Is
it just me, or are we on a huge 1980s nostalgia kick this decade?
Not
that there's anything really wrong with that.
The 1980s defined my childhood, and there were a lot of fun things about
that decade that forever shaped who I am as a person.
I
mean, one has to take a look at the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles"
reboot, the "Transformers" reboot, and the "Smurfs" reboot
to really understand that the 1980s are back in full force.
There's
even talk of a "Jem and the Holograms" live action movie that is set
to air at the end of the year.
Yeah,
that's right. Jem and the
Holograms. That girl group inspired by
a doll line that sang a whole bunch of cotton candy fluff songs that were
truly, truly, truly outrageous and made a catchphrase out of "Showtime, Synergy".
Yeah,
I don't really know how that's going to work either.
Now,
here's a confession. I don't really
remember watching Jem when it first came out.
But I've done an entry on the show, and had to do some research and
found that the cartoon's not that bad.
Mind you, the show is marketed towards a female audience, but the music
lover in me secretly kind of likes a couple of the songs played on the cartoon.
(Though,
admittedly, I think that if I were a cartoon character in 1985 - the same year
the cartoon was first screened - I'd probably be a Misfits fan. Nothing against the Holograms...just that
the Misfits had better sounding songs.)
Anyway,
I suppose it makes sense to do a Jem movie.
The movie is set to come out right around the 30th anniversary of the
cartoon series, so the timing is perfect.
I just have to wonder how they plan to make it happen in a 2015
world? I mean, let's face it, the
computer that Jerrica Benton used to create Jem was the size of a small
transport! In 2015, she may have USB
drives attached onto her earrings for all we know!
One
thing that I am sure will remain the same though is the original story of
Jem. When Jerrica Benton's father dies,
he leaves her part ownership of Starlight Music, and full ownership of the Starlight
House For Foster Girls. Jerrica's
sister Kimber, and two former Starlight Girls - Aja and Shana - help Jerrica
raise the twelve young orphan girls who call Starlight House home. Unfortunately, the other half of the record
company was left to the slimy Eric Raymond, who plans to use the company
profits to finance the promotion of his new band, The Misfits.
And
that doesn't suit well with Jerrica.
When her father ran Starlight Music, all of the profits made by the
record company went towards funding Starlight House. And with Eric threatening to cut off the cash flow to the
Starlight Girls, Jerrica decides to put her cards on the table. Receiving a final gift from her father of
Synergy, red star earrings, rock star fashions, musical instruments, and a cool
car, Jerrica decides to become a pink haired rock goddess named Jem, and
Kimber, Aja, and Shana become her Holograms.
(Now,
throughout the course of the show, only a handful of people discover that Jem
and Jerrica are the same person - and considering that Kimber is Jerrica's
sister and that Jem and Jerrica were rarely in the same room together, how
could the world be so incredibly stupid?)
Anyway,
Jem and the Holograms managed to get full control of Starlight Music, and when
Starlight House burned down, they won a Battle of the Bands contest against The
Misfits, and won a new mansion for the girls to live in.
But
don't think that it was easy to balance making hit records and taking care of
twelve orphaned girls. Certainly each
of the Starlight Girls provided their own set of hassles for Jerrica, Kimber,
Aja, and Shana. So, I thought that I
would use this space to talk about a few of the memorable ones.
I
suppose of the of the first Starlight Girls that we meet in the series is Ashley. Ashley is basically your
stereotypical bratty girl in that she doesn't like to take orders from anybody,
and she wants to be her own person. And
she's also introduced as being a bit of a "take what may or may not be
rightfully hers" personality when she swipes money from the house's
"Honor Jar". She's forced to
pay back thirty dollars - which she gets from The Misfits - and she decides
that The Misfits are going to be her real role models. Aside from Stormer who treats Ashley with
respect, the rest of the Misfits only want to use her to destroy Jem and the
Holograms, and eventually Ashley sees that Jerrica has had her back all along.
It's
actually quite amazing to see the complete turnaround that Ashley made in just
the course of a couple of episodes. She
went from being a bad girl wannabe to a regular Pollyanna. It would almost be believable if the change
wasn't so sudden. All in all, Ashley
would prove to be a leader in Starlight Mansion and served as a bit of a
caretaker for the other girls.
Deirdre was also another one of the older girls, and she
could be considered a role model as well, even though she had a really
sensitive personality. Her personality
was so sensitive that she when she felt that Jerrica and Jem were brushing her
off, she decided to run away from Starlight Mansion along with two other
Starlight Girls. Fortunately, Deirdre
found out that life on the streets wasn't nearly as much fun as she thought it
would be, and she returned home in time to watch a benefit concert that Jem and
the Holograms were throwing in support of a home for teenage runaways.
Nice
tie in, don't you think?
Krissie was another Starlight Girl that the show focused
on. She was one of the girls who ran
away with Deirdre, but she did it to keep an eye on them, showing that she may
very well be the most mature Starlight Girl of all. Mind you, her maturity has taken a backseat to her ability to
have common sense. She's almost fallen
off of high places twice. And she
certainly didn't take too kindly to the fact that a boy named Domenic Lerner
was making fun of her and bossing her around.
They later became friends though after she promised to teach him how to
swim.
And
then there's Ba Nee. Ba Nee was
Jerrica's favourite Starlight Girl, and she basically did everything for her.
Unfortunately,
Ba Nee is probably the Starlight Girl who has caused the most stress.
I
mean, when your eyesight is failing, and Jem and the Holograms work hard to
make a movie so that the profits could help fund an operation to save her
sight, how does Ba Nee thank her? By
running away from home with Deirdre and Krissie! Um, yeah...thanks for saving my sight, but I hate living here,
and so I must leave. What the hell, Ba
Nee?
Don't
even get started on the whole "my father is alive and he has red hair, and
therefore every man who has red hair must be my dad". This was Ba Nee's whole plot during the
whole series. And what did searching
for her father get her? Well, she
almost got eaten by a bear, and she got kidnapped by a man who claimed to be
her father, but was actually only claiming to be so he could have access to
Jem's money. And of course, Jerrica had
to endure Ba Nee's crying about how she wanted a father, regardless of how good
Jerrica and the rest of the Holograms treated her.
Yeah,
Ba Nee was just...yeah. At least she
tried to help Roxy from the Misfits learn how to read. So, she's not completely a loss.
At
least from what I hear, she did reunite with her father and the series
concluded with Ba Nee leaving Starlight Mansion for good - probably causing Jem
and the Holograms to breathe a sigh of relief...ahem...feel sad that she was
leaving, but happy that she was with family.
Anyway,
those were just four of the Starlight Girls.
Any fans of Jem...can you name the other eight? And what were some of your favourite
memories?
I might be wrong but according to a later ep the oldest starlight girl after Aja and Shana is name Lela (she moved in when Kimber was little before their mother died)
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