The bulk of the movie, of the moments we’re allowed to witness, whether they’re truly genuine or not, consists of the guys acting like “normal guys.” The overwhelming message of the movie is that they’re normal, that they haven’t fallen prey (and there’s a deep, underlying “yet” implied here) to that superstar mentality where the world revolves around them and their tunnel vision becomes so narrow that they’re barely a person anymore. This is the image we’re meant to take away from the film.
Whether this is because it’s actually the truth as Morgan Spurlock saw it, or it’s the calculated effort of Simon Cowell (who’s maybe even a stand-in for whatever invisible forces are pulling the strings in a particular Direction), is impossible for us to determine concretely. The fact is that what we see of them is that they’re fairly down to earth guys who are genuinely baffled by their stardom but are trying to have as much fun and learn as much as they can while they’re able (more on the question of temporality on the next page). The fact is, it’s pretty hard not to like the five of them.
Where it becomes maybe even more revealing than they intended, if they intended anything specifically at all, is when we’re meant to see them at work. We have to assume that they’re overworked the way most popstars who tour the world seem to be. We get hints that they’re exhausted from the constant travel, the sprint from the arena back door to the bus, the wakeup call to record the hook for the essential summer track prescribed for them, but nothing is so explicit. The strong implication is that they are worked rather hard.
The keyword there, of course, is “worked.” They’re not shown writing, hardly shown seriously rehearsing (they don’t seem to do any choreographed routines so there’s probably less to rehearse than someone like Bieber), and there’s always a grownup directing them where to go and what to do. We’re told they have so much control over their work, and yet little of this actually makes it into the film. You would think that, like Katy Perry’s people did in her movie, they’d at least try to demonstrate some of the performers’ creative control. All we see is the gang doing a silly version of one of their songs, one of them saying “We should do it this way on stage tonight!” and then no sign of that ever happening. Oddly enough though, this doesn’t make them less likeable, but it does make you wonder—and perhaps this is intentional—who’s really pulling the strings.
Continue reading on the next page…