Kill the Boy Band Author Goldy Moldvasky on ’80s Movies and the Power in a Name

Goldy Moldavsky’s Kill the Boy Band is a funny, fierce debut that celebrates the power of fandom, yes, but even more so the sometimes terrifying power of girls. It’s an outsized confection with a dark noirish heart, starring girls who love, girls who long, girls who are vengeful. Our unnamed narrator and her friends are bonded airtight over their white-hot obsession with British boy band the Ruperts, and book a room in their New York hotel in the hopes of getting close to them for a night. And after they kinda, sorta, accidentally kidnap the most reviled Rupert, that night becomes endless: mayhem, romance, death, and scandal ensue, as well as a string of revelations that threatens to shatter their friendship. It’s a book you’ll read in a single sitting, before heading to the internet to look up photos of your own favorite boy bander (you know you’ve got one). Here’s Moldavsky on her inspiration: the greats of 1980s teen cinema.
When I set out to write Kill the Boy Band I had one clear mission in mind: I wanted it to feel like my favorite movies from the 1980s. Quite frankly, that is the golden age of teen cinema. Finally, teenagers and their feelings were being examined onscreen, and in multiple genres, too. There are the heartfelt and angsty films of John Hughes, but also the wild and fully weird screwball comedies like Teen Wolf. Hoping to capture that spontaneous, madcap ’80s tone, I looked to these movies I love for inspiration.
Kill the Boy Band takes place all in one single day (like the Hughes classics Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Sixteen Candles, and The Breakfast Club). And like The Breakfast Club, KTBB’s whole story is set in one location—at a chic New York City hotel. That’s where four fangirls “run into” their favorite boy band.
My favorite thing about this decade of movies is their ability to deal with dark subject matter in a really strange and funny way. You could say that dark, strange and funny are the operative words behind Kill the Boy Band. That’s why the ’80s movie that had the biggest influence in shaping it has to be Heathers, aka the Greatest Dark Comedy of All Time. I pay homage to Heathers throughout the story, but the most obvious thing is that the boy band at the center of KTBB—The Ruperts—all have the same name, just like the popular clique in Heathers.
Names are very significant in Kill the Boy Band—especially when it comes to the main character. We never find out her true name. Being an ’80s movie buff herself, she introduces herself at various points in the novel using aliases from her favorites. The names she chooses to use reflects how she’s feeling at that moment.
Samantha Baker
When she’s feeling ignored by her friends, she uses the name of Molly Ringwald’s character in Sixteen Candles, who spends the movie being upset that nobody has remembered her birthday.
Diane Court
When she meets a sophisticated and beautiful celebrity, she uses the name of the intelligent and refined character in Say Anything, hoping to embody Ione Skye’s elegant attributes.
Francis “Baby” Houseman
When she wants to be taken seriously, the she uses the name of the lead character in Dirty Dancing, who is in the process of outgrowing her childhood nickname.
Lydia Deetz
When she’s on a truth-seeking mission to do the right thing, she becomes Winona Ryder’s righteous protagonist from Beetlejuice.
Sloane Peterson
When she wants to seem desirable, she takes on the name of the coolest, most beautiful girlfriend that has ever existed in ’80s teen movie history: Mia Sara in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.
My main character may be obsessed with ’80s movies, but when her life starts to resemble one, that’s when it gets really weird and really good. I could tell you more, but you’ll just have to go read Kill the Boy Band to find out!
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