The Less Than Lovable Losers

Last Wednesday, I caught the late showing of the new Runaways movie at the Century Theatres on Clark Street. I was one of six people in the audience. It was a dead night on that end of Clark Street. The parking lot for the cinema was eerily quiet, other than the automated voice periodically declaring that the lot was now fully automated. The restaurants in the area were mostly empty, and even the Borders bookstore across the street, which I swore used to be open until fairly late in the evening, had locked its doors at 9 o’clock.

This lay in stark contrast to the scene just up the road, as the Cubs had played a game that afternoon, and thousands of 20-somethings still packed the bars. I had to dodge the cabs and the revelers spilling onto the streets, slowly making my way towards Diversey Avenue. After parking in the spooky lot, I had time to hoist a pint at the Duke of Perth, which was probably the only place in the area with people inside, like a last outpost of human camaraderie in a scene out of “The Omega Man.” By the time I wound my way up the ramp past the shuttered shops in the mall and had settled into my seat at the cinema, box of Snowcaps in hand, I was fully primed for a two hour voyage into rock ‘n roll nostalgia. It was with surprise and no small glee that I bopped in my seat to the chorus of Nick Gilder’s “Roxy Roller” in the opening scene, as I’ve been trying to convince my friends for years that Gilder is an underrated songsmith (they remain largely unmoved).

One of the themes in “The Runaways” is that rock ’n roll is for social outcasts, a refuge as well as a reason to party, and the first reel of the movie hones in on how Joan Jett and Cherie Currie were a couple of defiant oddballs. In fact, the fate of this movie seems to underscore its theme. By most measurements, “The Runaways” was a bomb, especially considering that it features Kristen Stewart, fresh off the success of the “Twilight” blockbusters, as one of the leads. It’s as if fate has dictated that, even with the Hollywood hype machine behind them, true fame would skip past the collection of damaged hearts portrayed in the film. That afternoon, there were 35,000 fans of the Lovable Losers at Wrigley Field, the poster children for sports futility, and while thousands still crammed the bars on Clark Street, not one of them managed to make it a mile down the road to catch this tale of real losers turned rock ’n roll sirens (I’m assuming that neither the butch couple of thirty-something ladies, the skinny black dude dressed in tight leather pants, nor the corpulent guy and his buddy chomping on a big tub of popcorn were actually Cubs fans capping off their night).

Because it’s O.K. in this society to be a loser, as long as folks understand you. Most people understand trying hard at a sporting event, only to fall short. In fact, most probably relate to the experience. As the popularity of the Cubs demonstrates, it can even build sympathy and help create a fan base. But being a social loser, an outcast, someone who refuses to follow social norms, that’s the kind of “losing” that the drunken masses on Clark Street want nothing to do with. I’m mean, talk about a buzz kill.

I liked “The Runaways,” although I have to admit that I’m biased, because it reminds me of the California of my youth, down to the disco where Rodney Bingenheimer used to spin, although in my case it was a few years further down the road, at the Starwood, and not Rodney’s English Disco. I also liked the music, although it’s tough when the weakest songs in a musical biopic are the ones composed by the group being portrayed in the film. “Cherry Bomb” is a great song, but the rest of the Runaways repertoire were clearly written by a band on training wheels. So the filmmakers choreographed the best moments of their movie to the Stooges: When Cherie and Joan first meet at the English Disco and “Gimme Danger” blares, and during their makeout montage to “I Just Wanna Be Your Dog.” Even Joan Jett’s own “Bad Reputation,” which plays during the closing credits, underscores that she wrote better songs later down the road. In fact, one implication of the film is that the spirit of the Runaways finds its fruition in Joan Jett’s early solo career, and I concur, as I find that first Blackhearts record to be the by far the best thing that anyone related to the Runaways ever made.

I also have an odd confession to make. I had a bit of a crush on Joan Jett when I was young. Actually, that’s not the confession. My confession is much more awkward. I hardly know how to say it, even in print. OK, here goes. Throughout my dating life, there was this tendency for my ex-girlfriends to turn around and swing the other way, so to speak, after they broke up with me. They would all of a sudden discover that they had a hankering for the intimacy of other women. I mean, I understand that this may happen on occasion, but it seemed to be happening way more often than probability tables would otherwise indicate. According to the grapevine, it happened with at least four of my exes. And those are only the ones that I know about.

One of the plot lines of “The Runaways” is that three of the band members, including Joan Jett, also tended to prefer the romantic company of ladies. Right there in the movie theatre, the scales fell off my eyes. I had a crush on Joan Jett, and she was bisexual….. So maybe it’s not all about my ex-girlfriends, or my relationship with them. Maybe it’s about me. I like vaguely androgynous women with a mind of their own. It’s nothing to be ashamed about. It’s just what floats my boat. I prefer Joan Jett to Cherie Currie, “Suicide Girls” over “Playboy”. I like some sass with my ass. It’s actually very American of me. From the flappers to the Gibson Girls, there is a long history of American women being idolized for their independence, their athletic flare, their androgyny. In fact, I think my lust for these women is downright patriotic.

When I left the theatre, I was looking at things in a different light. Of course rock ’n roll is for losers. That’s why it is so defiant, because it is the voice of people who will not accept their allotted place in life. And, while I’ve enjoyed many a Cubs game at the Friendly Confines, of course the guys getting drunk outside Wrigley Field want nothing to do with this movie, or for that matter with anything a bit odd. Most of them are probably business majors or the type of guy who goes on to become a gym teacher and then maybe a public school principal. They are the kind of people whose instinctive response to creativity is to try and contain it within some sort of productive box. Failing that, they try to extinguish it. Failing that, they just ignore you.

And that’s the truth, in this film, in my life, and in the lives of almost everyone that I care about on the planet: We, individually and collectively, are the less than lovable losers, the weird folks that most people ignore. I hail you, one and all.