Joan Jett
Having created herself in the image Suzi Quatro, "the archetypal male impersonator," Joan Jett typifies what rock critics Simon Reynolds and Joy Press call "female maschisma" (244). Jett followed the lead of Quatro to start an all-girl band The Runaways, which in turn sparked her solo career. Before forming the band with producer Kim Fowley, Jett was a hanger-on at Rodney's English Disco, a Sunset Strip center of the glam rock scene. Jett's tomboy aesthetic not only informed generations of female musicians who felt the need to pose as one of the boys but also underscored the ambivalence and asymmetry of cross-gender codes coming out of British glam and American glitter rock.
Bands like the New York Dolls performed in dresses and make-up but were straight identified. As singer Michael des Barres bluntly put it, "Androgyny didn't necessarily b\\\\ that sucked cocks if you were a guy" (Neutron 18). Whereas famous acts like Marc Bolan of T-Rex and David Bowie could flaunt feminine style and flirt with bisexuality, the open gayness of American artists like Jobriath proved fatal. Lisa Fancher, founder of Frontier Records, explains, "[Jobriath] was on the sides of buses, full-page ads in Rolling Stone. But he was just so flamboyantly gay, and rock fans just weren't really digging it, so Jobraith was just wiped off the face of the earth" (Neutron 10). [note: He fell into obscurity, returned to a prostitution, and died of HIV related illness in 1983.]
Lesbianism seemed less tolerable, perhaps in part because there were so few women in glam to begin with. When gossip circulated that members of the Runaways were gay, "Kim [Fowley] got all these pictures of us taken with [male] rock stars and tried to have them published everywhere to dispel those rumors" (Neutron 52). Whereas lead guitarist Lita Ford reports learning that "gay existed" from her band mates and deciding to be ok with it, Fowley apparently went on a homphobic "tirade when Joan Jett was living in his apartment. 'She's eating pussy in my house!'" (Neutron 51-52). But then again, Fowley was famous for being verbally abusive to everyone.
Such mixes of macho and androgynous style, as well as accepting and condemning attitudes to gender and sexuality, seem to have bridged the glam/glitter and punk scenes in the 1970s LA. As the Runaways were dissolvjng, Jett embraced all things punk. Joan Jett’s apartment (located on San Vicente and Sunset) acted as a central hub for young punks like Darby Crash and Pat Smear (then known simply as Paul and George). Her hosting style included her famous "pissicles" -- popsicles made of urine. (Bolles, Mullen, Parfrey 50). She would go on to produce the Germs' 1979 album "G.I." Jett, having seen the Germs live numerous times, felt that she could capture their energy, specifically Darby's, an oxymoronic contained chaos. Overall, she served as a kind of mother/sister/role model figure for a punk LA world that understood itself as a rough society of orphans.
Jett's role as a mother is particularly important in considering ideas of reproduction, family, and queerness. As Nyong'o explains in Do You Want Queer Theory (Or Do You Want the Truth?), reproductive futurity -the promotion of a redemptive, open future- creates an idealistic fantasy in which child becomes adult. We leave it to other queer theorists to decide whether Nyong'o is fundamentally disagreeing with Lee Edelman or if Judith Halberstam's stand stands.
,Joan Jett's relationship with younger punks like the Germs as a producer, mother, and friend ostensibly queers space by allowing child/adult encounters. Rather than outwardly rejecting common notions of family, Jett occupies a space that fuels intergenerational relationships by both rejecting normative adulthood and privileging perversity. As Halberstam explains, "Queer subculture offers us an opportunity to redefine the binary of adolescence and adulthood that structures so many inquiries into subcultures" (161). In such a way, Jett's maternal relationships validate a queer punk subculture, precisely because it allows us to study the punk scene in a more complex lens than youth vs. adult. Defining a subculture beyond the notion of rebellious youth allows a new definition of the "adult" and their reproductive role.
Like the punk scene itself, Jett upholds a sexual ambiguity. She states, “I’m not discussing personally who I’m doing anything with. As far as addressing sexuality, I’m singing to everyone and always have been since the Runaways. I think I’m being pretty blatant. I think anybody who wants to know who I am, all they’ve got to do is listen to my music” (Queens of Noise, 78). In such a way she encourages fans to watch, listen to, and feel the performance and its affective energy. Queer subcultures and Jett transmit rebellious affect (think pissicles) revolting against reproductive futurity. In the Runaways' film nonetheless, Jett is shown exclusively sleeping with women. Perhaps, it is more a viewer's need to have a coherent understanding of her sexuality, than the factuality of the situation- a time of rebellion, not only for youth, but for adult figure like Jett herself.
This page has paths:
- Network H. N. Lukes
