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Rosario Dawson's LA Comic Con panel ran the gamut of pop culture staples. She spent some of the time talking about her experience across all of Netflix's Marvel shows. She of course talked at length about her time as Ahsoka Tano in the Disney+ series of the same name. But one of the most unexpected topics that came up during her panel, at least in terms of crowd reaction, was when moderator (and former Popverse deputy editor) Tiffany Babb brought up Dawson's cult musical film, Josie and the Pussycats.

"I mean, DuJour means means family, right?," Dawson said, quoting her character Valerie Brown.

Babb asked Dawson to give her opinion on the resurgence of the 2001 movie for modern audiences, and the actor was only too happy to give her thoughts.

"I have songs from that movie going through my head all the time," Dawson began "I had gotten this flat tire that I was changing by myself, and someone tried to help and I was like, no, I got this. I was like "Spin Around," [a song from the film] as I was taking off the lug nuts. It was such a special time doing that film because it was so when we had privacy. We didn't have a lot of cell phones or any of that stuff. We were on location filming in Vancouver and we just had such an amazing time."

Dawson continued by praising her fellow cast and crew, saying that the movie was made "with so many incredible people that I'm still very close with [...directors Deborah Kaplan and Harry Elfont] did such a brilliant job making that film be something that could be really timeless." 

Timelessness was a big aspect of the movie that Dawson kept coming back to, saying that even though the movie was made over two decades ago, it holds up and is relevant to today.

"I love people really getting it," she said, "because I think it was ahead of its time [...] Those characters, that's why we keep revisiting them, because there is a timelessness to them. I'm glad that the movie still holds, because there are some films from that genre of that era that don't stand up to such scrutiny."

So is Dawson surprised at the movie experiencing a resurgence right now? Not in the least.

"I'm not surprised it's connecting with people," Dawson concluded, "because I think it had some really important things to say about our capitalism and propaganda and messaging. In an era right now, with A.I. proliferating and misinformation and disinformation, deepfakes and all that kind of stuff, there's still a really vital message to that film that I'm glad resonates with people and that they're still getting."

Josie and the Pussycats is available to rent on Amazon Prime now.

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