Spice Girls' Wannabe video gets remake for female equality push

Twenty years after the Spice Girls’ sparked global girl power with Wannabe, the chart-topper has been remade to highlight gender inequality issues faced by women across the world.

The video features artists from India, Nigeria, South Africa, the UK, USA and Canada, a diverse roll-call that includes superstar Bollywood actress Jacqueline Fernandez and London R&B trio M.O.

The famous video has been remade to push a series of UN global goals including education, gender equality, equal pay for equal work, child marriage and an end to violence against women.

“I think this film is a wonderful idea,” said former Spice Girl Victoria Beckham. “How fabulous it is that after 20 years the legacy of the Spice Girls’ girl power is being used to encourage and empower a whole new generation?”

The video is being launched by Project Everyone, the campaign which aims to eradicate poverty, injustice and fight climate change, which is backed by names including Richard Curtis, famous for films from Notting Hill to Bridget Jones’s Diary, and actors Freida Pinto and Chiwetel Ejiofor.

As well as launching on YouTube a deal with SAWA, the global cinema advertising association, will see the video run in movie theatres internationally.

“This is about modern day girl power,” said MJ Delaney, who directed the film. “The Spice Girls were about a group of different women joining together and being stronger through that bond. These differences are what we want to celebrate in this film, while showing there are some universal things that all girls, everywhere, really, really want.”

Last year, Project Everyone backed an ad featuring Liam Neeson playing God in an effort to promote a series of long-term global goals for sustainable development unveiled by the United Nations in September.

“This year we’re keeping up the noise and going deeper… trying to show how the [global] goals contain the answers to the world’s problems,” said Curtis. “From the refugee crisis to disease, humanitarian disasters to terrorism and war. And especially focussing on the incredible importance of progress in the area of girls and women. Global goals for global girls.”