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THE RUNAWAYS

What You Need To Know:

THE RUNAWAYS is an abhorrent exploitation movie about the first underage all-girl rock and roll band, Joan Jett and the Runaways. Cherie Currie and Joan Jett are two young teenage girls whose parents have abandoned them. In 1975, Joan approaches a rock band manager, Kim Fowley, about forming the first girls rock band. He recruits Cherie and the other band members and tells them all that rock and roll is all about sex, violence, and revolt. He orders them to blatantly sexually tease the audience. The evil Kim breaks down their inhibitions. He sends them on the road and builds them into a major rock and roll force. Meanwhile, he keeps their money, plying them with drugs and alcohol.

THE RUNAWAYS is an angry feminist tract filled with strong foul language, drug use, cocaine use, alcohol use, and constant sex and sexual innuendo, including much lesbian content. It all becomes very tedious, leaving the last third of the movie flatter than a pancake. That is not to say there aren’t moments of extreme emotional exploitation, but the director pours on so many of these moments until they just become boring.

Content:

(HHH, FeFeFe, HoHoHo, LLL, VV, SSS, NN, AAA, DDD, MMM) Extremely humanist, anti-male, feminist worldview with very strong homosexual content about young teenage girls who are forged into a band to sexually attack the rock and roll male fan and who are called jailbait, with no religious overtones; 93 obscenities, one profanities, and several obscene gestures, plus fans throw dog feces at singers and girl pees on guitar; angry fans throw rocks and bottles at singers, minor fights between fans and singers, threats of violence; very strong, obscene sexual content includes constant sexual innuendo with minor underage girls, one vivid depicted sex scene, several clothed sex scenes, several lesbian sex scenes mostly kissing, girl has her first period in opening scene, opening scene shows boy fingering girl wearing no panties, prolonged scene of girl trying to abuse herself in shower, lots of very salacious sexual dancing, and lots of crude references to oral sex; lower female nudity at a distance during sex scene, rear female nudity, brief upper female nudity as girl thrown on bed, lots of provocative clothing includes bras and underwear and underwear used as costumes, and nude swimming but nothing shown; excessive drunken alcohol use; excessive drug use including smoking marijuana, sniffing glue, smoking cigarettes, snorting cocaine; and, lying, absent parents, evil manager, teenage rebellion, and manipulation.

More Detail:

THE RUNAWAYS is an abhorrent exploitation movie about the first underage all-girl rock and roll band, Joan Jett and the Runaways.

The movie opens with Marie and Cherie Currie running to the bathroom as one of them starts to bleed from her first period. When they get into the car to drive off, Marie does not have underwear and her boyfriend physically fondles her. The mother is leaving home to live in Indonesia with her boyfriend. Their father is an alcoholic who left home.

Cut to Joan Jett, whose parents have also abandoned her. She approaches a rock band manager, Kim Fowley, in 1975 about forming the first girls rock band. He finds Cherie and the other band members and tells them all that rock and roll is all about sex, violence, and revolt. Their job is to be so sexually aggressive that the repressed young nerds who watch rock and roll will come to their concerts and buy their records. Everything is about blatantly sexually teasing the audience.

The evil Kim breaks down all of their inhibitions. He sends them on the road and builds them into a major rock and roll force. Meanwhile, he keeps their money, plying them with drugs and alcohol.

Cherie becomes a drug addict, and the end of the movie tells viewers that it took her years to recover, and she’s now counsels drug-abusing teenagers. Joan Jett becomes a lesbian, and there are several lesbian scenes between her, Cheri and the other band members.

THE RUNAWAYS is filled with foul language, especially the “f” word, drug use, cocaine use, alcohol use, and constant sex and sexual innuendo. Kim tells them they are a male sex fantasy. In doing so, he has literally turned these girls into exactly what Dr. Judith Reisman predicts of our sexualized culture, that is, mere images of the male sex drive. What’s worse is that they are underage, undeveloped and could be little boys or little girls. This is the ultimate perversion. Topping off this sexualization of children is some gross scatology, when Kim has young boys throw dog feces and other stuff at the girls to help them get used to rowdy, despicable punk rock fans.

All of this becomes very dull and tedious, leaving the last third of the movie flatter than a pancake. That is not to say there aren’t moments of extreme erotic exploitation, but the director pours on so many of these moments that they just become boring.

This movie is trying to pose itself as an art movie, an historical insight into Joan Jett and The Runaways. But, that story could have been told in a much more entertaining manner, with none of the offensive elements, and shown on The History Channel. The historical, artistic pretensions of this movie are merely a sham to hide from the most gullible the horrible exploitive nature of this awful jailbait fantasy.

Now more than ever we’re bombarded by darkness in media, movies, and TV. Movieguide® has fought back for almost 40 years, working within Hollywood to propel uplifting and positive content. We’re proud to say we’ve collaborated with some of the top industry players to influence and redeem entertainment for Jesus. Still, the most influential person in Hollywood is you. The viewer.

What you listen to, watch, and read has power. Movieguide® wants to give you the resources to empower the good and the beautiful. But we can’t do it alone. We need your support.

You can make a difference with as little as $7. It takes only a moment. If you can, consider supporting our ministry with a monthly gift. Thank you.

Movieguide® is a 501c3 and all donations are tax deductible.


Now more than ever we’re bombarded by darkness in media, movies, and TV. Movieguide® has fought back for almost 40 years, working within Hollywood to propel uplifting and positive content. We’re proud to say we’ve collaborated with some of the top industry players to influence and redeem entertainment for Jesus. Still, the most influential person in Hollywood is you. The viewer.

What you listen to, watch, and read has power. Movieguide® wants to give you the resources to empower the good and the beautiful. But we can’t do it alone. We need your support.

You can make a difference with as little as $7. It takes only a moment. If you can, consider supporting our ministry with a monthly gift. Thank you.

Movieguide® is a 501c3 and all donations are tax deductible.