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Hollywood Feminist of the Day: Joan Jett

posted by Women & Hollywood
Tuesday, March 2, 2010 at 4:12pm CST

The women at the Fusion Film Festival at NYU invited me to their screening last week of The Runaways. I’ll talk more about the movie when it opens but I really enjoyed being exposed to a slice of women’s history that I never knew about. My relationship to Joan Jett began in the 80s when she came out with I Love Rock and Roll. Never even knew she was in a breakthrough girl band in the 70s.

Joan attended the screening and talked a little bit about what it was like to have created the first all girl rock band.

Here are some of the bits that Joan shared:

She is very proud of the Runaways and believes they did something important.

The Runaways were more successful in Japan and Europe and she believes that they were popular in Japan because of how women were treated there at that time.

When they got off the plane in Scandinavia they were greeted by thousands of blonde girls sucking on pacifiers but she never knew why.

People were really dismissive of the band in America because they were threatening. She got such hate for trying to make art.

She doesn’t believe much has changed in the last 30 years.

It’s got to be the same in the film business- getting taken seriously. It’s any area you get into. I don’t think it’s just in the music business, it’s pervasive. For some reason people are afraid of powerful women. I don’t really get it.