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JOAN JETT made it OK for us girls to rock out
from: inforum.com
by Tammy Swift
If you were born after 1979, there's something you might not understand about JOAN JETT.
To a whole generation of women, she is a god. In the late '70s, there were so few rock divas for teen girls to idolize. Aspiring she-rockers had to stand by and cheer, hoping one of the boys onstage would throw her a saliva-soaked guitar pick or a sweaty towel.
Oh sure, there was Heart, but then the Wilson girls started writing weird ditties about dogs and butterflies. And I couldn't quite forgive Debbie Harry after Blondie delved into disco.
And so I have mixed feeling about the new film, "The RUNAWAYS," which opened Friday at Century 10 in Fargo. It's a biopic about the hard-rocking, all-teen-girl band where Jett first made her start.
Part of me is very excited to revisit this earlier, simpler time. I can't wait to comb my hair into a Cherie Currie-esque mullet, squeeze my middle-aged feet into some denim platforms and celebrate an era when Gabe Kaplan was king.
I want to stand outside the theater, shaking my fist geezer-style, and holler: "That's real music, girlie! Not your souped-up Lady-a-Go-Go-Justin-whathisname-Hannah-Dakota-pole-dancing!" But part of me dreads seeing zygotes like Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning portray my beloved icons. I realize the critics have actually liked Stewart's Jett portrayal, but it makes me grumpy to see the latest trendy young thing playing one of my idols. What's next? Miley Cyrus as Pat Benatar?
You must understand: Rock goddesses like Jett and Benatar provided the soundtrack for my so-called teenage life. Broken hearts were bemoaned as I wept over Benatar's "Promises in the Dark." One summer, while pining over a cute boy from a neighboring town's church group, I couldn't stop listening to Jett's strangely poignant remake of "Crimson and Clover."
I still remember picking up my first JOAN JETT AND THE BLACKHEARTS album, gazing at her perfect bone structure and thinking: "Dig that eyeliner. No wonder she has a bad reputation."
I mimicked the macho hand-clapping on "I Love Rock 'N' Roll" and envied her tomboyish strut in that song's video. I could sing every lyric from her first BLACKHEARTS album, down to her bizarre rendition of "Little Drummer Boy."
She was like Suzi Quatro, but way, way cooler. She would never appear on "Happy Days" and fawn over that ham-boned, shark-jumping sellout, Fonzie.
And yet it wasn't so much her talent that appealed to me. Even fairly early on, I figured out she could never sing like Benatar or play guitar like Eddie Van Halen.
But she had attitude and heart. She wore black leather like no one else could. And she was real. You knew she didn't go home and sip Chablis and listen to Barry Manilow; what you saw was what you got.
So I will always hold a special place in my heart for the woman who made it OK for girls to rock.
Film or not, she's what I'd call a "Runaway" success.
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