The movie wasn’t even half over when I was split between a desire to know more about this film, and the desire to set it aflame and never have to tangle with it again. Maybe the later is a tad extreme, but it certainly is true, even a few days later. This is another movie mentioned in Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, a feature co-written/produced by Jack Nicholson and directed by New Wave “great” Bob Rafelson. Rafelson was also involved with the Monkees television show which I find radically out of step with this film, and so too did the public at the time, if I recall correctly. The Monkees were a happy, sweet little quad, manufactured to feed off of the success of the Beatles’ antics in A Hard Days Night. A noble effort, I think, because despite the arguably phoney aspect of the Monkees they really are a sweet bunch of guys. Maybe I didn’t watch enough episodes when I was a kid.
The start of the movie is intended, as far as I can grasp, to parody the idea of the Monkees, the concept of this manufactured entity parading as a musical group. What follows is more of the same, though considerably less clever than the opening “song.” There is no coherent plot, just a mountain of scenes depicting the group members in various activities, relating to imaginary adventures, film sets, and awkward altercations. The central theme is the concept of what reality is, and the ability of our minds (or heads) to construct a reality through the power of personal imagination. Whether this is for better or worse is unclear. This argument of reality relates to the group both in their existance as casted musicians and as members of the media profession. This creates a rather important problem, in that to take this film seriously you have to take the Monkees seriously, which it would seem by the finish is something they don’t necessarily desire you to do. If you want to have an example of manufactured bands you have the Spice Girls or N’Sync or the Backstreet Boys. But the Monkees was a television show that crossed over to the radio, a backward movement of their original inspiration.
I could be out of the loop, not having been in existence when the show originally aired and being only vaguely aware of it now, but I honestly wonder if there were people who honestly though a band got together and wanted to be on TV, not the other way around. Considering the jokes in this movie, the idea seems unlikely. So: take them seriously, or not? That’s the continuous tangle. If I take them seriously, then they are a group of young men who were thrown together by a casting call. This venture didn’t result in what they ultimately desired, so they make a film that makes fun of their existence, which is more than a little counterproductive. I would think that if you wanted to legitimize yourself, you would do something legitimate, not something that thrives over your previously acknowledged lack of legitimacy.
And if you don’t take them seriously? The movie was just a group of young men doing goofy nonsense, but not in the wacky vein of the show but one pulsating with anger and frustrating that can’t be taken seriously, per the previous judgment.
Either way, what comes about is a lot of nonsense, with no direction and no purpose. It awoke nothing in me, and didn’t feel like it took a particular bit of doing to create. It felt, in a word, lazy. They could have done something profound with their time and resources, instead they opted, as so many have and continue to, for manufactured insanity designed to comment on previous manufactured insanity. This is nothing new, nothing necessary, and nothing earth shattering, it’s just a lot of rusted junk.
