Superstar - The Karen Carpenter Story

And now for something completely different. Really different.

With all the attention being paid to this year’s Barbie movie starring Margot Robbie, I must share a review of one of my favorite experimental, cult films. it’s Superstar – The Karen Carpenter Story, a 1987 movie about music star Karen Carpenter, with a cast of…well, Barbie and Den dolls. Yes, you heard that right.

Directed by Todd Haynes when he was still in graduate school, and before he went on to a successful career directing such major films as Far From Heaven and Velvet Goldmine, Superstar is a serious dramatization of Karen Carpenter’s rise to pop music stardom, and then her tragic struggle with an eating disorder that killed her at 32 years of age. Many of the songs that Karen and her brother Richard recorded in the 1970s and 1980s became smooth, pop standards--from “Close to You” to “We’ve Only Just Begun”.

The film is an avant garde classic.

The film is an avant garde classic. It uses its ultra-low budget to good effect. The sets, voice-over actors, cinematography, and the realistic period costumes that the dolls wear all make for a highly stylized, dark journey into the heart of Karen’s terrifying struggle to be perfect—both in her singing, and in her body image. Haynes makes effective use of Vietnam War footage and other documentary images to underscore the heartbreaking futility of Karen’s desire to be perfect in an incredibly imperfect world.

During the first several minutes of the movie, you may find yourself laughing as you watch Barbie and Ken dolls star in a 1970s musical biopic, but the film is not a comedy. It does not mock. It’s not a spoof. Its subject matter, emotional honesty, and artistic vision combine to make it a one-of-a-kind melodrama that you won’t soon forget. The air of fragile beauty and tragic melancholy that hangs over the entire film is aided considerably by the fact that Haynes uses many of the Carpenters’ hit songs on the soundtrack. The sweet and nostalgic lilt of their music makes for a disturbing counterpoint to the pain that Karen experiences behind her girl-next-door façade. The sound of her gorgeous voice as she fights the rising tide of her anorexia nervosa is unnerving, haunting.

Ironically, it’s the Carpenters’ music that has kept Superstar from being widely seen over the years. Haynes never secured the rights to use the music, and in 1990 Richard Carpenter successfully sued Haynes for copyright infringement and the film was pulled from circulation. But bootlegs soon surfaced. Even with the poor visual quality of these bootlegs, the film’s creative firepower remains undiminished.

Even though Superstar is only 43 minutes long, the film packs a subversive punch. It portrays Karen as a young woman repeatedly abused by a family, a music industry, and a culture that sought to control and manipulate her—much like a real-life doll--into an image of perfection. Just like a Barbie.

You can watch bootleg copies of Superstar - The Karen Carpenter Story online. Again, the visual quality may be poor, but the journey down the artistic rabbit hole that Todd Haynes creates for us is worth it if you are up for something creatively provocative…and truly different. I give Superstar three and one-half stars out of four.