Troop Beverly Hills (100 Minutes)

Beverly Hills, what a thrill!

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In true 90-minute Movie fashion, I’ve selected quite the divisive movie to kick off my summer posts. (Yes, we’re halfway through July, I’m aware. June kicked my ass!) I wanted a movie that evokes the feeling of a summer slumber party-- sleeping on a living room floor with chlorine in your hair and the sun still in your skin-- and for a lot of women my age, that movie is Troop Beverly Hills (1989, 100 minutes).

Troop Beverly Hills is about a bunch of rich misfits (part of what makes this movie divisive, but I’ll get there) trying to find their place in the intense and competitive world of the Wilderness Girls (a play on the Girl Scouts of America). Led by the materialistic and soon-to-be divorced Phyllis Nefler (Shelley Long), the girls embark on a summer-long quest to become “true Wilderness Girls” and be accepted by their peers. Namely, the militaristic Velda Plendor (Betty Thomas) despises the troop and Phyllis because of their privilege and dainty ways. Supported by her right-hand lackey, Annie Herman (Mary Gross), Velda sabotages the troop at every turn. By the end of the summer, the girls learn to support one another, sell cookies, and style their uniforms.

In a lot of ways, Troop Beverly Hills feels distinctly of its Reagan era (released just two months after the end of his presidency) where girls with immense wealth and privilege are the underdogs, set aside by their Wilderness peers. “We’re losers. Really,” one of the girls says at the movie’s low point. They can’t navigate the woods, or start a fire, or administer first aid. All skills that should be beneficial to have, but Phyllis tells them that other skills are just as important-- appraising diamonds, for example-- and sets forth to prove this point to her troop. The moral of the story is muddy at best. They sell 4,000 boxes of cookies because they’re able to access the immense network of their parents, but we, as viewers, are asked to feel bitter when the Red Feather troop (led by Velda) goes door-to-door selling cookies in Beverly Hills on their “turf”, as Phyllis’ housekeeper puts it.

And yet-- many of us millennial women hold this movie near and dear to our hearts. Unironically. I think the source of this admiration is toward Phyllis herself. While we would never call her a feminist icon today (going back to your husband after her surprises you in COURT announcing he’s going to remarry his girlfriend of two weeks?!), for girls in the nineties, we weren’t lucky enough to have many strong women to look up to. Phyllis offered a different type of strength. She never changes who she is. Ever. While she easily could have given up her designer clothes, and blowouts, and manicures, she doesn’t. Instead, she puts her own flair on the Wilderness Girls. She taps into a stronger side of herself without becoming like Velda (or anyone else). She remains true to herself even when it’s embarrassing, even when it feels like a risk. And for impressionable young girls who have been offered “makeovers” before this movie (Sixteen Candles) and after (She’s All That), having a woman stay true to herself feels groundbreaking. She doesn’t even go there at her lowest point (Mean Girls). And sure, while her true self may have questionable wants in life, she owns them. There’s a lot of power in that.

While an important film for millennial women, the film did poorly with critics and audiences alike (it has a ghastly 18% on Rotten Tomatoes) and has not aged well. It’s unfortunately rife with racism and offensive tropes. And because of its earnestness and “heart of gold,” as Roger Ebert put it in his review, these moments are difficult to get through. “...if this movie had been a satire, it could have been deadly,” Ebert writes, and I have to agree. (Even though I love to argue with him here quite often.) Perhaps as a satire, this movie would have done better with larger audiences and also aged better. But it believes in its message (whether that’s the intent or not).

Part of that may come from Shelley Long’s iconic, but sincere, performance as Phyllis Nefler. Satire? She doesn’t know her. While Phyllis herself is a comedic character-- wearing over-the-top designer clothing that borders on clownlike-- she is sincere in her desire to better herself through her work with the Wilderness Girls. Phyllis wants to believe in herself and her troop, and she will stop at nothing to convince all her naysayers (her ex-husband, Velda). Long plays Phyllis as airheaded but serious, which makes her moments with the “Dictator and Mrs. Dictator” (two parents of one of her girls) out of place and uncomfortable. Naked Gun, this is not.

Despite its shortcomings, Troop Beverly Hills remains in the hearts of thirty- and forty-somethings everywhere—a cult movie to its core. I will never not smile during its opening credits as original artwork by a pre-Ren & Stimpy John Kricfalusi brightly dances across my screen. It reminds me of being young in the nineties, when all the girls I knew were being told that times had changed while consuming media that had not. We were fed a lot of bullshit during those years about what the world would be like for us, but Phyllis Nefler never lied. She was who she was. And we respected that.