Underrated satire Drop Dead Gorgeous came and went in theaters 15 years ago, rejected by audiences and critics alike. Now that it’s a cult classic, the cast and crew tell BuzzFeed why the film is more popular than ever before.
John Gara / Buzzfeed
Loretta: What is wrong with you?
Amber: I don't know. I just didn't want to win like this.
Loretta: You stop right there. You are a good person. Good things happen to good people.
Amber: Really?
Loretta: No, it's pure bullshit, sweetie. You're lucky as hell, so you might as well enjoy it.
It's comforting to believe in a universe where good deeds are rewarded and bad behavior is punished, but karma is nothing more than an attractive fantasy. We do our best for the sake of doing our best, and sometimes our hard work pays off. But just as often, it doesn't. Idiots stumble into greatness. And good people — deserving people — never amount to anything.
In a perfect world, Amber Atkins (Kirsten Dunst) would be crowned Mount Rose American Teen Princess on the merits of her tap-dancing skills. Becky Leeman (Denise Richards), on the other hand, would be laughed out of the competition for her tone-deaf performance of "Can't Take My Eyes Off You."
In that same idealized world, Drop Dead Gorgeous, the movie that tells their story, would be considered an unmitigated cinematic triumph. But reality is a little more complicated than that.
Michael Patrick Jann's 1999 mockumentary follows Amber, Becky, and their fellow Mount Rose American Teen Princess contestants, a group of mismatched Minnesota high school girls vying for small-town glory. Urging Amber on is her foul-mouthed, beer-guzzling mother, Annette (Ellen Barkin), herself a former contestant, and Annette's best friend, the equally trashy Loretta (Allison Janney). On Becky's side: her dangerously enthusiastic mother Gladys (Kirstie Alley), who also happens to be head of the pageant committee. Tensions run high — and then the death toll starts mounting.
Upon its release, Drop Dead Gorgeous didn't amount to much. Despite a sharp, darkly comedic script by Lona Williams and memorable performances from Barkin, Alley, and Janney, among others, the movie failed to find an audience, earning a disappointing total gross of $10.5 million.
Some little-seen films at least earn critical acclaim, but Drop Dead Gorgeous wasn't so lucky. For the most part, critics were merciless: The film currently has a 28% rating on Metacritic, Entertainment Weekly's Lisa Schwarzbaum gave it a "D," and Janet Maslin of the New York Times wrote that Drop Dead Gorgeous "[makes] its audience wince through what may be a record number of miserably unfunny jokes."
But if Drop Dead Gorgeous were truly the disaster that contemporary critics made it out to be, it's unlikely anyone would still be talking about it 15 years later. (It was never a big enough production to join the ranks of infamous flops, such as Ishtar and Waterworld.) Instead, audiences over the past decade and a half have come to appreciate the unfairly maligned Drop Dead Gorgeous as a searingly funny satire. That is, if they can find it.
"In this age of total accessibility of everything, you can't Netflix this movie, and you can't download it off of iTunes," Jann, the film's director, told BuzzFeed. A copy of the bare-bones DVD, now out of print, can be purchased on Amazon.com for $60. "This is the ultimate cult movie. You can't see it. I will loan someone my VHS copy for anyone that's interested."
The fact that the once-hated Drop Dead Gorgeous can now be called a cult classic complicates the narrative of failure. Now that it's shifted from box office bomb to misunderstood treasure, can the film be considered a belated success? However unconventional, a circuitous path toward victory isn't entirely unheard of. As anyone who has seen Drop Dead Gorgeous can tell you, losing the beauty queen crown isn't the end of the world.
Amber Atkins may have been a runner-up, but she got what she wanted in the end. And all it took was a freak explosion, a serious case of food poisoning, and a stray bullet to get her to the top. Success may not be based on merit, but it's arbitrary enough to sometimes work itself out eventually.
New Line Cinema/Justine Zwiebel for BuzzFeed
The story of Drop Dead Gorgeous didn't end with its box office failure in 1999 — at least not for those who continued to find the film in the years that followed. While Williams and Jann were putting the film behind them, teenagers who had missed its short theatrical run were discovering it at video rental stores and on cable.
At the dawn of the new millennium, the cult of Drop Dead Gorgeous was just beginning to rise.
"I think a lot of cult movies actually build their cults in people's homes, usually young people who kind of discover these things on cable or on DVD, and then obsessively watch them over and over again," said Joshua Grannell, a writer-director best known for his drag persona, Peaches Christ.
As Peaches, Grannell hosts San Francisco's "Midnight Mass," a recurring series in which he celebrates cult classics from the past several decades with screenings and accompanying drag shows. His email inbox is filled with suggestions for future films, and Drop Dead Gorgeous — which Grannell hasn't put on yet — is frequently on the list.
The rise of Drop Dead Gorgeous' cult fame is that it follows a more recent model, which is largely about self-discovery and sharing among friends.
"In the old days, a cult movie found its audience on the midnight movie circuit, like Pink Flamingos or Eraserhead," Grannell explained. "In the last 20, 30 years, with home video and cable television, a lot of these cults are built in people's living rooms… I think Drop Dead Gorgeous is the perfect example of that."
As the film slowly grew its fanbase, cast members began to receive more recognition for their roles. It came as a surprise to those who knew the film had underperformed, but they were thrilled by the attention, however belated, for a movie they loved making.
"Usually fans are pretty fanatical about that movie," Janney told BuzzFeed. She said she is approached about Drop Dead Gorgeous more often than almost any other project she's been a part of — even after winning four Emmys for her work on The West Wing. "My funniest moment about Drop Dead Gorgeous was being in an airport and sitting next to some kids who were going over their favorite Loretta lines … and I said, 'Um, hi, I played Loretta in the movie.' And they literally started screaming. It was really funny. I feel like a rock star being part of that movie."
Shannon Nelson, who played severely awkward pageant contestant Tess Weinhaus, is still approached by fans, even though she's gone from brunette to blonde and is far more put together than her character ever was. And Will Sasso, who gave it his all as Hank, the mentally challenged brother of pageant judge Harold (Michael McShane), admits to being flattered when people approach him about Drop Dead Gorgeous — even when they tell him they thought he was actually cognitively impaired after seeing his performance.
For Matt Malloy, being recognized is always a bit of a mixed blessing. He played pageant judge John Dough, whose interest in the girls he's judging crosses the line into inappropriate fixation when he follows them around with a video camera.
"Six times in my life I have been in a public setting — once in a mall, once in a bakery, each time with a lot of people around — and a teenage girl has turned and yelled, 'You're the pervert!'" he said. "And I put my hands up and say, 'In a movie. In a movie. Finish the sentence.' But there's this moment where the whole fucking place turns, and it's just like, Oh, you're hanging by your balls, kid. That still happens."
But as embarrassing as that kind of public shaming is, Malloy knows it means love for Drop Dead Gorgeous is still going strong.
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