Taking tawdry and brazen melodrama to its kitschy zenith, Valley of the Dolls delights with its embrace of over the top tears, personalities, and romantic doom. All matter of trivialities are blown dazzlingly out of proportion, making for a moving feast of conspicuous rhinestones and B-list meltdowns. 

‘We shall all laugh at gilded butterflies’ wrote the great clairvoyant Shakespeare, and he may well have been making a prophetic nod to Valley of the Dolls. It’s all bewitching artifice and unholy masquerade isn’t it? The allure of constructing a public persona and the thrill of cinematic deceit – what fabulous folly! Surface appeal is not merely a consolation prize in these circles, but is the key to the lovely life of your dreams – just on the other side of the Valley. The Valley of the Dolls. Cue a resounding moment of shock and awe.

The dislocated psychological burdens of our three heroines Anne, Neely, and Jennifer are, well, relocated and ultimately exorcised through the realm of fashion, galas, and doll-popping. Participants in the formation of their own mythology, our protagonists are walking tropes, topped with a generous dose of neurotic impulses and endearing narcissism. Their price of entry into the Valley of the Dolls? A guilt complex, a knack for self-promotion, and a willingness to victimize oneself while donning that perm and batting them lashes. Our lovely ladies penetration into star-drenched sociability rests quite blatantly on a bed of uppers, downers, and sleepers.  

Ultimately, Valley of the Dolls is a pageantry of melodrama and delights the senses with its frivolity and candy-toned tales of loss, damnation, and redemption. But let’s now put the heady philosophical commentary on hold and focus on the true heart of today’s quandary: expounding upon the aesthetic wonders of our film de jour. Enjoy the visual feast, mes petites.

In Which we Examine an Example of the Aesthetic Gospel of Theatrical Camp