Material Girls (2006)

Disney has been a company producing child stars for decades. From The Mickey Mouse Club all the way up to the current Disney Channel originals, child stars have been their bread and butter. People like Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Ryan Gosling, and Justin Timberlake came from The Mickey Mouse Club. There were Disney Channel original movies that brough the Jonas Brothers, Zac Efron, and Vanessa Hudgens to popularity. There were sitcoms like Hannah Montana with Miley Cyrus, or Lizzie McGuire with Hilary Duff that also created child stars.

When Lizzie McGuire ended in 2004, one of the biggest questions was where Hilary Duff’s career would go next. Obviously, she was a huge star who would get into movies. That was the career path at the time. People went from television to movies. People tried not to go the other way around, unless it was for a guest role on a television show that was super popular. It wasn’t a time where there would be a big star like Kate Winslet taking a starring role in a television show. Times have changed since then. Anyway, people wanted to see what would come of Hilary Duff following the conclusion of her popular Disney show.

Lizzie McGuire was still airing when her movie career began. The Lizzie McGuire Movie was released as the finale of the show before the final episode even aired. Cadet Kelly was a Disney Channel original movie that aired while the show was on. Agent Cody Banks and Cheaper By the Dozen released to theaters while Hilary Duff was still gracing television screens. It wouldn’t be until 2004’s A Cinderella Story that she had a film career beyond her television days.

Looking over Hilary Duff’s career, one thing is apparent. She has a love for her sister, which bleeds over into much of her work. Haylie Duff appeared in a non-starring role in Lizzie McGuire. They did voicework together in In Search of Santa and Foodfight!. They made music together, including a cover of Our Lips Are Sealed done for the soundtrack of A Cinderella Story. Their biggest collaboration was on this week’s movie, Material Girls.

Tanzie (Hilary Duff) and Ava Marchetta (Haylie Duff) were two heiresses to a major cosmetics company. Their father passed away, leaving the company to them. They couldn’t access the financials until they were of age. Until then, Tommy (Brent Spiner), the CEO, was in charge. When it was almost time for them to receive control of the company, Tommy came to them with a buyout proposition from rival cosmetics giant, Fabiella Du Mont (Anjelica Huston). They didn’t sell and rumours came out about how their products could cause serious health issues. The Marchetta sisters’ stock value plummeted. They lost all their money and fought to get it back.

Material Girls was a comedy starring the two Duff sisters. Much of the comedy stemmed from a strange fish-out-of-water premise. It involved two girls who were raised in wealth having to come to terms with not having wealth, while also not acclimatizing to their new financial situation. Instead of trying to live with a lack of wealth, they continued to act like the spoiled rich girls that they were. Well, Ava did, at least. She wouldn’t face the reality that the sisters were in, insisting that they must continue to be glamorous socialites. Tanzie just wanted to become a chemist like her father. It didn’t matter to her what their financial situation was. She just wanted to do chemistry.

The fish-out-of-water stuff never really worked. It never really fazed the sisters. Most fish-out-of-water comedy comes from the confusion of one character as they are put into a situation they are not used to. They try to treat their new situation like their old one, it doesn’t work, and they either learn to try new things, or they find a way to compromise their ways with the new ones. When the characters are oblivious to their new surroundings, the writers must balance things carefully. That’s especially true of characters moving between social/financial classes. Rich people being oblivious to people who aren’t as financially secure even while being financially insecure themselves doesn’t stick the comedic landing if the rich people don’t learn anything.

Ava and Tanzie never really learned anything from losing their money. Well, they kind of learned one thing a piece, but those things didn’t make the characters any humbler or more relatable. Ava’s big arc was that she was in a relationship with a reality television star who ghosted her when she lost her wealth. She then realized she preferred the lawyer that she and her sister hired because he was real with her. Tanzie ended up in jail at one point, learning that the other women in there would buy the Marchetta cosmetics if they had a lower price point. When the sisters got their company back, Tanzie made sure to market some cheaper cosmetics to people with less money.

What made these two lessons fall flat was their execution. Ava’s relationship lesson seemed like she was simply attaching herself to the first person that showed even the slightest interest in her after she was ghosted by her famous boyfriend. Sure, she found some connection beyond beautiful people being beautiful. There was more of a personal connection. But it’s not like she paid any attention to anyone else that didn’t have money. She only paid attention to Henry (Lukas Haas), the lawyer who talked to her as a person, because they had brought him on as a lawyer.

The Tanzie stuff maybe worked a little better. She realized that some people didn’t have the money to indulge in things that rich people were able to do. She spent time in jail with people who weren’t as well off and made quick friends. But when the ending of that arc was revealed, it was through a billboard about affordable cosmetics. It was a marketing strategy for more people to buy Marchetta cosmetics. As good as the intentions were, it turned into a corporation being a corporation. It was a way for the Marchetta sisters to make more money, played as a charitable cause.

The one good thing to come out of the fish-out-of-water situation in Material Girls was the Marchetta sisters’ relationship with Inez (Maria Conchita Alonso), their maid. They moved in with her after a house fire. They tried to stay at a hotel, but their credit cards were cut off due to the plummeting stock of their company. She was the closest thing they had to a mother since their mother had passed away, many years earlier. They learned that she had been trying to bring her children into the country for years. When Ava and Tanzie got their wealth back, they used it to bring Inez’s children into the country. It was a nice little thing they did for someone they cared about.

What made the comedy of Material Girls fail seemed to boil down to something people frequently bring up about stand-up comedians. It is always better to punch up than punch down. A slight perspective shift of the storytelling could turn Material Girls into a punching-up comedy satirizing the socialite lifestyle. Instead, it put the audience in the shoes of the socialites and punched down by making the comedy about the less fortunate people of the world. The comedy wasn’t so much about adjusting to a life they weren’t accustomed to. It was simply about two rich girls being in a world without wealth. The unwealthy shouldn’t be the punchline.

Material Girls didn’t do well at the box office. It didn’t do well critically, either. It essentially signalled that Hilary Duff’s major motion picture career wasn’t going to be as successful as Lizzie McGuire. She wasn’t going to be the huge superstar that people thought she might be. She would continue to make movies, but there was never going to be a big event movie starring Hilary Duff. She wasn’t going to be that person. Her career wasn’t on that trajectory.

Not all child stars find success later in their careers. Many of them leave the business for different reasons. Some of them have behind-the-scenes issues. It could be substance abuse. It could be abuse from the people in charge or from their families. Some people, like Jake Lloyd, become so associated with a role from their childhood that people harass them for it. They can’t handle it (they shouldn’t have to) and stop acting altogether.

Other child stars go on to have illustrious careers. They make names for themselves and bring that stardom into adulthood. The child performances were only the beginning of what they would bring to Hollywood and beyond. Whether they came from a famous family or not, they found fame in their childhood years. They may have experienced some of the roughness that other child stars experienced, but they came through the other side and kept going.

Hilary Duff fell somewhere in between. Her career didn’t keep going at quite the same level of stardom as it had early on. She had one of the biggest children’s shows of the time in Lizzie McGuire. She transitioned into films. None of the films really found the same level of popularity. Her career didn’t end there. It’s still going. She still works now and then, making movies and television shows. She has even written a few books in recent years. That’s not bad for a Disney kid. Some do better. Many others do far worse.

Here are some notes to close out the post:

• Foodfight! (week 143) was mentioned in this post.
• Jake Lloyd was also mentioned. He was in Jingle All the Way (week 160).
• Material Girls featured Obba Babatundé. He was previously in April Fools (week 18) and Santa Paws 2: The Santa Pups (week 420).
• Anjelica Huston was also in Material Girls. She could be seen in The Ice Pirates (week 128) and Casino Royale (week 461).
• Marcus Coloma was in Beverly Hills Chihuahua 2 (week 70), Beverly Hills Chihuahua 3: Viva La Fiesta! (week 70), and Material Girls.
• The final three-timer was Colleen Camp, who was in Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment (week 400), Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol (week 400), and Material Girls.
• Hilary and Haylie Duff were the stars of Material Girls. They each also did voice work in Foodfight! (week 143).
• Timothy Davis-Reed was in Pottersville (week 316) and Material Girls.
• Material Girls wasn’t the first Sunday “Bad” Movies appearance for Lukas Haas. He was a child actor featured in Solarbabies (week 416).
• Finally, Brent Spiner appeared in Independence Day: Resurgence (week 449) and Material Girls.
• Have you seen Material Girls? What did you think of it? Do you think the comedy fell flat or did it work? Let me know on Twitter or in the comments.
• If there’s a movie that you think I should be watching for Sunday “Bad” Movies, I’d love to hear about it. Find me on Twitter or drop the suggestion in the comments.
• There are a series of polls going on Twitter right now as I try to figure out what I’m going to watch for the ninth anniversary of Sunday “Bad” Movies. To be a little more accurate, you’re going to decide by voting. Go vote. Pick the movies that move forward until only one movie is left.
• Make sure to visit Instagram for more Sunday “Bad” Movies fun all week long.
• Next week will bring another new movie to Sunday “Bad” Movies. What movie will it be? Well, it’s fitting that I’m running a tournament to find out what movie I will rewatch in a few weeks. Next week’s movie will be The Tournament, a movie from 2009. You’ll find out more about it in next week’s post. I’ll see you then.