ABSTRACT
The phenomenal global success of the Spice Girls has, from its beginnings, been accompanied by probably as many haters of the group as fans. This is true not only for their predominantly preadolescent audience, but also for adult critics and academics. The story of the girl group is a prime example of modern stardom as it has been characterized by Lawrence Grossberg (1995: 373): the Spice Girls are a studio band, assembled according to marketing strategies. The girls are celebrities without a history, catapulted to a stardom which, so it seems, was there waiting for them all along. Consequently, the audience was set to discover their talents only after they had already become stars.
