interview Questions
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/28/arts/music/spice-girls-girl-power.html
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/dec/13/spice-girls-feminism-viva-forever
https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/spice-world-1998

Content warning: Mentions of eating disorders and body shaming
Our theme music is "Professor Umlaut" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Learn more about Tracie and Emily (including our other projects), join the Guy Girls' family, secure exclusive access to bonus episodes, video versions, and early access to Deep Thoughts by visiting us on Patreon. 

We are Tracie Guy-Decker and Emily Guy Birken, known to our family as the Guy Girls.

We have super-serious day jobs. For the bona fides, visit our individual websites: tracieguydecker.com and emilyguybirken.com

We're hella smart and completely unashamed of our overthinking prowess. We love movies and tv, science fiction, comedy, and murder mysteries, good storytelling with lots of dramatic irony, and analyzing pop culture for gender dynamics, psychology, sociology, and whatever else we find.