The Runaways - classic or dud?

I'm hesitant to hit Cherkis too hard over this. Writing a piece like this had to have been an absolute minefield. You have 40 years of time past and differing recollections.

You have members of the band and entourage who likely feel complicit in the crime and/or in covering it up.

You have the optics and practicalities of at least two big stars who were part of the story – at least one of whom owes some chunk of her reputation to the accused.

You have the whole aesthetics of the band in the first place which was predicated on sexualizing young girls – and parents who let them go along with it.

And you have, as Cherkis has noted, the Rolling Stone clusterfuck, the true fallout of which we still probably don't understand as of yet.

All things considered, I think he did okay with this piece. I agree that it paints this picture of innocence being violated and possibly irreversibly tarnished. But isn't that, ultimately, what Fox herself says happened here?

That's another minefield with rape pieces in the media – not only are you trying to tell the truth and unmask the perpetrators but you are also becoming part of the victim's healing process itself. Hopefully making it better, but perhaps not.

Who is to say what the *right* approach is here? As a rule, I'd defer to the victim as they seem to have the most on the line. But as the RS piece showed, there are tremendous limitations and drawbacks to that approach.

There IS a right approach though! and it's been pretty clearly explained by these 2 women, both who know the Runaways

I think the tendency to write for the "story" and not for the person/people involved is what is problematic

I have more problems with the article now than at first, bc it took a while to process it all. But I was very jarred and annoyed by his barbs directed to the other runaways, turning into an us vs them split

It's not complicated to write about if you put the women first, if you are reflective enough to understand that the instinctive way to write about it may not be the best way. Shit gets a lot simpler if you serve THEM and not the story.

there seems to be a bit of paternalistic condescension from cherkis towards the others in the band, this "disappointment" in how they supposedly acted, even though it's obviously something that was traumatizing to all parties and everyone handles things in different ways and if there were drugs and alcohol involved combined with the PTSD, who knows what anyone actually remembers or is totally clear on?

I know the term may be seen as more of a buzz word but there is value in this instance having a writer who is an ally, who will help to speak *when they cannot articulate* - rather than a mouthpiece who says what "should" or "needs" to be said

what problems do you all see in the piece itself?

I don't disagree with you VG--I'd have to go back to see just to what extent Cherkis's authorial voice shames the other Runaways--but I do wonder if showing the behavior of the Runaways in the wake of the assault, with all the negative aspects, isn't an important act as well...? In a lot of ways this us a really peculiar situations--as many itt have noted, in a lot of ways the band itself could have only existed under a very specific set of circumstances, the particular time and place being only two of which--but in a situation where the manager assaults one of the band members in front of at least two other members, only for the rest of the band to end up identifying with him rather than her: to me, showing that is kind of crucial not only to convey the extent of the manipulation and exploitation and intimidation that these girls are subject to at the hands of Fowley, but ultimately to show how identification with the assailant was in fact another manifestation of the trauma. I do think that's where the article ends up, and I wonder if it would be obscured had the other hirls been portrayed in a more sympathetic light...

Otoh, I think McDonnell is otm about how Cherkis sentimentalizes Fuchs at least a little, which obscures the story in its own way. And obviously this terrible clickbait culture needs to bring some sort of salacious finger-pointing element to the surface, which nakes any kind of trafficking in ambiguity pretty much impossible. Cherie Currie doesn't appear to have found any redeeming aspect in the way she has been represented in the article so idk

Anyways, this was just what kind of came to mind when I read today's posts, what do you think VG?

No offense but I'm not really one for digging in? idk

I have said how I would have preferred Cherkis to handle the article and honestly it falls pretty much in line with what has already been said by Evelyn McConnell - and tbh she says it better than I could hope to articulate anyway

Ultimately he did help bring Jackie's story to light and that we can have the conversation at all is a good thing so I'm not gonna take to the rooftops over it or anything

Short version: I would be out of my depth if I dug in at any great length :)

i hope that didnt sound dickish

lol i blarp & livejournal all over this fucking thing uninvited & someone asks for my thoughts on an actual thing NOW i say no

yeah youre welcome

You're allowed to set boundaries over what you're willing to discuss on this issue!

blarp

somehow I didn't think this thread would be the one that put Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 into my head and yet here we are

Lol

My response from your first post didnt go through!

(right on, my word count is probably way out of proportion of the crucialness of my perspective to the discussion. I just hope I didn't cause offense)

VG the only reason I was engaging with you about my thoughts was bcz you've been such a beacon of otm about this both here & on FB

I know, and I feel bad bcz I see myself itt running solely on knee jerk energy & emotional reaction rather than deep intellectual understanding & i guess I get afraid of being called out as a fraud when it turns out I dont have many good opinions or thoughts when u scratch the surface

hi: Veg Blarp Baggage Cop

Larger thoughts from Ann Powers:

http://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2015/07/15/422964981/the-cruel-truth-about-rock-and-roll

Veg Blarp Baggage Cop

lolol

i guess I get afraid of being called out as a fraud

I will fight anybody who does this.

Xp to VG: I def never thought you were being kneejerk at all; dismissing Jett and Currie as evil seemed more knwejerk to me. It seems to me like every position you've taken has been very thoughtful and I was only trying to continue in that same vein of thoughtfulness

aw thx

In other news...that Ann Powers piece is really something

What seem to have been accepted so much that its been lost sight of..

That if any of the band had acted or done something, that meant the Runaways end right there.

None of the band wanted that to happen.Yes, eventually, they got it together to leave him and continue, but the damage was still there.

But, effectively, they had no choice.

That Ann Powers piece is great.

Yeah, the comments are especially bad, though.

mention of Lori Maddox reminded me how weird it is that some of the women in that scene came away with nothing but good vibes - like, she's never spoken of her relationship with Jimmy Page in anything other than positive terms (at least as far as I can tell)

And sometimes the men involved are so blatantly transgressive that they become pariahs: when thirtysomething metalhead Ted Nugent became the legal guardian of his teenage lover in the 1970s, all the while recording songs like "Jailbait," it added to his reputation as a truly unstable character.

Holy shit I didn't know this. Also not enough of a pariah, clearly.

yeah god as if you need more reason to be grossed out by the Nuge, there it is

oh there are so many reasons

http://www.feelnumb.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/stevenjulia13dx.jpg
she's 13 it's cool, bbs.

his bringing up the kitty genovese case was a bad look. that whole 38-witnesses-who-did-nothing story has been pretty roundly debunked. editor/fact checker should have caught that.

🗻
she's 13 it's cool, bbs.

16 and his ward, but what's the difference really? What a fucked up time this was:

https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/the-light-of-the-world-the-steve-tyler-and-julia-holcomb-story

Bonus points for a bizarre and unexpected Bill Cosby appearance in her story.

is that ann powers piece really good? I can't get past the first paragraph's shoehorned song references.

Last week, a story about Jackie Fuchs, centered around her account of being raped by the late music entrepreneur Kim Fowley in a motel room full of people on New Year's Eve in 1975, challenged the very idea that rock and roll is something worth loving. Fuchs's account hit the music world like a bomb that obliterated all taste of cherry from our mouths,

I mean, those bolded bits above belong in Rolling Worst Music Writing thread imo

I don't know about the phrasing, but this story definitely made me rethink a lot of the rock&roll mythology / self image of rock&roll

the cherry bomb pun seems unfortunate

Not sure why Iggy, Bowie, Johnny Thunders never get mentioned, is it because critics like them?

She said she named the examples listed off the top of her head without doing research so maybe Iggy, Bowie, and Johnny Thunders weren't located at the top of her head.

Also yes probably that's why they don't get mentioned.

i was reading the holcomb story and getting increasingly surprised by how it turned into a paean to pro-life + then i looked at the url

Ann Powers piece *is really good, god though someone should have subbed that first paragraph

I think the Ann Powers article does a good job of putting Kim Fowler in the larger context of rock and roll at the time, but I think you need to look at an even bigger context and look at it in the context of how women were treated generally in the US at the time. Like, women legally couldn't get credit cards without a husband to co-sign for them until 1974 (so the year before the Runaways were formed). States could make it illegal for unmarried women to get birth control until 1972. Women could legally be excluded from juries solely on the basis of them being women until 1975. It was legal to fire, refuse to hire, or generally discriminate pregnant women in the realm of employment until 1978. So adult women were basically treated like children, which is something you can definitely see in advertising of the time as well. And when you blur the line between women and girls, you get shit like this:

http://s-ak.buzzfed.com/static/enhanced/web03/2010/10/18/6/enhanced-buzz-10341-1287396425-2.jpg

Which is a point Cherkis made - that it was more acceptable for adult men to prey on young women in the 70s, but I attribute that to adult women being viewed as children, and if all women are basically children, what does it matter how old she really is?

So depressingly true

Good context. Can I just say though, my wife really does drive like that. I wore the finish off the oh shit bar in her last car. I'm making a note about those tires.

...

good pt carl

sorry, it was an ill-considered joke. Must have been channeling my father-in-law or something.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_tom65LKiE

Age: 14.

Brooke's exploitation began much younger - it's insane that she's a naked sex object in "Pretty Baby". you know, a nostalgic, romantic bildungsroman about a 12yo prostitute (written by a woman!) that I'm appalled even got made. baffled that it was even legal at the time.

if this is turning into a discussion about exploitation can it be moved elsewhere? i mean generally i am pointing the finger at the concept of objectification, and even listing examples of severe objectification as exploitation seems...exploitative under the circumstances.

speaking of, this conversation has reminded me of Beyond the Valley of the Dolls

fair enough

i was reading the holcomb story and getting increasingly surprised by how it turned into a paean to pro-life + then i looked at the url

I thought the same thing – but given the nature of the story, I wasn't entirely shocked it ended up there. The whole thing was depressing and manipulative.

To pull this back to rock, the internet is full of these stories. Pamela Des Barres' Lets Spend the Night Together documentary from VH-1 is on YouTube in its entirety, with bits from Lori Maddox talking about losing her virginity to Bowie at 13 or so and Cassandra Peterson (ne. Elvira) fleeing the room when Jimmy Page was trying to rape her. There's the whole saga of Sable Starr and the Stooges, a lot of which is covered in Please Kill Me.

To VG's point way upthread, once this all goes from "Hey, things sure were crazy back then" to "Dudes were raping girls and getting their parents to sign over legal custody of these girls" it begins to change how you perceive this whole era. Punk doesn't seem any more enlightened or liberated than the dinosaurs they ostensibly replaced.

what do you mean by "punk" there - I can't recall any similar stories about, say, the Clash or Blondie or Black Flag or the Go-Gos for ex.