Review: Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story

Karen Carpenter and her brother Richard were musical icons of the 1970s.  A&M Records sold them as a wholesome family-friendly duo that fed into the puritanical image that was slowly slipping away from modern American society's grasp.  The kids grew up in Downey, CA on the southeast outskirts of Los Angeles.  They wore their success unassumingly, while the pressures of fame proved to be too thick for the sister component of the sibling duo.  Hollywood has a way of taking a microscope to all its major players who engage the entertainment beast.  While Karen was just your average young adult with a perhaps younger mindset, who just happened to have an unusual voice, she also had body image issues like a lot of females, and even males today.  Having not sorted through her problems or even realized them when she started her climb to popularity, the worldwide exposure would only exacerbate her anorexia nervosa.  And, unlike some diseases and addictions which can easily be concealed for a great length of time, Karen's gradual drop to a deathly weight would be lived out before her family as well as the media spotlight.

Director Todd Haynes, one of the most preeminent and audacious voices of independent cinema is known for his shorts from Poison, cold, clinical suburban nightmare Safe and 1970s glam bio Velvet Goldmine, as well as the Douglas Sirk-styled Far From Heaven, the untraditional take on Bob Dylan I'm Not There, and the recent HBO miniseries remake Mildred Pierce.  In the late 1980s, while cutting his teeth as a film student, he created the short Superstar: The Karen Carpet Story.

The movie is almost exclusively told with modified Barbie dolls often operating within the context of a dollhouse.  This seemingly elementary conceit serves the story perhaps more effectively than had it been relayed with traditional real-life actors, accentuating Karen's body dysmorphia as being reinforced by unrealistic, strict socialized definitions of beauty.  It also creates a surreal distance that allows for an emotional connection viewed through the filter of seeing her situation for what it was: a disease that was only casually treated and inadvertently enabled.  While I never saw any hands manipulate the dolls, as some have reported, the range of motion is appropriately limited, giving the characters a stilted appearance and robotic understanding of what's happening before them.  These choices complement the disbelief and horror the viewer may experience as to why a person should be allowed to starve themselves to death in the name of distorted vanity.  The accompanying voice-work is pretty solid.

Superstar opens with one of the only "non-doll" scenes where we watch the discovery of Karen's dead body in 1983 from the point-of-view of her mother, as well, the short includes some exterior shots of Downey and Century City again from the perspective of some of the characters.  Documentary footage details the Carpenter's rise and Karen's demise,  as well their relationship with their parents and Karen's struggle with her eating disorder, and commentary concerning the musical group's role during a time in U.S. history where the optimistic, innocent tone of their songs and Karen's smooth, relaxing vocals, as well as their clean-cut image, were what the country needed during a time of a never-ending, fruitless, abandoned war and a president who resigned in disgrace.

The subtitles are often difficult to read due partly to the quality of the bootleg copy it was viewed on, which adds a dated nuance, but also involves poorly-made/limited production choices.  While some of the doll faces are rather grotesque at times, it's not totally clear if the degree of crudeness was entirely intended because of the poor viewing material.  I had never seen the short and always wanted to for years when some friends shared it with me recently.  The soundtrack contains a litany of songs, naturally including many by the Carpenters themselves.  While the portrayal of Karen is sympathetic, her parents come off as unfortunately clueless and unhelpful, and her brother career-obsessed.  In 1990, Richard, possibly offended by nondescript personal insinuations made in the film (while many interpret them to be gay innuendo, one might also consider the fact that he ended up marrying his cousin), successfully filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Haynes who didn't obtain proper clearance at that time of production and had the movie pulled from circulation, where it remains today: underground.  And, if you ever get a chance to watch, do yourself a favor and do it.  What's strange is that times really haven't changed that much when you have entertainers like LeAnn Rimes who, as recently as February 2012, has asserted that she was "fat" when she was younger.  When you look at photos when she was a teenager and compare them to shots of her skeletal body on the beach over the last few years, you really have to shake your head.  Denial still isn't just a river in Africa.