And so Gene Simmons goes, "I don't want to do anything tacky. Spheeris recounts, 'Well, everybody I filmed.I asked them, "How do you want me to film you?" I gave them a choice of how they wanted to be filmed.
World Media gave me a couple of producers to do Decline II with, and they really looked down on the metal scene." With that kind of backing, it's not surprising that the film goes back and forth between supporting and mocking the metal musicians interviewed, but sometimes the headbangers made it too easy. Spheeris said in a later interview, "Well, first let me say you're talking to the person who turned down directing Spinal Tap because I love heavy metal music so much that I couldn't make fun of it. In retrospect, it doesn't surprise me that out of all the musicians in this film, the more successful bands over the next few years were those who were willing to look comparatively subdued. Not all the people in this film are so savvy about leading the trend, though - a viewer who wasn't around or didn't follow metal during the 1980s will probably find it astounding that anyone would choose to look like some of these people. Guns'n'Roses turned down the chance to be in the movie, but the transition in Axl Rose's look between their first video, " Welcome to the Jungle", where Axl's hair is teased to high heaven, and their second, " Sweet Child O' Mine, where it is completely flat and held down by a bandana, shows how the favored look was changing for the savvy bands.
#WESTERN CIVILIZATION II MOVIE#
It's like a lion's mane." This movie was filmed, as the opening credits announce, between August 1987 and February 1988, right in the middle of the transitional period. It appears to be perfectly spherical his hair is a uniform length, and it is standing at attention. The bands also eased up on the hairspray no longer were there people who looked like Chuck Klosterman's description (in his book Fargo Rock City) of Tom Keifer of Cinderella on the cover of their 1986 debut album: "I am nonetheless drawn to his head. An all-girl band." In this movie, shot about a year later, no one would make that mistake (even before you hear them speak). An underground scene of even heavier and less image-oriented bands was also flourishing through tape trading - this is where bands like Metallica got their start.īut by 1988, even the glammest hit bands were toning it down - on the cover of their 1986 debut album, Poison wore so much makeup that my mom looked at the picture and said "Oh, how nice.
Motley Crue and Ratt were already fairly successful in a similar image-oriented Metal Lite way, but some considered bands like Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, and Quiet Riot, who didn't wear makeup or try to look pretty, to be the One True Way of Metal. In 1986, Bon Jovi, Poison, and Cinderella had all hit it big, much to the disgust of some heavy metal fans (and some outside the metal scene as well) who dismissed them as having gained their success on their glam image. She may not have known it, but this was an interesting period for heavy metal, which was splitting in different directions and going through other changes. In 1987 or so, she decided to make a movie about her other favored music, heavy metal.
#WESTERN CIVILIZATION II FULL VERSION#
Now that I have access to the full version (courtesy of the Hillsborough County, Florida public library system) here goes a full overview.Īt the time, Penelope Spheeris was known for a 1981 documentary about punk music which I really should see sometime, The Decline of Western Civilization, and some obscure punk-esque comedy movies. I figure I represent the 1980s suburban metalhead experience as well as anyone, and eventually I would pretty much memorize my tape of the film (of the bowdlerized version shown on MTV, unfortunately). It's been 15 years since I first saw this movie (as of the date of this update, Halloween 2003) at the age of 15 in October 1988 in a movie theater in Tyrone Mall in St.