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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe LOST GIRLS, One famous band. One huge secret. Many lives destroyed.
The horrifying story of the Runaways......Sometimes I am not proud to be a male human. This is one of them.
It was the only time she could be on the water and not have to deal with the catcalls and the teasing, the good-natured gibes that gradually shaded into something harder and meaner. Before sunrise, she was just another surfer, her back to the sand, waiting for the right wave. She liked being the only girl out there.
Tall and slender with bright blue eyes and brown hair down to her shoulders, Jackie could have passed for Mary Tyler Moores daughter. The surfer dudes called her Malibu Barbie. One editor of a surfing magazine struck up a correspondence and sent her letters addressed to Maliboobie. You had better get hot and send some good photos, he wrote to her in black marker. Your competition in photos is getting tough! You should see what some girls are sending in! She could never tell how seriously to take the attention. In a letter to the editor published in June 1974, Jackie admonished one magazine for its skin-deep coverage of female surfers: If theyre so hot, why dont you show them surfing? Some of us chicks have more than just hot bods! Awoo!
http://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/the-lost-girls/
sharp_stick
(14,400 posts)put a lot of people in a good light does it?
seveneyes
(4,631 posts)MineralMan
(146,351 posts)Very ugly stuff. I'm glad I skipped the music biz. Really glad.
seveneyes
(4,631 posts)mikeysnot
(4,758 posts)Sometimes I am ashamed to be human.
EL34x4
(2,003 posts)And I can't find the exact quote but it was either Joan Jett or Cherie Currie who complained that the film exaggerated Kim Fowley's behavior, making him look worse on screen than he really was.
Incidentally, the film also featured the role of bass player "Robin", a fictional character created for the movie because Jackie Fox (Fuchs) refused usage of her name.
As of today, Jett's camp has refused to comment on Fuch's allegations. And Salon has now called Jett out about it.
http://www.salon.com/2015/07/09/the_explosive_runaways_rape_story_will_joan_jett_speak_up_for_her_bandmates_now/
bemildred
(90,061 posts)But I think the drugs did more damage.
EL34x4
(2,003 posts)Having sex with underage girls was par for the course. I can't say they all did it, but a great many did. Men now regarded as "Elder Statesmen of Rock & Roll" would be in prison today for the stuff they got away with during the 1970s. There's a reason Ted Nugent isn't running for public office. Of course, I can't point my finger at Nugent without pointing that same finger at dozens and dozens of other performers, many of whom I grew up listening to and idolizing.
The sexual landscape of the 1970s was very blurry. And, no, the drugs didn't help. Of course, if these allegations are true, even during the blurry sexual landscape of the 70s, there was a clear line at drugging and forcibly raping an underage girl. See Roman Polanski.
zappaman
(20,606 posts)Calling him a "piece of shit" would be kind.
bettyellen
(47,209 posts)what a fucking piece of work.
Solly Mack
(90,802 posts)KR
teach1st
(5,937 posts)For more from her about the band, read this blog:
http://runawaysstories.blogspot.com/
herding cats
(19,569 posts)I know, vaguely, about the band and the artist who came from it.
I don't know what to say. I grew up around people talking about the 70's like they were some sort of real cultural revolution. The more I'm learning, the more it sounds like it was anything but. I don't blame them for their false reality of the era. I think we romanticize the period of our youth as being something we imagined it to be, not what it really was.
eppur_se_muova
(36,317 posts)It all depended on what societal niche you occupied -- as it always has.
closeupready
(29,503 posts)And the Beatles, free love, etc.
Now we have, who, One Direction and Tinder.
Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.
closeupready
(29,503 posts)Particularly if you grew up back then.
rpannier
(24,350 posts)Sad part is/was, he wasn't an outlier
hunter
(38,353 posts)Too many horror stories; gay young men and I.V. drug users dead of AIDS, and now the alcoholic-tobacco-prescription-drug-abusers among us starting to check out.
My parents met working in Hollywood, but they left for more ordinary work.
Two of my siblings tried to get into acting, my sister occasionally playing tough surfer girl bit parts, but they quit Hollywood too.
Much of the entertainment industry is horrible and always has been.
My first major in college was television production and engineering, I was really excited about the new digital television technology, but after two years of that, and a few very sordid Hollywood experiences looking for summer jobs, and the fact there were few, sometimes no women in my classes because the environment was so hostile toward them, that's why I changed my major to biology and never looked back.
ghostsinthemachine
(3,569 posts)Joan Jett, iconic rock star and former member of the all-female band the Runaways, said she was unaware her bandmate was raped by manager Kim Fowley 40 years ago.
Jett spoke out in a Facebook post Friday night, her first public comments since HuffPost reported former bassist Jackie Fuchs' account of being attacked at age of 16. Fuchs said Jett was present during the assault.
Anyone who truly knows me understands that if I was aware of a friend or bandmate being violated, I would not stand by while it happened. Jett, who still performs with the Blackhearts, wrote on Facebook. For a group of young teenagers thrust into '70s rock stardom there were relationships that were bizarre, but I was not aware of this incident. Obviously Jackies story is extremely upsetting and although we havent spoken in decades, I wish her peace and healing.
Fuchs, who played bass for the Runaways from 1975 to 1977 under the name of Jackie Fox, revealed to HuffPosts Jason Cherkis that she was drugged at a New Years Eve party during her time with the band, and was raped by band manager and music industry heavyweight Kim Fowley. The claim was corroborated by several witnesses, including former Runaway lyricist Kari Krome. Fuchs had never spoken publicly about the attack before HuffPosts report, published on Wednesday.
MORE HERE: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/joan-jett-statement-rape_55a08c7be4b0b8145f72dd93?cps=gravity_2428_-2254822634135576523
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)In my late teens I had a fierce crush on Jackie.
Was extremely surprised years later to learn she entered Harvard Law the fall after I graduated.
Fowley was an unspeakable scumbag.
ghostsinthemachine
(3,569 posts)Jackie Fuchs, a former bass player for The Runaways, made waves earlier this month after publicizing the story of her alleged rape by band manager Kim Fowley at a New Years Party on the eve of 1976. After a bigger-than-expected response to her story, she joined HuffPost Live on Thursday to discuss the aftermath of going public.
As described in a piece for HuffPost Highline, Fuchs recalls the harrowing experience of being sexually assaulted at 14, in plain sight of numerous teenagers, with three adult males also present. While Joan Jett has said in a statement that she was "not aware of this incident," collective accounts of the event from others present at the time allege that Jett stood by as her bandmate was violated.
Speaking to HuffPost Live on Thursday, Fuchs refrained from refuting Jett's claim, instead affirming that "the important thing to focus on is that certainly the Joan of today would not stand by and watch a bandmate being assaulted in any way without doing something."
"But at the time of the incident, Joan, like most of the other people in the room, was a teenager," Fuchs continued. "And we all like to think that we are the type of people who would stop an assault in progress, because most of us are good moral people, but even good moral people have a hard time acting when they see an event of bullying or of sexual assault or anything similar. Especially when there are a lot of people around."
Fowley died in January 2015, and while Fuchs mentioned that the two stayed in touch to an extent after her assault, there is a conversation the 55-year-old wishes they'd had.
MORE: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/the-conversation-jackie-fuchs-wishes-shed-had-with-her-alleged-rapist_55b144e0e4b0a9b948541dc0?