It’s interesting to look back at the reaction Joan Jett and the Runaways provoked when they originally burst onto the music scene.
The male dominated media didn’t know what to do or how to react to the all-female teenage rock band’s confrontational and proudly sexual aesthetic and music.
It’s not that Cherie Currie, Lita Ford, Sandy West, Jackie Fox and Joan Jett were doing anything different to the likes of The Rolling Stones, Kiss or David Bowie, though. It’s that they were young women.
The reaction looks particularly misogynistic in the current climate, where the Me Too and Time’s Up movements have shaken up the patriarchy.
I recently had the chance to speak to Joan Jett about “Bad Reputation,” a documentary on her career, during which time I asked whether she saw a link between her groundbreaking start in the music industry and today.
“I totally see a link. It is pervasive. I think pretty much every woman has some kind of experience in a Me Too situation. There are so many you can’t really go into it. Or remember them all.”
But while Jett sees a link, she doesn’t believe that enough has changed when it comes to female equality.
“I don’t see a big shift since The Runaway days. Things have not changed that much. It might look different.”
“Women are in powerful positions, there are more women in more powerful positions. But it still to me is a lot of window dressing.”
“Until women are in real positions of power, where they yield the money and make decisions about where the money goes.”
“Then we will have a more equitable playing field. It is still difficult turf. But that’s life. What are you gonna do?”
But while Jett’s place in musical history has long been certain, what did she originally want to achieve when she founded the Runaways at the age of 17 back in 1975?
“We wanted to make it not strange for girls or women to play rock ’n’ roll. What we were really trying to say was that girls could do anything outside of the boundaries that they had been set.”
“We wanted to be the female Rolling Stones. We wanted to play rock ’n’ roll, and rock ’n’ roll is very sexual in its very nature. If women or girls are singing rock ’n’ roll it is sexual.”
“We don’t have to sing about sex for it to be sexual. I certainly see in America, America has problems with girls speaking about sex in general. Especially with teenage girls, then the conversation stops.”
“But teenage girls have these feelings. Teenage girls get horny. I’m sorry, but they do. So to obliterate that whole aspect of a woman when she is younger is really disrespectful.”
“I didn’t see this at the time, but reflecting on it it is a natural thing. It shouldn’t be so uncomfortable to talk about. But it was.”
“The media just wanted to hear outrageous stories. We were a rock ’n’ roll band so we had all of those things. But to focus on that aspect beyond the music was kind of juvenile.”
“If you opened that door you were screwed. I could tell at that young naive age, I was naive about everything especially how people go about tricking you to talking about that stuff.”
“I got that at the time. I knew that if I started talking about sex now in the context of our music then that is all we would ever get. Nothing would be about the music. Not that it was anyway.”
“Bad Reputation” is all about the music and the impact of Jett, and it will released for you to appreciate on September 28.
You can also check out the rest of my interview with Joan Jett underneath the trailer below.