A Guide To Pop Star Movies, Ranked by How Good Their Faux-Pop Stars Are

Teen Spirit was written and directed by a male actor-turned-filmmaker who either hates pop music, or didn’t spend enough (any) time researching what the heartbeat behind the genre is, what makes it special and why so many people like it. Transitively, his faux-pop star, Violet Valenski (Elle Fanning), was a hollow character and functionally devoid of traits—exactly the opposite of a real pop star! Yet somehow, Violet still followed the narrowminded trajectory of “girl with a dream who has a dark side and nearly fucks up her career cause she has a drink and kisses a boy.”

The movie follows Violet, a mediocre-at-best performer, on her journey through a reality singing competition called “Teen Spirit,” and it’s an offensive illustration of a young woman. Just because a woman is young and sings popular songs doesn’t mean she’s a one-dimensional headcase. Either respect the game or GTFO, men!

Vox Lux picked up some critical acclaim last year on the festival circuit, but wasn’t an easy watch. Written by another male actor-turned-filmmaker who wrote a movie about a female singer-songwriter (why is this becoming a thing?), the movie follows Celeste (Natalie Portman), a flamboyant, Gaga-esque singer who survived a harrowing school shooting at a young age. Celeste at least has big pop star energy, in that she’s spirited, pugnacious, and magnetic—the kind of person who the world naturally orbits around. But the music is embarrassingly bad, almost as if made to illustrate how vacuous and grating pop music is—which it isn’t!

This movie is extremely man-making-a-pop-star-movie. I imagine his “groundbreaking” pitch was something like: “What if there was a pop star… But she was fucked up?” Pop stars are not vacuous husks of humanity, or empty envoys of means to transport soulless materialism. Imagine if sports movies were just about how shitty sports are? Sports are very popular for a reason—and so is Top 40 music!!

Where to stream Vox Lux

Faux-pop stars are always better when they’re played by real-life pop stars, because they infuse their characters with life and spirit and heart, and 1992’s The Bodyguard proves this point exceptionally. The late Whitney Houston played the iconic role of Rachel Marron, who hires a bodyguard (Kevin Costner) to protect her, who she ultimately falls for. The music is perfect for the era —the soundtrack includes Houston’s “I Will Always Love You” and sold over 42 million copies worldwide. Rachel was complex, electric, enigmatic, and easy to sympathize with—very true to form of the IRL women of pop.

Where to stream The Bodyguard

Country Strong is one of the most underrated movies, uhh, ever? Written and directed by Shana Feste, the drama with a southern twang has a remarkable soundtrack, and not one, but TWO faux-country pop stars, Kelly Cantor (Gwyneth Paltrow), a superstar country singer and embattled alcoholic, and Chiles Stanton (Leighton Meester), a rising star who opens for Kelly on tour. Both characters are brimming with inner-life and pathos, the kind that makes us fall for and connect with singer-songwriters in real life.

Chiles is driven, passionate, and surprisingly smart. And Kelly, poor Kelly, is equal parts traumatized and affable. I wish Kelly Cantor and Chiles Stanton were real artists—I would SLAM play on Spotify like I SLAMMED play on Leighton Meester’s “Good Girls Go Bad” in the late aughts.

Where to stream Country Strong

Just like Whitney Houston did with Rachel Marron, Lady Gaga breathed life, empathy and soul into her fictitious singer-songwriter character, Ally Maine, in last year’s Oscar-winning movie A Star is Born. Every song on this soundtrack slaps—even the ones that are meant to be parodic and superficial pop garbage, like “Why Did You Do That?” And “Shallow,” the duet between Gaga and her co-star Bradley Cooper, won an Oscar. If Ally Maine were a real pop star, I would stan until my lungs gave out—and that’s what makes A Star is Born so delightful, melancholic and heart-wrenching. Because we love Ally.

Where to stream A Star Is Born (2018)

Music & Lyrics is a perfect pastiche of the music industry, maybe the only one I’ve ever seen that’s laugh-out-loud funny because it’s so true-to-form. It’s also one of the only music industry-centric movies that isn’t about the plight of the pop star, her inner darkness and how it ultimately consumes or kills her. Cora Corman (Haley Bennett) is a perfect parody of the late aughts pop star—the commentary on her peddling and appropriating Buddhism to elevate her image is jaw-dropping, especially for that era, when white pop stars were culturally appropriating with abandon. As funny as the songs are, Cora’s music rips—the whole original soundtrack does. “Buddha’s Delight,” “Entering Bootytown,” and “Slam” are Top 40 hits if I’ve ever them—and when she performs them at her fake-Madison Square Garden show, I wanted to throw my real bra on the fake-stage.

It’s worth mentioning some of the more forgettable ghosts of pop stars’ past, too: Miley Cyrus as Hannah Montana had some major tween bops. Joe Jonas as Shane Gray from Camp Rock, who was both deeply lame but also a Jonas Brother. Mariah Carey as Billie Frank in Glitter—sure, whatever. Gugu Mbatha-Raw as Noni in Beyond the Lights, which was cheesy, but Gugu! And Piper Perabo as the lovable singer-songwriter Violet Sanford in Coyote Ugly. This list will not recognize Andy Samberg’s Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, which is peak men-making-fun-of-stuff-women-like.

Jill Gutowitz is a writer and humorist living in Los Angeles. Follow her on Twitter: @jillboard.

Where to stream Music & Lyrics