Week Three: The Brilliance of Mr. Kim Fowley

                By far the most interesting topic from this week was the image of women in heavy metal and rock and roll.  It is a safe assumption that metal is generally a masculine type of music, with men being the most prevalent image representing it.  It is a genre that is generally hard and aggressive in nature, something that we don’t usually associate with women, but with young males. Thus, bands like the Runaways are extremely interesting to study because they take that image upon themselves, yet they are all young females.

            In the 70’s, we can certainly credit Mr. Kim Fowley as the first person to gift the world with the idea of women in rock and roll. Not only do we see that Waksman credits Fowley with this idea that “Girls who can bring hysteria, magic, beauty, and teen authority to the stage,” (Waksman 31), but in the film “The Runaways” we certainly see the same idea.  Whilst it is a story that is totally blown up and skewed by Hollywood, it is quite promising in developing the relationship between Fowley and the band, as well as developing the ideas and values that The Runaways possessed. For instance, it is clear that Fowley felt that putting teenage girls up on stage in lingerie, as is quite true with the young Cherie Curry, would be a big publicity stunt as well as adding “beauty” as an element to rock and roll. This idea blows my mind as to how it worked because when I think rock and roll, I don’t typically think beauty and sexiness as standing as an overwhelming criterion.  Yet, the band still remains as one of my favorites to listen to today, however it is safe to say that I like them for their sound, and not so much their looks.

            Fowley was certainly on to something with the idea of giving power to teenagers on stage at that time though, because the music genre is certainly for the young and not the old. The older generations are people whom accept their fate and their disenchanted society by following the flow and the rules of every day. The youth is far more likely to rebel and look for their own individualism than the older, thus Fowley knew exactly what he was doing in helping create an all teenage band in that sense. It was a brilliant idea in my opinion.