Ashlee Simpson’s Undiscoverd: A Joe Simpson Production

What’s really great about Ashlee Simpson’s Undiscovered is how many myths about the arts industry it disproves. A lot of movies and television programs have created a nasty image of the arts industry that probably scares off a lot of promising young artists into finance, engineering, or even medicine.

They make it seem like hard work. They make the competitions seem unfair and brutal. The television show Fame started with a dance instructor informing a group of young dreamers:

“You want fame? Well fame costs! And right here’s where you start paying for it, in sweat!”

Sure, that intense message was followed by an uplifting Irene Cara song, but those haunting words of challenge linger on in the back of your mind. You were probably thinking: shit, being creative sounds worse than sit-ups, and I don’t even do that shit!

It takes somebody who knows about how little it takes to make it to the top of performing arts like Ashlee Simpson in a film produced by her father, Joe Simpson, to show you how easy fame and artistic success are to achieve.

Ashlee Simpson’s Undiscovered shows that even when artists have yet to be discovered, they live in nice flats, drive nice cars, can afford nice well-trained dogs. The term ‘starving artist’ is obviously an ironical one, but never used in this film.

Another myth Undiscovered dispels is the perceived presence of homosexuals in the arts. Undiscovered proves that there really aren’t any at all. There’s even a character who you’d think might be gay because he sports a sequin jump suit and a bright thong, fronts a BeeGees tribute group at a discotheque with pink lights and bubbles, then he and goes home to a bed with a rose-coloured canopy, but once there he engages in totally straight sex, with a chick, in the vagina, with his erect penis, totally straight. Totally. Straight. HETEROSEXUAL. Everybody in this movie is straight, straight, straight. Like arrows (arrows that fuck chicks and watch football).

This movie does explain where the perception of homosexuality might come from: the characters in this movie are very supportive and understanding of each other. In fact, Undiscovered shows that in the arts community when a girl fancies a boy but he doesn’t return her feelings, she’s cool with letting her best friend make a play for him. That makes sense. I mean, other movies might show the rejected girls as being kinda catty and possessive, but not Ashlee Simpson, she’s happy to let her new-found best friend go ahead and snag her longtime crush.

The story is about a Model who quits modelling at her aunt’s high profile modelling company in New York because it’s too shallow and moves the bohemian village of Los Angeles to study acting. At acting class Ex-Model meets Ashlee Simpson, a local triple threat (singing acting Simpsoning wonder). For the rest of the film Ex-Model and Ashlee never go back to acting class again and I can understand why. The drama instructor may be middle-aged, he may wear a black turtle neck, he’s even sardonic, but he’s not what you might call “British” and frankly such a lack of credentials is an insult to Ashlee Simpson’s acting potential, let alone that of a former model.

Ashlee Simpson takes Ex-Model to see Luke sing at a local coffeehouse. Ashlee tells Ex-Model that “Luke is beautiful and talented, but he wants to make it on his own terms.” I found this to be somewhat redundant exposition, you can tell he’s good-looking because this is a movie, a visual medium. I’m guessing this line is left over from Undiscovered: the novel, a medium where you have a bit more trouble discerning the hotness of characters and need to be told. He’s also on a stage singing for a small audience, so you’d think that also shows that he’s talented and wants to make it on his own terms. But Ashlee will spell it out for those of you who like having your characters established this way.

Ex-Model realizes that Luke whipped a glove at her face on the metro back New York and all the feelings of that brief romantic glove-whipping begin to come back and the two start dating.

Ex-Model and Ashlee decide that Luke needs a boost in his career, so Ex-Model gets her aunt to set Luke up with a Crazy Brazilian Model so that the media will pay attention to him. This works, proving that men can also become famous just for dating somebody who is already famous. Move over Sienna Miller! The boys are back in town!

So the record company signs Luke and this guy seems to sell out within a matter of hours. Even though he doesn’t have an album or concerts or revenue yet, he’s already a millionaire. His sound and look also instantly change from resembling Lifehouse to resembling INXS. He forgets how to button up his shirts, starts wearing leather trousers and sunglasses and strutting around his new luxury penthouse with a cocky look on his face. All this occurs within a matter of an afternoon.

But his friends also feel neglected. Remember how I told you how tight the arts community is in this film. Well, after being gone for a few hours his friends notice he’s not coming around as much as he used to. His brother, the BeeGees tribute guy, notices he’s changed and says he barely recognizes him anymore, and that they used to be so close that morning.

But then this film dispels another myth. Once the record company finds out that Luke’s dating of the Crazy Brazilian Model was a rouse they drop him from their label. It turns out that record execs really resent cheap tactics like using association with other celebrities to boost a star’s profile and they especially detest the idea of using beautiful women to glamorize music performers. I always heard people say that in rap videos they rent all those luxury cars and all the women at those parties are models who are paid to act in the videos. I realize now that those rumours are false and the people who spread them are just bitter, or have yet to see Ashlee Simpson’s Undiscovered.

So after reaching the heights of fame and fortune and losing it all within 24 hours Luke quickly gets his humility back and starts performing Lifehouse-type music at the same coffee house again, only now he throws in the odd duet with Ashlee. But it turns out that Ex-Model’s aunt, the model exec, was once married a character inspired by Phil Spectre, though not as well portray as Z-Man in Beyond the Valley of the Dolls.

So Model’s former uncle, the reclusive billionaire record exec shows up at Luke’s humble gig and likes what he sees. I’m not sure why if Model had this connection in her pocket the whole time she didn’t try this instead of that publicity stunt with the Crazy Brazilian Model, but whatevs. This is the kind of nepotistic destiny you can only get from a Joe Simpson production of Ashlee Simpson’s Undiscovered.

But Model takes off during the gig to apparently vanish into obscurity and so Luke has to get his brother to rush him across town in the discomobile so that he can rush through the airport and get on the same plane at the last minute. This movie was made pretty recently and I think it shows that we’re not really being serious enough about airport security measures. I would think that a grungy-looking stubble-faced guy who makes a panicked dash through an airport and pays for his ticket with a wad of cash from his brother’s pants might get detained for some questioning, but maybe they just cut those scenes out for pacing. That’s probably what happened since even though he sped across town in a motor vehicle and sprinted to the plane, all the people he left behind him at the coffeehouse are already on the plane when he boards.

He asks the stewardess to whip a glove at Ex-Model’s face to bring back the memories. I was really surprised that a stewardess would fulfill this request, but she did. I’ve heard of guy’s asking waiters to take bottles of champaign over to tables full of pretty girls, but I would never expect a stewardess the throw something inedible at somebody with whom I didn’t have clear connection. This never came up in Snakes On a Plane, but I would’ve liked to see them work it in.

So Luke and Ex-Model reunite and the Phil Spectre guy tells Luke that life in the spotlight is rough and will rip you apart and you’re better off to work behind the scenes. So Luke and Phil Spectre work out a plan to make Ashlee the sacrificial star and Luke and Phil will reap the profits. I’m not kidding.

The thing with this movie is that it’s based on lots of other dreamer movies. If you’ve never seen Flashdance or Jessica Alba’s Honey then you might not understand Ashlee Simpson’s Undiscovered. This movie assumes that you know the tradition of dreamer movies and know what types of conflicts and scenes are supposed to be in these movies and in what order, but they don’t exactly connect the dots for you with plot development. If you haven’t done your homework you might not be able to recognize the archetypes of this genre you’ll be a bit fuzzy about characters’ motivations.

However, maybe you just like movies that hit the necessary staples of a formula but don’t feel the need to really build a story or characters. In which case I recommend you see Bad Boyz II without seeing Lethal Weapon. Bad Boyz II avoids all that detective work and character exposition of Lethal Weapon-type movies and just jumps to the parts where cars get smashed and two guys make a joke about it.