Poly Styrene: I Am a Cliché: Plastic bags, parenting, and punk

We live in a world with a large disposable culture. From fast fashion, to paper tickets, to tons and tons of plastic, we throw away the majority of the things we use. This isn’t a new phenomenon, it’s been happening for an incredibly long time now. One British punk singer channeled this idea into her art, leaving behind a legacy as an iconic performer. And her daughter is the one living with that legacy.

Poly Styrene examines herself.

Poly Styrene: I Am a Cliché is a new documentary directed by Celeste Bell and Paul Sng. The films specifically follows two threads, the first being an informative archival-footage based breakdown of the life and legacy of Marianne Joan Elliot-Said, a.k.a Poly Styrene. She was a mixed race British singer who led the beloved punk band X-Ray Spex, famous for songs like Identity, Oh Bondage Up Yours!, and Plastic Bag. She formed the band in the mid-1970s, and it lasted until 1979 when she broke it apart, reforming nearly 20 years later.

The film is told predominantly told through archival footage, and Poly Styrene’s diary entries are used as narration. Ruth Negga (from Passing and Preacher) acts as the voice of Poly Styrene here, bringing life to her memories poignantly and personally. The film also features interviews with several others, including other members of the band, their manager, and other punk musicians who loved her work.

The film also follows her life after the band, specifically on her relationship with her daughter, Celeste Bell. Taking on double duty as one of the co-directors and main subjects of the film, Celeste opens up her (at times tumultuous) life and intense relationship with her mother. Poly Styrene struggled in romance, motherhood, and fame as X-Ray Spex grew bigger and bigger.

Celeste Bell looks on at a world without her mother.

Celeste says that working in both roles was an intense challenge for her. “I had to be two people, and I had to distance myself from my own memories and to try and paint something that’s not only personal and subjective, but that’s also kind of a fair and thorough exposition of a life.”

Celeste had an idiosyncratic upbringing, with a mother as a punk singer. But after she left punk music, Poly Styrene became a Hare Krishna. She raised her daughter in the faith, and the film goes into detail regarding this period of their lives. It seemed like a complete switch for Marianne, switching from a world-travelling punk singer to a religious person living a simple life style. But that was Poly Styrene.

Half black and half white, critical of consumerist culture but always changing her fashion, a nail-biting singer tearing apart the mainstream with braces on her teeth. Poly Styrene was a figure fascinated with the disposable culture of pop music, and how things could be around and beloved for a such a short period of time before it was replaced. All these new things coming so quickly and disappearing just as quickly, it’s not human.

Poly Styrene.

Poly Styrene died in 2011, but Celeste thinks that her criticism of consumer culture and its disposable nature would stick around. She says if her mother was around nowadays, she’d be warning us “not to lose who we are and not to become like machines.” We have to exist as we are within this disposable culture, holding on to ourselves. This was a defining mantra in the life of Poly Styrene, because while she was Poly Styrene, she was Marianne first.

Marianne’s life has come and gone, but her daughter lives on with her legacy. And her memory lives on through her music, her impact on the industry, and the connections she made.

At one point in the film, Celeste accomplishes something her mother always hoped to do with her daughter. Celeste travels to Vrindavan, India, where Krishna spent the majority of his childhood. She says that by travelling here as part of the film, she was able to see the beauty in a manner outside of her individual perspective. “Through the camera I saw it in a really different way, and it was a very rich and rewarding experience for me personally.”

Poly Styrene: I Am a Cliché is a powerful documentary about the life of a legend, and what it’s like to be the daughter of a legend. You can watch this film on your VOD service of choice now, or by streaming it on the Hot Docs website. Alternatively, you can watch it in person at the Hot Docs Cinema.