*Editor’s note: Underwire’s own Rachel Edidin managed to go her entire childhood without experiencing most of the cultural touchstones of the ’80s and ’90s—so she’s going back to familiarize herself with them, one at a time. This is Nostalgia 101.
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Halfway into the five-part introduction to Jem and the Holograms, I realize I'm actually pretty glad I'm watching this for the first time as an adult, because its frenetic weirdo awesomeness would have been totally wasted on me as a kid. Kid-Rachel did not do well with things that didn't make some kind of logical sense; Adult-Rachel has learned to enjoy the insanity in its own right.
And even for a Saturday morning cartoon from the mid-1980s, Jem gets impressively insane. There's an episode where Jem races her rival in the Indy 500, and wins. There's a time machine, because, sure, why the hell not?
This show is ridiculous.
I love it.
This is the second installment of Nostalgia 101, a series where I revisit the shows, movies, and other media I missed as a kid. Last time, I ended up on the floor playing with a friend's vintage Transformers. This week, inspired by the announcement of an upcoming live-action movie, I'm getting truly outrageous with the glam girl-group cartoon Jem and the Holograms.
My tour guide is writer Chris Sims, who's also the biggest Jem fan I know. Like me, Chris first encountered Jem and the Holograms as an adult, when he reviewed the then-new DVDs. Since then, he's become a die-hard Jem evangelist, singing the show's praises up and down the Internet.
We sack out on the couch in a friend's apartment and marathon the five-part opening story. That's the first thing to know about Jem: It is all about the serialized stories. Sure, there are a lot of one-offs, but two- and three-episode storylines aren't uncommon.
If you're new to Jem and the Holograms like I was, here's the setup: Jerrica Benton's dad dies, leaving Starlight Music to Jerrica and his creepy business partner Eric Raymond—essentially Obadiah Stane from Iron Man, minus the crinkly eyed Jeff Bridges charm. Starlight has traditionally provided funding for the Starlight House, a group home for girls in foster care, but Eric will have none of this. Not only that, but he's signed a new group—the Misfits—to Starlight, and he's planning to get them publicity by staging a bogus battle of the bands, setting up the worst groups he can find to be trounced by the actually-pretty-talented Misfits. Jerrica is aghast at this plan, and at the Misfits themselves, but with Eric as a full partner, her hands are tied.
Meanwhile, Jerrica gets a mysterious package in the mail: a pair of earrings and a note telling her to come out to the decrepit Starlight Drive-In, where she discovers the rest of her father's legacy: A big, futuristic computer with an aerobicswear-sportin' AI named Synergy; a bunch of musical instruments; a fancy car; and a whole, whole lot of very glitzy women's clothing, because Papa Benton was apparently a progressive sort of fellow.
Jerrica, her sister Kimber, and their gal pals Aja and Shana decide to use this gear to start their own rival rock band—fronted by Jerrica, holographically disguised as Jem—and upset the Misfits' victory; which eventually nets them a mansion, a movie deal, full ownership of Starlight Records, and three seasons of serialized adventures.
By the end of the opening story, I'm pretty into the show—but I'm even more into the Misfits. Like a lot of cartoon villains of their era Misfits were the indirect beneficiaries of the rigid policies of Broadcast Standards and Practices. Along with popularizing LASER guns, BS&P departments of the '80s did their best to keep cartoon heroes squeaky clean and unflaggingly virtuous, which meant that the villains were the only characters who actually got texture, personalities, and arcs.
Anyway, that's the technical justification. The truth is that the Misfits are just way, way cooler than the Holograms. Their music is significantly better—probably because they're actual musicians, not just a bunch of people who decided to form a band out of what amounts to Mean Girls snobbery. The Holograms have a convertible? How quaint. These righteous bitches make their first appearance riding electric-guitar-shaped motorcycles. While the Holograms go on world tours and stage massive benefit concerts, the Misfits get in bar fights.
If Jem and the Holograms is starting to sound like a girl-gang flick, it's really not that far off. It's got the traditional girl-gang power combo of big hair, themed rivalry, and a whole lot of lesbian subtext.
And don't get me wrong: Even the Holograms are pretty hardcore. The theme song may offer fashion and fame, but it also promises adventure and excitement, and Jem delivers. The Holograms rock amazing outfits and play stadium shows for adoring fans—and on the way, build and race Formula One cars, rescue the president from supervillains, find mythical cities in the Himalayas, and escape from an active volcano. As role models go, kids of any gender could do worse.
I went into Jem pretty skeptical, but at this point, I'm sold—Jem and the Holograms may not be the greatest show I've ever watched, but it's an awful lot of fun. Now, all that's left is to cross my fingers that the live-action movie borrows a page from the stealth-brilliant satire Josie and the Pussycats and fully embraces the wonderful weirdness of its source.
