The 1990’s were a decade where boy bands reigned supreme and they were the hottest commodity a record label could have. Eventually, towards the end of the decade, they grew stale and became quite the running joke in the music industry. This led MTV, one of the biggest music networks, to make a parody movie based on the stereotypes of boy bands in the late 90’s. In February 2000, MTV premiered the film 2gether, which was not only funny but actually led to a small run of fame for the fake boy band in real life.
The movie follows Bob Buss, who is the manager of the super popular boy band, Whoa, which are loosely based on the Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC. He loses his job to his assistant manager and is seemingly out of the music business until he runs into his first group member in a street freestyle battle. He attempted to push him as a solo act but when he was told they only thing available was a show for a group coming up in 7 days he was determined to construct a boy band to rival Whoa. He found a member to fit the different stereotypes that make up your typical boyband and named them 2gether.
This film was surprising when it comes to comedy. You can tell just by watching that it that it did not have a big budget behind it ($3,000,000) and the filmmakers were still able to make something that kept me entertained for 80 minutes. The over the top interpretations of each character is what makes this movie work so well. As Bob Buss assembles his group which consists of the great singer, the super shy one, the “way too old to be in a boyband” older brother, the young one with a terminal disease and the extremely violent bad boy. The combination of these characters made for some pretty funny interactions.
One of my favorite scenes from this movie had to be the training sequence where Buss was instructing 2gether on how to be a successful boy band. They comically went through everything from interviews, to songwriting and even costume coordination. This gave us most of the memorable quotes from the movie and gave us a look at the ridiculous work that goes into keeping the female fans engaged with boy bands. Watching the guys try to dance and sing while wearing hazmat suits was priceless.
An amazing outcome from this movie is the group actually got to be their characters in real life. They even opened up for Britney Spears during her world tour. After the television film, MTV decided to green light a 2gether series to follow the band after the events of the movie. It might not come up too much in conversation today but in the early 2000s, this parody group was gaining some popularity due to how comical their act was.
If you are a fan of the 90’s and remember when boy bands were a craze that seemed to be unstoppable then you will have a kick watching 2gether. It came at a time when the boy band gimmick was coming to an end and this film perfectly captures everybody’s thoughts of boy bands at that time. Boy bands might be a nostalgia factor for most of us now but this movie takes you right back to those the catchy hooks and corny dance moves that cause mobs of teenage girls to go into hysteria. Grab your favorite boy band poster and some Spice Girls lollipops and enjoy this trip back to the late 90’s. For your viewing pleasure, check out the film on YouTube.
