Selective Memory with Joan Jett and The Blackhearts

Punk rock legend, Joan Jett. She’s still alive.

You know, like how the Rolling Stones are still alive. Just barely. And not all of her has to be completely present to pull a crowd.

We can understand her enduring appeal. We need the nostalgia of old revolutionaries. Denizens of youthful rebellion who aren’t associated with any kind of horrific race, gender or sexual identity-based oppression.

In times wherein it’s impossible to fight ‘the man’, because the man is several different factions of vastly different agendas and sometimes the man is a woman named Kayleigh, the sun, the NRA or the concept of uncorrupt collectivism in a deeply entrenched capitalist society, it’s nice to reminisce about a time when youthful rebellion was far more simplistic and far less anaesthetised by a generation of ideological non-participatory cynicism.

Still, one cannot deny that a 60-year-old woman singing to her daddy and her mum about how she’s going to grab street boys till they’re sore is slightly unsettling. But, then, perhaps that’s a matter of personal opinion. You can decide for yourself via an intimate virtual performance by Joan Jett and The Blackhearts set to occur this week.

If nothing more, an event such as this a sign of the times; the times in which our ever-growing ageing population is saddling an already ailing society with a humpback, crippling arthritis and a dementia-riddled nostalgia lens through which the best of us perceive Joan Jett’s Bad Reputation, the worst of us perceive a pure glowing aura around the Reagans and none of us, no matter our moral compass or nationality, remember Malcolm Fraser.

 

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