| Girl 6 | |
| Director: | Spike Lee |
| Producer: | Spike Lee |
| Cinematography: | Malik Hassan Sayeed |
| Editing: | Sam Pollard |
| Music: | Prince |
| Distributor: | 20th Century Fox |
| Runtime: | 108 minutes |
| Country: | United States |
| Language: | English |
| Budget: | $12 million[1] |
| Gross: | $4.9 million |
Girl 6 is a 1996 American black comedy film produced and directed by Spike Lee. The film stars Theresa Randle, Isaiah Washington, and Lee. Suzan-Lori Parks wrote the screenplay, making it the first film directed by Lee that he did not also write. Directors Quentin Tarantino and Ron Silver make cameo appearances as film directors at a pair of auditions.
The accompanying soundtrack is composed entirely of songs written by Prince. The film was screened in the Un Certain Regard section of the 1996 Cannes Film Festival.[2]
Judy, a young and timid African-American aspiring actress living in New York City, attends an audition with Quentin Tarantino for what he describes as "the greatest romantic, African-American film ever made". Judy grows apprehensive when asked to expose her breasts, as the role requires nudity. She reluctantly complies, but feeling uneasy, she storms out of the audition.
Afterwards, Judy's agent Murray, having worked hard to get her an audition with such a prestigious director, furiously drops her from his roster of clients. Her melodramatic acting coach also criticizes her apathy towards her acting art and the entertainment industry overall, insisting that Judy should have simply followed Tarantino's directions. This, coupled with Judy's financial issues preventing her from paying her coach for her services, results in Judy being dropped from her roster of clients as well.
Now unable to secure regular acting work, Judy tries various jobs. She comes across newspaper classified advertisements for a "friendly phone line" and another with the headline "mo' money, mo' money, mo' money", circling both. At a call center specializing in customer service and phone sex, Judy has an interview with Lil, who is assertive but friendly. Judy then attends interviews with other phone sex companies, including one run by a stripper, who offers her the opportunity to work unrestricted in her own home. However, the job would require her to have own private telephone line, which she currently does not have. She decides to keep this opportunity in mind for future reference.
Ultimately, Lil hires Judy as a phone sex operator at the call center. During orientation, Lil explains that although most girls on the team are African-American, they should always pretend to be Caucasian, unless the caller requests otherwise. Under the moniker "Girl 6", Judy immediately settles into her new job. Her sports memorabilia-obsessed cousin and best friend Jimmy, who lives in the same apartment complex as her, worries that her new job might distract her from her acting career. While running errands, Judy occasionally sees her kleptomaniac ex-husband, explaining her current occupation.
Thanks to her new job, Judy has become more confident and uninhibited. She bonds with "Bob Regular", a caller from Arizona who requests her specifically; Judy adopts the nickname "Lovely" especially for him. Unlike other callers, Bob has friendly, platonic conversations with her, mostly about his ailing mother. When Bob tells Judy he is visiting New York on business, they agree to meet in person at Coney Island during her lunch break. As Judy anxiously waits for Bob, a man walks past her; believing the man to be Bob, she calls out to him, but he does not respond. Despondent, Judy leaves.
Shortly after returning to work, Judy receives a disturbing call from a verbally abusive man. Lil, monitoring her call, disconnects him and reminds her to be more careful with the men that call in. Nevertheless, the man reconnects to Judy's line, further harassing her. Judy's job gradually begins to affect her mental health. Noticing Judy's exhaustion, Lil places her on leave so she can rest. Judy, however, now able to obtain a private line, decides to continue her phone sex career at home. She devotes herself fully to her job, ignoring Jimmy's and her ex-husband's attempts to contact her.
One night, Judy engages in a conversation with a sadistic caller who discusses his fantasy of strangling her, soon realizing he is the same abusive man who harassed her earlier. As he reveals that he knows her address, she suffers a breakdown and lashes out at him, much to his delight. Terrified, she runs upstairs to Jimmy's apartment for protection. Judy tells Jimmy she has decided to abandon her phone sex career and move to Los Angeles to resume her acting career. Before leaving, she makes amends with her ex-husband.
In Los Angeles, Judy attends an audition with Ron Silver who, like Tarantino, asks her to bare her breasts. This time, however, she stands up for herself and leaves the audition. Walking down the Hollywood Walk of Fame, she crosses the street towards Grauman's Chinese Theatre, which is showing the film Girl 6.
See main article: Girl 6 (album).
The film was released on VHS on August 6, 1996, and on DVD on March 7, 2006.[3]
The film grossed $4,939,939 domestically.[4]
Girl 6 received mixed reviews. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 39% based on 36 reviews, with an average rating of 4.8/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "Girl 6 has a compelling star, a Prince soundtrack, and Spike Lee's vivid style – and, unfortunately, a story that's never as compelling or insightful as it needs to be."[5]
Roger Ebert gave the film two out of four stars and said, "Even though Spike Lee's Girl 6 was written by a woman, it seems conceived from the point of view of a male caller, who would like to believe that the woman he's hiring by the minute is enjoying their conversation just as much as he is."[6] He added the film's central problem is, "It's about a woman exposing herself for male entertainment, even though it pretends to be about men exposing themselves for female employment." Janet Maslin of The New York Times was more positive, writing, "Spike Lee's Girl 6 doesn't reveal much about its title character, but it does make this clear: Mr. Lee adores her. He shows his fondness for this beautiful heroine (Theresa Randle) by surrounding her with every bit of fun and flattery in his considerable arsenal. Bold colors, a dance track of Prince songs, a parade of wild costumes, good-humored sexual teasing and warmly inviting cinematography by Malik Sayeed all contribute to this comedy's high-energy party mood."[7] Todd McCarthy of Variety said the film lacks "meaningful insight into Girl 6's character",[8] and Rolling Stone Peter Travers commented Lee has "sucked the fun out of call-in sex and replaced it with sanctimonious prattle".[9]