This page is for the characters from the 2001 film Josie and the Pussycats. For their portrayals in other media, click here.
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The Pussycats
As a whole
Left to right: Valerie, Josie, and Melody
The Pussycats are a Pop Punk band from the small suburban town of Riverdale struggling to make ends meet, until a fortuitous encounter with MegaRecords executive and talent scout Wyatt Frame sees them signed to a major label and become an overnight sensation. However, fame comes at a cost, especially as Wyatt and MegaRecords CEO Fiona attempt to push Josie as the band's face.
- Evil Diva: They get turned into these unwittingly through Fiona and Wyatt's actions.
- Hotter and Sexier: Their outfits are just a tad hotter than one-piece swimsuits and leopard tights.
- Plot-Mandated Friendship Failure: An Enforced Trope, to keep them from catching on like DuJour did to the mass-brainwashing scheme.
- Pop Punk: What the film updates their sound to be.
- Rock Trio: The guitarist and lead singer Josie, the bassist Valerie, and the drummer Melody.
- Starving Artist: The film opens with them playing at a bowling alley and making only ten dollars in tips, not counting the fee for the bowling shoes they rented. It's no wonder they signed that contract so quickly.
Josie McCoy
Played by: Rachael Leigh Cook
- Artist and the Band: Invoked. Fiona and Wyatt push her as this in the hopes of ditching the rest of the band and having a more pliable solo artist under their thumb.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: Or rather, Brainwashed and Bitchy. The evil executives use Subliminal Seduction to turn her into a diva who will break up the band.
- Breakup Breakout: Invoked with Fiona and Wyatt's plan for her.
- Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: Midvale
is in the Upper Midwest. How do we know? Because Rachael Leigh Cook's Minnesoota accent keeps slipping through. - The Prima Donna: She turns into this after her Subliminal Seduction, as a way for Fiona and Wyatt to break up the band and have a more controllable solo artist.
Melody Valentine
Played by: Tara Reid
The airheaded drummer and backup singer of the Pussycats.
- All Drummers Are Animals: A variation. She's not "crazy", but she is an extremely absent-minded ditz who's prone to going off on tangents.
- Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: She unexpectedly turns out to be an amazing martial artist.
- The Cuckoolander Was Right: After Josie asks the others they think Wyatt's offer of a record deal is a "little off", Melody, apparently accurately, noted the way he folded his napkin as an indicator of how lonely he is. She also notes that she got a chill up her spine when interacting with Fiona, and her perception is completely true.
- Distracted by the Sexy: Carson Daly when he tries to kill her. She catches on and starts making romantic small talk with him... just long enough to knock him out while he's distracted by the though that he might stand a chance with her.
- Right for the Wrong Reasons: Both she and Valerie get justifiably suspicious of Fiona and Wyatt, but while Valerie's more concerned about her obvious poor treatment by their label, Melody's suspicion is more just intuition.
- She-Fu: She surprises everybody during the climactic fight scene. After she takes out the first guy, the next one quickly backs off and runs away.
- Weak-Willed: While all of the Pussycats (and nearly everyone else exposed) falls for the subliminal messages very easily, Melody goes the extra mile. After a few seconds exposure:Melody: I want a Big Mac!
Valerie: But, Mel, you're a vegetarian.
Melody: I know, but suddenly I want one!
Valerie Brown
Played by: Rosario Dawson
The bassist and backup singer of the Pussycats.
- The Chew Toy: As noted below, Wyatt seems to mistreat her compared to Josie and Melody, just because he can.
- Nobody Loves the Bassist: While both she and the drummer Melody get short shrift compared to Josie, she's the only one who seems to notice, and grows to resent Josie over it. Wyatt in turn notices this and uses it as a wedge to try and break up the band.
- Sassy Black Woman: Downplayed. She's darker-skinned than her bandmates, the most headstrong member of the group, and the one who causes Fiona and Wyatt the most trouble, but the film doesn't focus much on her race.
Other characters
Fiona
Played by: Parker Posey
The CEO of MegaRecords, Fiona is a flamboyant diva with a penchant for self-promotion who is behind a nefarious scheme to put subliminal messages in her label's music, using them to sell consumer products and potentially worse.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: The CEO of MegaRecords who's putting subliminal messages into her label's music.
- Evil Diva: An example who doesn't actually make or perform the music, but is rather the CEO of a record company.
- Evil Is Petty: All of the conspiracy, million of dollars of technology, and nearly getting the girls killed, and the endgame plan... is to get people to think how cool she is. Just... wow.
- Glamour Failure: Occurs twice when her veneers start slipping out of place, causing her to start lisping. The first time it happens, she's able to quickly fix it and claim that it was just food stuck in her teeth, while the second time, it marks her Villainous Breakdown.
- Only One Name: She doesn't seem to have a last name. Technically, it's Snyder, but her alias seems to lack one.
- Revenge of the Nerd: Growing up, she was Lisa Snyder, a girl who was bullied and abused by her classmates. As an adult, she changed her name to Fiona and set out to become the most popular woman in the world using Subliminal Seduction.
- Ugly All Along: She's actually Lisa Snyder, a nerdy girl with buck teeth who speaks with a lisp and covers up her appearance with makeup and veneers. She puts subliminal messages into her label's music to get everybody to like her.
- Verbal Backpedaling: Frequently, to the point of becoming an Overly Long Gag.
- Walking Spoiler: Her actual Evil Plan is only revealed at the end.
Wyatt Frame
Played by: Alan Cumming
An executive and A&R man for MegaRecords, Wyatt signs the Pussycats and becomes their manager while plotting with Fiona to use them for their nefarious scheme.
- Aside Glance: Upon 'discovering' the Pussycats, he gives one of the smuggest examples in cinematic history.
- Evil Brit: He plays up his British charm as he sucks the Pussycats into his scheme. Except he's not really British.
- Fake Brit: He's actually American.
- For the Evulz: For no apparent reason, he seems to be deliberately degrading and trivializing Valerie from the very start. He leaves her on the side of the street when their car starts, delivers only two invitations to the party instead of three, etc. There seems to be no actual goal here, since he is not trying to force her out of the band or split up the friendship (at least, not until later, when she starts asking questions). It really seems like he is torturing her just to see her squirm. On the
DVD Commentary, they say it's because she's the bass player. In addition, he's trying to force the Pussycats into his vision of the band (Josie as the band's lead, with Valerie and Melody as backup). The reason he isn't grinding down Mel too is because she's obviously going to be far less trouble. On a more sinister level, he might even be deliberately laying future seeds of conflict to keep the Pussycats too distracted with infighting to stumble across the truth like DuJour did. - Ugly All Along: He turns out to be "White-Ass Wally," an albino American with a beer gut who went to school with Fiona/Lisa, covering up his appearance with makeup, a wig, a fake accent, and a way-too-tight belt.
- Waxing Lyrical: His code phrases are taken from famous songs:
- "Take the Chevy to the levee" is a line from "American Pie" by Don McLean. Appropriately enough, Wyatt uses it when ordering the pilot of DuJour's jet to ditch it and let it crash, much like how Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and The Big Bopper died, the incident that the song is about.
- "Smells like teen spirit", used when Wyatt discovers a teenage girl who seems immune to Subliminal Seduction, is the title of Nirvana's best known song.
DuJour
Played by: Donald Faison, Seth Green, Breckin Meyer, Alexander Martin
The biggest Boy Band in the world, riding high on the success of their latest single "Backdoor Lover"... at least, until their plane goes down in a tragic accident. In truth, they caught on to the fact that something fishy was going on at their label MegaRecords, especially after they discovered a weird backing track on an upcoming remix.
- Ambiguously Gay: Their single "Backdoor Lover" is filled with innuendos that are designed to make them look like this, for the audience if nothing else, a spoof of how the Pretty Boy image of many real-life boy bands of that era caused some fans (and especially haters) to see them as gay.You know that I won't hurt you, so open up and let me in
We love each other way too much for it to be a sin
Some people use the front door, but that's never been my way
Just 'cause I slip in backdoors, well, that doesn't make me, hey! - Bandage Mummy: They show up at the end having survived the plane crash... albeit horribly, horribly injured. It wasn't the crash that caused the injuries, it was that they landed the plane safely in the parking lot of a Metallica concert. The lead singer is the only one not in a full body cast, and that was only because he knew the lyrics to Metallica's "Enter Sandman". When they attempt to stop Fiona's plot, they can barely move and one of them gets knocked over.
- Big Damn Heroes: They're too badly injured to really do anything, but their arrival at the end does distract Fiona and Wyatt long enough to give Josie an opportunity to free Mel and Val.
- Boy Band: A parody of such, with emphasis on their Pretty Boy looks.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: Their hit single "Backdoor Lover", as noted above under Ambiguously Gay.
- He Knows Too Much: Wyatt had their plane downed because they were starting to catch on to the subliminal messages in their music.
- Hidden Depths: Most of them seem to have these. DJ's apparently into meditation, while Marco named his monkey Dr. Zaius after a character from Planet of the Apes. Les only survived the group's mass beatdown by the Metallica fans thanks to knowing the lyrics to "Enter Sandman" by heart.
- Meaningful Name: The phrase "du jour" refers to something that is extremely popular but will likely fade away quickly once people move on to the next big thing, or which turned out to be a flash in the pan. Much like the band DuJour, the biggest superstars in pop music until everybody forgets about them after their plane crash in favor of MegaRecords' newest hit band.
- Not Quite Dead: They managed to safely land the plane after Wyatt and the pilot jumped out and left them for dead... only they landed it in the parking lot of a Metallica concert.Les: I thank God every day that I knew the lyrics to "Enter Sandman".
- Only Sane Man: As the opening scene would indicate, Les seems to be the only member of DuJour who has his head on straight, given his lack of fighting with the other three and attempts to defuse their arguments. This is exemplified by him being the only band member to avoid being put in a full-body cast by the Metallica fans.
- The Prima Donna: Aboard their private jet, Travis and Marco get into a heated argument over the latter stealing the former's signature pose, with Travis almost coming to blows with Marco over it and forcing Wyatt and DJ to break them up. Even when their plane is going down, they can't help but start fighting again over the issue.
- Take Our Word for It: We never actually see them getting their asses kicked at the Metallica concert, but judging by the full-body casts that they're wearing (except for the guy who knew the words to "Enter Sandman" — and even he's pretty messed up), we can only guess what happened.
- Walking Spoiler: It's hard to talk about their role in the film without revealing that they survived the opening scene.
