Biography is a tricky thing. There are facts and then there is narrative. In film, especially, fact-based ones are rarely accurate. And, over the years, we've learned to appreciate that, for example, Diana Ross captures the spirit of Billie Holiday even if the writers failed to capture Billie in the screenplay for LADY SINGS THE BLUES.*
But while we might forgive a feature film for taking liberties, we're less forgiving about documentaries. Meaning? Cary Grant can play Cole Porter as a proud, heterosexual man in NIGHT AND DAY but when PBS' AMERICAN MASTERS series offers YOU'RE THE TOP: THE COLE PORTER STORY we damn well expect to hear the truth (Cole was gay).
Sometimes biographies tell the truth, sometimes they get most of it right, sometimes they're just a horrible lie. Sometimes they mix it all together.
Saturday, LIFETIME served up two helpings of Olivia Newton-John. The first was BIOGRAPHY: OLIVIA NEWTON-JOHN (a documentary) the second was OLIVIA NEWTON-JOHN: HOPELESSLY DEVOTED TO YOU which is a film with Delta Goodrem playing Olivia.
Olivia Newton-John is a singer who placed a top forty hit each year for twelve consecutive years -- a point Casey Kasem often made on his AMERICAN TOP FORTY radio program. The record would stand until Madonna broke it with her string of consecutive top forty hits from 1989 to 2003**. 27 top forty hits in all with five hitting number one. She had 13 US country top forty hits. And she hit the US Adult Contemporary Charts top forty 34 times. Her hits include "I Honestly Love You," "Have You Ever Been Mellow," "Physical," "Make A Move On Me," "Please, Mister, Please," "A Little More Love," "Deeper Than The Night" and "Heart Attack."
Her hits also include "Hopelessly Devoted To You," "Summer Nights," "You're The One That I Want," "Magic," "Xanadu," "Suddenly," "Twist of Fate," "Livin' In Desperate Times" and "Take A Chance" -- all of those hits are from the three films she starred in: GREASE, XANADU and TWO OF A KIND. While GREASE was a blockbuster upon release and has gone on to become a film classic, the other two did not fare as well. Olivia Newton-John is a singer who sometimes acts.
Which is why the documentary was so frustrating. We think the focus was off as it rushed to emphasize Olivia's films (these three plus a supporting role in SORDID LIVES as well as the TV film A CHRISTMAS ROMANCE). As a film actress, she has one hit and then two Razzie nominations for Worst Actress (for XANADU and TWO OF A KIND)***. In the movie, Goodrem's Olivia reads a review which opens, "XANADU is the worst film ever made." Again, she's a singer. But the documentary wasn't even interested in chronicling her hits or how they came about.
In the film, Olivia's biggest hit is noted. "Physical" spent ten weeks at number one on the US top forty, went on to become the number one hit of 1982 and the number one hit of the 80s. In the film, they cover Olivia's hesitation to record it. They have her being told, "Tina Turner turned it down." and that "Rod Stewart" did as well, "actually, that's who the guys wrote it for." They have her expressing her doubts about the image the song would portray. They even feature her recording the video for the song and then performing it live. That's so much more than the documentary offered on "Physical" or, for that matter, any of the songs she recorded.
Neither the documentary nor the film makes clear that Olivia's friend and early singing partner Pat Carroll went on to marry Olivia's producer and frequent songwriter John Farrar. The film does have a moment where Olivia and and Carroll note Pat's new married name but there's no real attempt to explain who John Farrar is or what work he did with Olivia Newton-John.
It's probably better to watch the documentary first (though LIFETIME elected to air it after the movie on Saturday). That way, you'll understand what's happening. For example, the film has a scene of Olivia after she records her first single where she's then with her mother inside a dwelling looking at a review. Where are they? Back in Australia? No. Still in London. As the biography explains, though the movie doesn't, Olivia's mother accompanied her to London. Other factual problems? The film has Olivia as a blond long before she leaves Australia (she wasn't a blond then).
In fairness, the film has positives. This includes Delta Goodrem's performance. At times, in London, the movie will cut to a different scene by starting it as though it's filmed with a hand held camera and this actually is often more interesting than the full screen method used throughout most of the film. We also praise the acting of Richard Brancatisano as Matt Lattanzi, Lucy Velik as Helen Reddy and Kate Jenkinso as Pat Carroll Farrar.
In real life, Olivia's daughter Chloe is very unhappy that the film was made. It's never easy to see your own life onscreen -- even if they get it accurate. However, we think she should be able to find comfort in the fact that Goodrem and Brancastisano have real chemistry together and her parents' relationship is the strongest point of the film.
Though each has shortcomings, paired together -- as LIFETIME did on Saturday -- they work to portray a larger truth and picture of Olivia Newton-John.
There are no truths to be found in the so-called documentary BAD REPUTATION. Watching it (you can rent on AMAZON, HULU subscribers can watch it for free), it's hard to tell who's a bigger liar: Joan Jett, director Kevin Kerslake or writer Joel Marcus.
At one point, the film talks about how the little nothing -- that's what she was, though the so-called 'documentary' pretends otherwise -- was trying to interest labels with a five song submission tape. The songs were "I Love Rock 'N' Roll," "Crimson and Clover," "Do You Wanna Touch Me," "You Don't Own Me" and "Bad Reputation." Joan marvels to the camera that it was turned down, "These people heard five songs, four of which were top twenty hits."
Lie. Only three were top twenty hits ("I Love Rock 'N Roll," the Tommy James and the Shondell's cover "Crimson and Clover" and the barely scraped the top twenty "Do You Wanna Touch Me").
Everything about Joan is a lie. Lately, she's a feminist but when she had real power (briefly in 1982) and for years after, she wouldn't use the term. Only long after her brief career as a charting artist ended did she begin using the term. And what kind of a feminist hangs out with Iggy Pop anyway? He brags about statutory rape, writes songs about it (such as "Look Away" where he sings, "I slept with Sable when she was thirteen" about Sable Starr). What kind of a feminist hangs out with Iggy Pop?
She's the woman who had an affair with Cherrie Curry when they were both in The Runaways -- a minor punk band of the seventies that was rightly ridiculed because they dressed like "pud teasers." They let a man mold them (Kim Fowley) and were trying to be pin ups. If you use sex to advance your career, fine, just don't lie about it and whine, years later, about how you weren't taken seriously. And while they were letting Kim Fowley pimp them out, Cheryl Ladd, then starring in CHARLIE'S ANGELS, noted that it was okay to be sexy but she wasn't going to be a sex object so don't play like people didn't understand the difference 'all those years ago.'
Listening to Billie Joe Armstrong and Kathleen Hanna, who don't know s**t, blather on about the importance of Joan Jett goes to how good of a liar Joan is. She's hyped herself for so long that what she actually is has no resemblance at all to how the uninformed actually see her. Kathleen, for example, is blown away that, in 1982, Joan covered "Crimson & Clover" and didn't change the gender. Here's a shocker for you, Kathleen, in 1980, Carole King covered the hit she and Gerry Goffin wrote, "Hey Girl," and didn't change it to "Hey Boy." If Kathleen wants to be even more shocked, she might try listening to Cher's top ten hit from 1972 "The Way Of Love" or her 1967 top ten hit "You Better Sit Down Kids." Kathleen, even Kurt Cobain covered Cher ("Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves") so maybe you should be a little more aware of musical history.
Joan? She had three top ten hits her entire career. "Well, she was a rock artist." Want to go to the US rock chart then? She had two top ten hits her entire career.
She's nothing. She didn't write "I Love Rock 'N' Roll" and,
despite lying to NPR ("With the
help of Laguna, Jett formed another band, The Blackhearts. In 1982, the
band recorded a cover of the Arrows' song "
I Love Rock 'n' Roll" which catapulted to the top of the charts. That year, the song
peaked at No. 1 on
the Billboard Hot 100 and stayed there for seven weeks. And yet, the
band still couldn't get a record deal."), the hit was made by Neil Bogart and his record label -- as Bogart had made hits for Donna Summer, Cher and so many others.
Joan's lies are so complex, they're practically cinematic which makes it all the stranger that BAD REPUTATION sidesteps them. How often do you get a chance to tell a rock and roll ALL ABOUT EVE after all? Joan Jett had a sexual crush on Suzi Quatro and, after failing to get it on with Suzi, stole Suzi's act and brought it back to the US. Suzi was a UK artist who had 8 top twenty hits there -- including two number one hits. By all accounts from people at the time, Joan basically stalked Suzi Quatro. As late as 1987, she was admitting to THE WASHINGTON POST that Suzi was a huge influence ("And I thought, if she can do it, I can do it. And then I saw her a few times and that's where I got the idea for The Runaways"). So how do you make a film about Joan Jett without even mentioning Suzi?
The same way you do a so-called 'documentary' about her without noting that her career was born in the 80s and also died there.
More to the point, if you don't buy into the lie, that Joan Jett, in 1982, broke the ground and women in rock followed through the path she blazed, you don't have a documentary.
She's a copy-cat performer without any original ideas. Even her so-called unique eye make up look is just a steal from Cher's 60s folk-rock solo look.
Joan didn't break down any walls. Even before The Runaways, there were the Wilson sisters. No, not Carnie and Wendy. They come later. We mean Ann and Nancy Wilson. Heart. Before The Runaways recorded their first album, Heart had already released DREAMBOAT ANNIE with the rock classics "Magic Man" and "Crazy On You." In addition, Fleetwood Mac had already recorded "Rhiannon" (the song Stevie Nicks wrote and sang lead on -- and the Mac had two women in the group: Stevie and Christine).
Maybe, like nut case Iggy Pop, you want to disown Joni Mitchell. Even if you do, other women still predate Joan Jett. There's Tina Turner, for example, who not only played the Acid Queen before Joan ever recorded one note, but Tina also hit with "Come Together," "Honky Tonk Women" and other rock songs. There's a reason she's the Queen of Rock. And it takes a lot of racism on the part of Joan Jett, director Kevin Kerslake and writer Joel Marcus to pretend otherwise.
It's an interesting world that writes out Tina or Etta James or Grace Slick or Michelle Phillips or Cass Elliot or Ruth Brown or Cher or Carole King or Odetta or Ronnie Gilbert or Janis Ian or Buffy Sainte-Marie or Laura Nyro or the Pleasure Seekers (Suzi Quatro's first band) or Judy Henske or Wanda Jackson or Goldie and the Gingerbreads or Carolyn Hester or Bonnie Raitt or Janis Joplin or Fanny or Jean Ritchie or Joy of Cooking (2 female members: pianist Toni Brown and guitarist Terry Garthwaite) or Moe Tucker or Hedy West or The Go-Gos (who hite number one on the album charts a year before Joan Jett hit with "I Love Rock 'N' Roll") or Chrissie Hynde (whose group Pretenders also hit the charts before Joan Jett) or Tina Weymouth or Sister Rosetta Tharpe or Patti Smith or . . .
Patti Smith. That's the interesting thing about the documentary, if you think about it while you watch. Is Joan trying to sound like Patti? Joan speaks to the camera in the documentary. It's a voice some may think it authentic. If they do, you have to wonder if they fell asleep during the documentary. In the film, interview clip after interview clip -- with The Runaways and solo -- reveal a different speaking voice for Joan. Yes, the years have deepened her voice. But we're talking about her pronunciation and her accent. She's so of the Bowery these days that she's about as real as Madonna's British accent.
Joan, and the documentary, want you to know she's the first woman anyone ever threw something at while the woman performed onstage. Too bad for them both, LIFETIME's Olivia documentary has Olivia discussing things being thrown at her when she and three female friends performed in their first group.
If Joan were honest, she'd admit that she's basically a flash in the pan like Falco and so many other 80s artists. She never really carved out a charting career. She's managed to eek out a living via performing which is good because she didn't write "I Love Rock 'N' Roll" so she gets no songwriter or publishing royalties off that hit. She didn't write her other top five hit -- Tommy James and Pete Lucia Jr. wrote "Crimson and Clover." It's not just that she copped everything she has as a singer from Suzi Quatro or that she borrows the 60s garage band sound. Madonna, after all, copied everyone. But Madonna managed to reassemble all of it into something unique and new. Joan Jett really is Suzi's Leather Tuscadaro from the sitcom HAPPY DAYS. She's a joke. We all are aware, aren't we, that while Joan's strumming on songs, up until 1994, the actual guitar work is being done by Ricky Byrd, the Blackhearts' lead guitarist?****
Lots of jokes get away with lying about themselves.
But most of them don't erase the work of women to do so. That's what Joan Jett and the film BAD REPUTATION do -- and there's nothing feminist about that. FEMINIST THEORISTS: THREE CENTURIES OF KEY WOMEN THINKERS ends with Dale Spender exploring how men steal and erase the work of women. Watching BAD REPUTATION, we realize that they frequently do this with the willing help and active support of women. Again, there's nothing feminist about Joan Jett's actions.
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* Suzanne de Passe, Chris Clark and Terence McCloy wrote the screenplay for LADY SINGS THE BLUES -- that's an important detail (and they were nominated for an Academy Award) but one that makes an already complex sentence even more unwieldy.
** The record was actually held by Diana Ross who sang lead on at least one top forty hit from 1964 through 1977 -- 13 years.
*** Madonna 'bested' Olivia here as well. While Olivia was only nominated (twice) for a Razzie for Worst Actress, Madonna's actually taken home the trophy -- five times -- for SHANGHAI SURPRISE, WHO'S THAT GIRL, BODY OF EVIDENCE, THE NEXT BEST THING and SWEPT AWAY.
**** Joan Jett does not become lead guitarist of the Blackhearts after Ricky Byrd leaves, she just keeps hiring men to be the lead guitarist.
