The Runaways - classic or dud?

Everyone knows this but SoCal in the 70s was rife with older men preying on teen girls. Don Henley was even briefly arrested for it! Page, Polanski, even a very famous and respected writer, you name it. Open season.

I was thinking about that, because I saw Almost Famous for the first time recently and was struck by how (at least a little ambiguously) romanticized and normalized that notion was

Found that post from Jackie Fox to be very heartening

Yeah, the documentary version of Almost Famous would look like Romper Room on acid.

Yeah, I mean, this scene, where she admits she's 16, is both weirdly touching but definitely uneasy. Especially since she and the band(s) have already been involved for some time:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkEQ_bvbny4

I don't remember anyone making a big deal about her age in the film. That's just "how it was."

That wasn't just in LA and wasn't just in the music biz, but that's a good example of how the "sexual revolution" was primarily an opportunity for men to be skeezy fucks as opposed to women exercising agency over their own sexuality.

Almost Famous is hot garbage and its sexual politics are a big reason.

the whole concept of groupies is something people talk about like it's totally nbd. i find that type of objectification really disturbing, esp when it's presented as one of the only entry points of young women to being involved with music. like imagine being a 13 year old just getting into learning about music and finding out that people like you were primarily known as sex bunnies. it's…i don't even know what it is. i think things are quite different now, but even as late as my own adolescence, it was a common narrative. i read pamela des barres' book because i thought it would help me learn stuff but the stuff it helped me learn was not helpful.

I think AIDS and lawsuits put a slight damper on that scene, but if anything what's left over has gotten even darker, because the predatory artists have I think taken greater care to formally cover their paths, like conventional predators vs. nbd, this is how we roll romanticised rock stars. But it is horrifying, to read the salacious oral histories of Motley Crue, or Zeppelin, or whomever, for entertainment and titillation, yet realize that at the very least due to the prevalence of drugs and alcohol and general cultural look the other way-ness that what we know about is just the tip of the iceberg and that felonious behavior abounded/abounds.

Feels like this is more a by product of the Hollywood machine than the sexual revolution to me. Stories of this nature were coming out of Hollywood as early as the 30s (okay maybe not NYE rape stories, but certainly similar tales of exploitation/abuse/cover up.)

Girl 27 is a 2007 documentary film about the 1937 rape of MGM movie extra Patricia Douglas (1917-2003), the front-page news stories that followed, and the subsequent cover-up of the entire event.

As if on cue....

Hippy movement definitely allowed multifarious creeps to exploit young women, look at Manson, for one.

Feels like this is a thread derail, but creeps/cultists are always exploiting people. Manson would have likely figured out a means to find participants wherever/whenever.

don't listen to Little steven's underground garage, because it's boring and he's a supreme asshole regularly and smugly inveighing against anything outside of his rockist agenda (man, 30 years ago, your goal was to end apartheid, and now you complain that kids don't play and listen to music the right way), but I happened to stop on it accidentally, and there was Kim Fowley's show, with him talking about the youngbloods or something…maybe someone at Sirius/XM should see to it that they don't play those shows anymore…heaven knows they have 100s of hours of Giorgio Gomelsky etc etc…

Re LL's "Imagine being a 13 year old": this is played out very explicitly in, of all things, School of Rock. (I'm at the library right now, and can't check the wording of the exchange--hopefully there's nothing that can be misconstrued, as I'm breaking my own pledge to stay clear of these threads at all costs.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHtTRUC2Drs

Feels like this is more a by product of the Hollywood machine than the sexual revolution to me. Stories of this nature were coming out of Hollywood as early as the 30s (okay maybe not NYE rape stories, but certainly similar tales of exploitation/abuse/cover up.)

― One bad call from barely losing to (Alex in SF), Monday, July 13, 2015 10:33 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

maybe so: http://www.buzzfeed.com/annehelenpetersen/loretta-young

(buzzfeed longform, before you ask)

There's a Fowley interview done for Ugly Things magazine where he definitely frames things in terms of the sexual revolution. I won't quote from it - it's online.

I can definitely see Fowley framing (and excusing) things in that fashion. Just not sure how credible a reading it is.

I don't think the issue is whether it's credible, it's that the wide availability of contraception and the whole idea of women's liberation gave a lot of creeps a cover story. C'mon baby, loosen up, get in touch with your body, blah blah blah. The sexual revolution was real and necessary, but just destigmatizing extramarital sex without altering massive existing power differentials meant that lots of bad things were going to be justified (however dishonestly) in the name of freedom.

C'mon baby, loosen up, get in touch with your body, blah blah blah

"... why are you being so uptight and bourgeois?"

There's a whole chapter about this in Jonathon Green's "Days in the Life", about the UK underground in the 60s/70s.

real short hop from that to "you look tense, lemme rub your back"

I read a story a few years ago, maybe by Rob Lowe (?) about how being a teen in the 70's in LA was like being a pack of stray dogs (at least for some kids of wealthy families) - parents so burned out, disillusioned & self medicating to the point where they are completely checked out & the kids become free range mini adults because there's zero supervision & so much more trouble that you could get into in LA in those days, because of that permissiveness hangover

You mean, "the good ol' days"?

Basically the parents of the free range "what's the worst that can happen?" parents.

ie Robert Downey Sr.

parents so burned out, disillusioned & self medicating

altho really isn't LA still like this

It's the plot of Less Than Zero, right?

Foxes obvs!

lol

Foxes is such a weird movie

LA is still "like this" in terms of neglectful burnt out parents and children with too much money, but between uber and rehab society has definitely created some buffers since the 70s

yeah i didnt mean it was unique to LA,just that it was more heightened bcz of the 60's freelove burnout

real short hop from that to "you look tense, lemme rub your back"

― La Lechera, Monday, July 13, 2015 8:38 PM (31 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^ a favorite line of creeps who want to creepily creep their hands up against the side of your boobs as recently as the early '00s (the last time I was single).

"I don't think the issue is whether it's credible, it's that the wide availability of contraception and the whole idea of women's liberation gave a lot of creeps a cover story."

Right and I'm not sure I find this terribly credible. I think Fowley's perceived industry influence was the "cover story" (as it is for most "creeps" of this type before and after).

When I said that, in that interview, he frames things in terms of the sexual revolution, I didn't mean that he was explaining himself in terms of the revolution's rhetoric. I simply meant that he speaks of the period favorably for some of those reasons.

Carl thx for bringing the clarity :)

re: "sexual revolution" vs "hollywood", this isn't a binary - power and cultural trends can both be exploited

I suppose folks were hoping for an Evil Stig Joan - the one who spoke out about Mia Zapata and not the one who covers that Gary Glitter pedo song and speaks through Kenny Laguna press releases/lawsuits.

Was Glitter a known child molester when she covered that song? More disgusted by dumbass companies who were still using it in adverts as late as a couple of years ago....

Reading up reminds me it was used in the biopic which shows pretty poor judgment on the part of all concerned frankly.

When was Glitter not a known child molester lets be honest. Pedo themes all thru his peak hits.

In fairness I think 99% of America doesn't hardly knew who he is but just recognizes the nah nah nah hey! song from sporting events

Glitter was a known child molester earlier this year when she was playing "Do You Wanna Touch Me There" in concert.

can we not with Gary Glitter

Maureen Herman's piece is really really excellent:

http://boingboing.net/2015/07/13/the-jackie-fox-rape-disclosure.html

wow

it makes me question some of my own reactions and I don't know that I 100% agree with all of it but fuckin excellent regardless

definitely cuts to the heart of the discussion

maureen herman's point about triggers for anger really otm -- that's why i posted about the backlog of rape kits. i'm glad that the backlog came to light, but it took determined reporting, relentless lobbying of state and local politicians, and unmeasurable amounts of emotional stamina to get them tested, finally. then, among other things, some women who had been raped in the early 90s got a call in 2014 that their rapist had -- finally!-- been identified. not only that, but they found over 200 repeat offenders/serial rapists. imagine how much trauma could have been spared. i'm angry that in my lifetime we are still not at a point where the law supports rape victims. i'm super pissed about it. i'm glad it came to light, but i'm super pissed it took so long. here's the interview with terry gross (with a transcript) -- http://www.npr.org/2015/05/19/407766821/reporting-on-rape-kit-backlog-leads-to-new-law-and-arrests-in-ohio

i'm pissed about kim fowley and joan jett, and i'm pissed that this happened to the runaways but more than anything i'm pissed that even if a victim does everything within their power, the power invested in the state to prevent rapists from raping doesn't have their back. that's fundamentally wrong.

booming post

ty