Are There Lesbians? Yes

What Happens?
The Runaways follows Joan Jett (Kristen Stewart) and Cherie Currie (Dakota Fanning) through the rise and fall of the all-girl rock band by the same name.

The Verdict:
In order to be respectful to the real people this movie is about I’m going to preface with a quote from Joan Jett (which I found on Wikipedia). “”I’m not saying no, I’m not saying yes, I’m saying believe what you want. Assume away—go ahead.“ That being said, the movie does paint Joan Jett and Cherie Currie as having a level of romantic/sexual involvement so I’m mostly going off that to defend the statement that there are lesbians in this movie. On top of this, much of the characterisation has been fictionalised for the sake of drama and while many of the events are certainly true, there has been much liberty taken with the source text (Cherie Currie’s Neon Angel: A Memoir of a Runaway which I am now determined to track down).

This was my second attempt at watching The Runaways and I’m not entirely sure why I stopped watching the first time, but this time at least I didn’t even mean to watch it all the way through – I just wanted to check if it was going to play on my laptop as it wasn’t playing on my TV and then I just kept watching. I suppose that’s a level of recommendation right there.

The story as a whole is easy to follow,  however I did find some of the smaller events a little confusing, however that may have been a problem with the sound which wouldn’t get very loud and was made worse by the fact I could barely hear things because of my cold. I kept waiting for their manager to screw them over, and while he kinda did in the long run, there wasn’t anything on the level that I was anticipating. It’s a good expectation to not have met if I’m perfectly honest.

The Runaways is a great depiction of the sex and drugs culture of the rock and roll movement and shows the impact of becoming incredibly famous at a young age before losing it all just as fast. One thing I wasn’t sure about however wa show this was all presented to the viewer. There was no judgement call made which in and of itself isn’t an issue, it’s only that in  a greater context it might have been used to create more feeling for the characters. As a result I was left unsure who I was supposed to empathise with and while I suspect the film was trying to gain sympathy for Cherie Currie – daughter of an alcoholic and clearly possessing an addictive personality herself – but if i’m honest she was still rather annoying towards the end. But then I guess that made her more human and, of course, is influenced by the characteristics of the actual person being depicted.

At the end of it all, The Runaways leaves me inspired to start an angry, all girl rock group who sing songs about anarchy and how much men suck. Sign ups start Thursday.

***EDIT***
(Because I got yelled at)

Notes from The GF: “i cant believe you did a whole review of the runaways without once mentioning how hot kristen stewart is in leather pants with a mullet”