JEM AND THE HOLOGRAMS

From ‘no one else is the same’ to ‘Jem is everyone’

Halloween will be confusing for ’80s kids as trick-or-treaters with pink Ziggy Stardust face paint announce they’re Jem from Jem and the Holograms when asked if they’re dressed as Bowie or Ke$ha. These candy hunters might only make sense to children of Hasbro who noticed the outrage the new Jem and the Holograms live-action reboot’s trailer received last spring. It didn’t quite break the Internet, but it certainly broke some hearts.

Fans of the ’80s cartoon featuring an almost all-female cast fronted by business woman/secret rock star Jerrica Benton (Jem) saw no sign of rival band the Misfits, no badass hologram-producing Synergy computer, and none of the self-aware camp that managed to make 2001’s Josie and the Pussycats reboot a cult sensation.

I’ll start with the good news: Synergy is still there, just rebranded as tiny anthro-PC “51n3rg.y” instead of warehouse-sized, sentient synthesizer/mega-computer. Jerrica and Kimber Benton, together with foster sisters Aja and Shana, play dress-up and adorn themselves with their “proper” Technicolor wig colours. And Starlight Music, Starlight Mansion and the Misfits are also around, if only to allow old-school fans some comfort.

Other similarities with the cartoon end at lip-service quotes like Rio referring to Jem as “glitter, fashion and fame.” 51n3rg.y only projects home-movie holograms — incomprehensible in the age of AI developments and the world’s first (out) hologram pop star Hatsune Miku. And we only see the Misfits — led by none other than Ke$ha — after some of the end credits roll, providing the film’s only burst of flamboyancy (and perhaps some cause to yearn for a better sequel).

2015’s Jem feels as if it was made by a studio and producers obsessed with mini-millennial ticket buyers, whom they believe will relate only to sanitized, no-nonsense vibes and constant shout-outs to digital technology. Jem is pastiched with squirrel surfers, vlog confessionals and mildly avant-garde but ultimately forgettable percussion tracks assembled from DIY drumming videos. Even Jem’s tracks are a catchy blend of radio pop and indie trends, while Jerrica’s corny pronouncement that “Jem” is everyone echoes the bread-and-butter sentiments of modern pop stars from Taylor Swift to Lady Gaga — be yourself, follow your dreams.

Beyond its obsession with its own contemporariness, perhaps the film’s greatest failure is while it could have leapt beyond the feminism of the ’80s doll-peddling cartoon, Jem actually backpedals. It’s the lone male character, Rio, who takes on much of the control of Starlight Music and the group (even naming them). Had the four band members, and their perceived audience, been older, one wonders if 2015’s Jem would have looked more like Sex and the City 2? ∂∂