AppId is over the quota
It’s time for another My Scene movie! This time it’s Jammin’ In Jamacia. All nine of the My Scene teenagers are headed off on a beach adventure. Are you bummed that you don’t own a copy of this amazing film? Well, lucky for you, there’s a free version that you can watch on YouTube! How awesome has your day just become?
This movie is actually the first in the series, but that doesn’t mean that the other movies follow anything that’s set up in this one. This film runs just under 45 minutes. Which sounds short, but it still manages to be twice as long as their next adventure, Masquerade Madness. Let’s see what trouble our beautiful teenage clones can get themselves into this time!
The film starts out at some kind of night club for teenagers where the boys, Ellis, River, Sutton, and Hudson, now know as, Urban Desire, are performing a song called “Spontaneous Combustion”. Don’t get tired of it in the opening scenes, you’ll be hearing this song again. And again. But don’t worry, it’s been cleaned up for the kiddies. Here are some of the lyrics:
I’m on my way but I don’t know
What to do or where to go
I’m so nervous, I feel sick
I hope I don’t come off like a jerk
I don’t want to be the one to say it, but “jerk” doesn’t rhyme with “sick”. Anyway, the girls, Madison, Barbie, Chelsea, Delancey, and Nolee, are at this club as well and waggle their hips a lot without any indication that they can hear the song that’s being played. It must be really fucking hard to animate characters dancing and make it look convincing, but come on.
At the end of the song, the girls rush on stage to congratulate the boys, and stay for the announcement that the Urban Desire has won the local Beat By Beat competition and will now be flown to Jamaica to compete in the finals. The prize for winning the finals includes a chance to record their first song with a real record company. Sounds awesome, right?
But why aren’t the girls the ones doing all of this? Why are the boys being the active ones in the band and the girls later get to refer to themselves as “groupies”? Regular Barbie has her own band. Why are the girls sitting on the sidelines? It seems strange that a movie, which is promotions for a doll line centered on the female characters, yet has 4 out of 5 of their female characters doing very little to drive the plot at the beginning of the movie. Madison is the band’s song writer, so she has a role in the band itself. But at the club she’s just dancing like a moron with the rest of the girls.
But moving on, Madison and Urban Desire jet off to Jamaica. Delancey also manages to get there as her family is conveniently renting a condo that just happens to be next to the hotel that the boys are staying at. Chelsea mentions the incredibly odds of this happening and the script writers try to brush it off with a math joke. Because Nolee, the Japanese-American character, is really good at math. Let’s not forget this.
While the remaining three girls are sitting at The Dish, contemplating how much their lives suck, they all formulate the brilliant idea of raising the money and getting to Jamaica themselves. Because teenagers can raise enough money to fly to another country in less than a week. That’s how the world works.
But first, they have to convince their parents to let them go. The girls all make separate cases to the people who birthed them, who once again, are never heard or seen in the entire movie, just like in Masquerade Madness. They bring up awesome points like they got good grades and Delancey’s parents have agreed to share their condo, as Chelsea being Delancey’s cousin somehow makes extra bedrooms appear in the building, and they have found cheap airfare online, which, by my calculations must include about 5 connecting flights and 12 hour layovers to be that inexpensive.
And what do the parents say about all of this? Well, nothing. There’s no actual proof that any of them have parents. But the next scene is of the girls celebrating that they can go on the trip as long as they raise the money. So they set off to earn enough money for a vacation in less than a week with no job skills or experience.
So Nolee walks dogs while Barbie helps Chelsea sell some airbrushed jackets and bracelets that she designed. Of course, their business adventures are completely successful. While the lesson that hard work is rewarded is a great one, it’s not always true. But who needs realism when your arms and legs are entirely too long for your torso?
After the girls finish raising the money, the next scene is of the three of them in a purple convertible, driving down an open road in Jamaica. The first thing I wanted to know upon seeing this setup was, how did they rent a car? You have to be 25 years old to rent a car in Jamaica. So much for being young and free.
While it can easily be argued that this movie isn’t going for hard-hitting realism and nitty-gritty details, what it actually does is put unrealistic expectations into children’s heads. Not a lot of parents would probably be willing to let their teenagers go to another country completely unsupervised in the first place, but now the girls are driving a car that they couldn’t legally have rented.
Why work so hard to exclude all adults and parents? Why can’t they even be minor characters in the movies? None of them have names, voices, bodies, jobs, anything. The girls talk about their parents as if they’re real but the viewer never sees anything that suggests that they actually exist. In a weird alternative theory for these movies, one could easily propose the the girls are orphans all living in an orphanage and they keep up the delusion of having parents in order to keep themselves sane.
Anyway, Barbie gets a call from River and she tells him that she’s just “hanging out” and when he says that he’s going to a local restaurant, the Guava Gulch, with the rest of the cast, the girls decide to meet their friends there. Cue the happy reunion.
Unfortunately, there’s trouble right off the bat. Barbie asks River, who is her boyfriend, to show her around the area and River says that the band has to go meet with the competition’s director. Imagine that! They go to Jamaica for a purpose and they have to actually do things in order to achieve that purpose. Barbie is already not pleased. How dare her boyfriend have an interest or hobby that gets in the way of him being with her? What is this, the real world? He should have been prepared to drop everything when she showed up unexpectedly. Doesn’t he know how relationships work?
Madison smooths it over by saying that she’ll take the girls to the pool so they can get some sun while the band goes to meet the Beat to Beat director. Then Chelsea makes the comment that she’s so pale that she’s practically see-through. I don’t think she quite understands how transparency works. But whatever. You have to be tan in order to be pretty, so let’s go expose ourselves to harmful UV rays in order to be beautiful!
As the girls leave, River calls Madison back to the table and tells her that he likes something new that she did with a song. Barbie stares at them with what I guess is supposed to be a suspicious look on her face. But seeing as her face maintains its complete expressionlessness most of the time, it’s hard to tell.
The girls then arrive at the Jamaican Palms hotel where the valet takes their car and Chelsea makes a weird attempt at flirting with him. Their conversation goes a little like this:
Chelsea: Um, I think I left my sweater in the car and it’s locked.
Valet: It’s 90 degrees out and it’s a convertible.
Chelsea: Oh right. (Nervous laugh.) What was I thinking? I gotta go. (Walking back to the girls, who are all giggling.) I am such a dork!
What the hell was the point of that? Was it supposed to be funny? Was it supposed to be tragic? Is that how the kids are flirting these days? Was it supposed to highlight Chelsea’s nervousness around boys? Was it supposed to say something about her character? Also, who the hell wrote that and why are they employed when I’m not?
But moving on from that bizarre interlude, the girls head out to the pool where Delancey and Nolee compare scars from what they claim are skateboarding injuries. Amazingly, when they point out where the scars are supposed to be on their bodies, there is nothing there. There is no indication on them that they or their doll counterparts that they have or had scars. But never mind because Chelsea is quick to tell them to just use scar cream and then distracts the girls to get back to what’s really important to teenage girls; gossip.
Chelsea asks Delancey what’s going on with her and Ellis. Ellis has been showing what can be construed as a mild interest in Delancey and, of course, this has to come to some kind of fruition. Otherwise their teenage girl drama quota wouldn’t be met. Delancey isn’t interested though. She tells her friends, “I’m kinda over the intimidated guy thing. I want someone who can step up and ask me out.” That’s not exactly a lot of dating criteria right there.
There’s no discussion about what she has in common with Ellis, what she likes about him, how compatible they are, what kind of chemistry they have, etc. He seems to like her, but all she wants him to do is ask her out. Meanwhile, on the other side of the pool, Madison is assuring Barbie that her boyfriend River was delighted to see her and is really happy that she’s here. Because that previous encounter has now made her completely insecure and now she’s pandering for any comfort that Madison can offer.
Cut to a beach scene with all of the characters assembled. Nolee and Delancey have some tame trash talking about who is the better skater. Since girls have to always been in competition with one another for everything and all. We can’t forget that. Nolee then ask Ellis who he thinks is the best skateboarder.
Trying to appease both of his friends, he finds himself in a difficult position. Chelsea then speaks up and says that he’s in a “jelly tot.” This is Cockney Rhyming Slang for “spot”. Which Sutton translate into, “trouble, mate,” in his terrible British accent. Are there no British voice actors in the world? Why hire someone to play a British person who not only isn’t British but also does a terrible English accent?
Moving on, Madison and Barbie are off on their own talking again. But then River comes over and Madison asks him how the meeting with the director went. River starts telling her about their placing in the line up and other things that actually matter and Barbie gets upset that all of the attention isn’t on her and walks off. The fact that she’s getting upset about her boyfriend doing what he was sent out to Jamaica to do never dawns on her.
Barbie goes to sit next to Chelsea who commiserates with her that not being the center of everyone’s world really blows. Chelsea reminds her that they’re in Jamaica and I think she’s about to add on that Barbie should just enjoy herself instead of being such a drama queen, but before she can, the guys point out Delancey and Nolee, who are surfing like pros in massive waves. Because it’s that easy to learn how to surf. Unlike things in real life that you actually have to work at.
The girls actually doing something active and athletic lasts a matter of seconds. Before that scene is even over, Barbie is distracted by Madison and River still talking about the band. Cut to a night time scene with Barbie asleep in bed. She hears a noise and goes over to her window to find River standing outside with one of those awful Vespas. He asks her to come with him and Barbie tells him not to move.
But the time she gets outside, she is fully dressed with her incredibly long hair braided and it’s already daylight out. How many hours it took her to get ready is never discussed. Anyway, River tells her that he wants to show her something and they head out on the Vespa. They end up at a beautiful waterfall where River takes out a picnic breakfast and sets out a spread that in no way could have fit into the basket that he brought.
Barbie gushes about how great River is and how much she appreciates him doing this. Then he pulls a guitar out of… er, guitarspace and tells her that he wrote a song about her. He tries to play it, but his guitar is horribly out of tune. Instead of just tuning the damn thing, Barbie wakes up and realizes that it had all been a nightmare! Hence, the bigger-on-the-inside picnic basket.
After getting up and going outside, Barbie finds the band practicing and the girls… standing around. River offers her breakfast and Barbie happily accepts, only to find that breakfast is a limp doughnut. She sunnies herself back up and asks what’s on the agenda for today.
River informs her that they’re still rehearsing so the girls can watch. Barbie seems to think that watching the rehearsal is the best idea ever. Then Sutton adds they’ll go on a tour of the island and go dancing at the Guava Gulch that evening. Then the band starts playing their song. While the girls gyrate in their patio chairs like they’re having seizures.
Thankfully, everyone seems to have survived their seizures and the next scene is a montage of the teenagers all riding Vespas going around the island. In between scenes of the teens on their bikes, they also surf, get fresh coconut milk and they find a boat that can take all nine of them waterskiing at the same time. The montage ends with them taking fun photos at the beach.
The story picks back up at a local bazar. Because what do girls do? They go shopping! Tiny girl brains can’t handle much else, really. Nice to know that doing some dog walking and selling homemade accessories sells well enough to afford a trip to Jamaica and spending money. Chelsea takes what Sutton describes as a tablecloth and wraps it around her like a sarong and becomes so super cute that Madison informs her that she has to buy it.
In another stall, Delancey locates a hat to try on and Ellis continues to be enamored by her. As soon as he walks away from Delancey, Chelsea and Nolee corner him and demand that he asks her out before someone else does. He moans “you guys!” at the intrusion into his dating life, but the girls are determined.
They order him to ask her out at the Guava Gulch and make him promise to do it. The fact that they have to force him to do the only thing that Delancey said she wanted in a boyfriend doesn’t seem to bother them. They have some kind of mutual attraction, therefore, they have to date. Right now.
Meanwhile, Sutton has a brief interlude with a beautiful Jamaican girl who convinces him to buy some of the necklaces that she’s selling. Sutton invites her to the Beat to Beat competition that night and ends with, “Be there or break my heart!” When one of the guys calls him a “cheesemeister” Sutton informs him, “It’s the accent. Works every time.” Which might be more convincing if the Canadian voice actor didn’t briefly slip into an Australian accent while saying it.
The next scene is at the beach where Delancey challenges the rest of the girls to a volleyball game. Then it turns out that Nolee is not also a super competitive skateboarder, but she’s also a super competitive volleyball player. Delancey asks Nolee if she wants a “piece” of her and they have some more outdated banter before going to play some one-on-one volleyball. The girls are shown hitting the ball back and forth exactly once before the camera pans over to the rest of the group.
One of the guys announces that the previous year’s Beat to Beat winners are at the hotel sharing their expertise with the contestants and advises that they all go up and talk to them. River heads off and Barbie is quick to remind him that she’s alive and breathing and needs his undivided attention. River tells her that this is too important to miss, then he invites Madison to accompany them and the five teens rush off back to the hotel.
The rest of the girls try to make this casual situation less awkward as if there was something that everyone should feel awkward about. Nolee asks if anyone wants ice cream. The camera pans to a wistful-looking Barbie who stares off in the direction that the band took off in, trying to figure out where her relationship went wrong.
The next scene opens with Delancey layering on mascara in the bathroom at the condo. Chelsea enters and says that River has been “ignoring” Barbie and asking her if River was “after anyone else” before the other girls got there. Delancey has no idea what she’s talking about, but doesn’t go as far to say that everyone is making up all of these problems in their heads. Instead, Delancey assures Chelsea that River only has eyes for Barbie.
Chelsea then exits the bathroom and goes into the bedroom where Nolee and Madison are seated. Nolee whispers to Chelsea to find out what Delancey said and they have a brief conversation in secret with Madison noticing all of the whispering. Chelsea exits and Madison demands to know what the pair were talking about. Nolee at first tells her nothing, then asks her about the dream she had about her and River. Then goes on to insinuate that something happened between River and Madison before the other girls arrived.
Madison immediately denies that she even likes River, stating that he’s like her brother. She’s appalled that her friends would even think that she had done anything with Barbie’s boyfriend. Nolee admits that the entire idea is stupid and assures Madison that Barbie doesn’t think that she’s trying to steal her boyfriend. Which isn’t true. Nolee distracts Madison by informing her that Ellis is going to ask Delancey out at the club that night. Which is stretching the truth a bit, as he was strong armed into it.
Cut to the club and more horrendous, jerky swaying, and hip wiggling. Ellis, Chelsea, Madison and Nolee are standing outside, just out of sight of Delancey, who is er… “dancing” on the dance floor. The girls try again to encourage Ellis to ask Delancey out, but he’s still too nervous or shy or terrified or whatever is holding him back in the first place. When he states that he’s a bad dancer and Delancey would laugh at him, Nolee tries to encourage him by saying, “Only behind your back. Girls never laugh at bad dancers to their faces.” Whatever that means. Ellis chickens out and refuses to approach Delancey.
Meanwhile, Barbie and River are dancing up a storm as he points out various people from the Beat to Beat contest. They exit the dance floor and go outside where Barbie tells him that nothing is wrong, then asks him if they’re “okay” and mentions that he’s been really distant. Distant. Almost as if he has something more pressing to deal with than just hanging out with friends and pandering to his girlfriend’s ever desire. The conversation ends prematurely as Delancey has somehow found a microphone and is introducing Sutton, the “master scratcher” from Urban Desire, to DJ the next song.
Just then, the valet that Chelsea had that horrific sweater exchange with shows up at the club. He harkens back to what a good time they had talking about Chelsea’s sweater and then they all decide to go dance. The group heads out back to the dance floor and start their people’s traditional dance for more drama. Meanwhile, River and Barbie are awkwardly gyrating together and River is being hailed from all kinds of people on the dance floor. He points out several of his competitors in the Beat to Beat contest, then Barbie gets upset that, once again, something else is taking attention away from her, and she asks if they can go talk.
Barbie and River head back in, with Barbie assuring him that they’re okay. Even though it’s pretty obvious that they’re not. As soon as the pair get back on the dance floor, Madison, the home wrecker, interrupts them to point out a man named Russell Bostik from Rustic Records, who is also one of the Beat to Beat judges. What a man old enough to be running a record label is doing dancing with a bunch of teenagers is never explained.
The next scene is later that night when the girls are in bed and Madison asks Nolee if she thinks that Barbie thinks that she’s doing something with River. Because why actually talk to Barbie when you can rely on your friends for second-hand information? Nolee assures Madison that Barbie doesn’t think that anything is going on between them and totally understands that Madison is just into the music and has that in common with River.
Cut to Barbie lying in bed awake telling Chelsea her fears that River is into Madison, Madison is into River and her entire teenage world will come crashing down if her boyfriend leaves her. Chelsea assures Barbie that nothing is going on between the two and adds that Delancey will back her up. She calls out to Delancey, but she clearly doesn’t have time for all of this drama bullshit as she is fast asleep and snoring.
The next scene takes place the following day. Madison stops River and asks him if they’re more than friends. River says no, Madison says no, and any viewer is left wondering why either of them allowed Barbie’s paranoia and neediness to cause them to ask if either of them have feelings that they clearly never had. But we’re not done yet with this insane storyline.
Madison and River share their appreciation for each other’s musical talents and then hug. Barbie walks up just as they’re hugging and can only conclude that friends never hug and Madison is trying to steal her boyfriend. Because that’s totally not a overly dramatic conclusion to leap to. Barbie says, “No way… NO WAY!” like a tragic heroine and then runs off in tears. Madison and River call out to her, but it’s no good. She’s in her own little drama world right now.
The pair rush off to go find her and the next scene picks up at the tech rehearsal where the rest of the band has been waiting for River and Madison. But it’s too late. After showing up a half hour after their rehearsal was supposed to have started, the band has been disqualified. Madison whines that they have to be given another chance, but the band members insist that that’s not possible. They broke the rules and they’re out of the contest.
Always looking for the drama in the situation, the girls ask Madison why they were looking for Barbie and the entire story comes out about Barbie discovering her boyfriend and her best friend hugging and losing her shit and running off. Cut to a long montage of the love triangle characters looking miserable and moody. Barbie sits on the beach and deletes pictures of the three of them off of her phone, shedding a tear for each one. And there’s more Vespa riding. So much more Vespa riding.
Finally, Madison finds Barbie out on the beach being emo. Because running off on your own in a foreign country when you’re a teenager is apparently a good idea these days. Anyway, Madison tries to reason with Barbie about what really happened with River, but Barbie is determined that Madison did something wrong, even though she doesn’t really know what it is.
Eventually Madison confesses that she knew that Barbie was being weird with them and that River had been paying more attention to her than to his girlfriend, but that she pretended that she didn’t know. Madison relates that she had been excited about being there with the guys and having the time to focus on the music for a while. But when the girls turned up the focus became them and hanging out and she wanted to maintain the focus on the music. Something that seems pretty reasonable, given that the entire reason they were there was for the music.
But apparently getting upset about people focusing on the one thing they came to an entirely different country to focus on makes sense to Barbie and she grills Madison to see if she has any kind of attraction to River at all. Which Madison swears that she doesn’t. She has to reiterate that she thinks of River as her brother and tells Barbie that he’s, “massively in love with you.” Barbie hopefully looks at her and asks, “You think?”
Barbie then decides that she’s going to make it up to the band for being kicked out of the contest because River was busy trying to track her down. She asks Madison to forgive her for not trusting her and Madison as Barbie to forgive her for being selfish. Their friendship repaired, Barbie heads off to find a way to make it right to Urban Desire. It seems a little strange that Barbie feels responsible for getting them kicked out of the contest when the person who actually got them disqualified is River. But Barbie decides to take all of the blame and work something out.
In a very short scene, Barbie is seen waiting in some kind of lobby. Then Russell Bostik gets off of an elevator and she races to catch up with him. Cut to the other teens hanging out, moaning that everyone else is at the concert and they’re stuck without anyone else to socialize with. Then Barbie runs in and announces that the band is going to play a concert on the beach outside of Delancey’s condo as part of an unofficial Beat to Beat after party.
The guys are confused as the contest has already started and they’re not going to accomplish anything by playing a last minute concert and Barbie tells them that they came to play, so it doesn’t matter where they play. But they didn’t just come to play. They weren’t planning on busking outside of a restaurant. They came to perform in the contest and possibly win a chance to record a demo.
But then Barbie reveals the real reason why all of this is happening when she tells them that she wouldn’t “feel right” about it if they didn’t perform. So much for logic and continuity, everyone now has to make Barbie feel better about the problem that Barbie caused and River got them disqualified for. Cue a montage!
Chelsea and Nolee go find the valet guy who, for some reason, takes them to a massive closet filled with band equipment. Maybe he moonlights as a fence? Barbie goes to some kind of office or library and photocopies flyers. The guys set up all of the equipment. Delancey lights the tiki torches and in just two hours time, the girls are outside of the concert, which is just breaking up, and ready to start the show. Barbie calls Madison to tell Urban Desire to start playing. They start up on… Spontaneous Combustion and the girls start passing out flyers and spreading the word about this unofficial after party.
Pretty soon, there is a sizable crowd outside of the beach house jerking and heaving along to the music. And then everything is wrapped up in a pink bow in the last two minutes of the movie. Ellis asks out Delancey (although their relationship doesn’t go anywhere as they’re both single again in the next movie), Sutton’s necklace vendor comes to see him, Barbie and Madison are firm friends, River dedicates a song to his clingy girlfriend and they kiss on stage and THEN! Mr. Bostik emerges from the crowd and announces that he wants to record a demo with the group back in New York.
Madison points out that the contest is over and Bostik responds that this has nothing to do with the contest, he just likes their music and wants to give them their big break. The band agrees, excitedly. Then they do an encore by performing the second of the only two songs in their repertoire while the girls wiggle their hips around the guys on stage.
And that’s it. That’s the entire movie. So what did we learn? Your boyfriend should never be allowed to have any other interests or hobbies that are more important than you are. Creating drama in your head is okay and your friends should apologize for it. Girls are really good at distracting people and gossiping. Girls need to shop, put on makeup and wear tiny clothes in order to be real girls. Following the rules isn’t really needed because you can still get what you want without bothering with them. Oh, and acting dumb around a guy will endear him to you.
Are these the lessons that we want young girls to be learning? Is this all there is to being a woman in today’s society? The correct answers to those questions are no and no, but the people in charge of the My Scene movies aren’t done yet. There’s one more and it’s their longest movie out of the collection. Let’s gird our loins for My Scene Goes to Hollywood.
To read all of the movies in the My Scene series, click here. If you dare.
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