Star Light, Star Bright:
The shooting star known as Jem
By Bethany M. Sefchick
She was, and still is to some, truly outrageous. She represented the height of
'80s Glam rock and punk roots, to those who really looked. Yet, she was watered
down enough to be acceptable as a child's toy. She was Jem, the pink haired rock
star by night and the blonde and reserved Jerrica Benton by day.
She was also more than just your average fashion doll. Jem had novel-like
stories written about her that played out in cartoons and on the doll's boxes.
Her fashions and accessories complimented and continued the plot lines that
maker Hasbro had carefully laid out for the doll. She was everything from rock
star to movie star to business woman and head of her own orphanage all rolled
into one. She had a boyfriend named Rio that she hid her secret life from. She
lived a jet set life and had the wardrobe to match. She had magic and technology
and true friends to go along with it. In short, Jem had it all
Jem is considered by some to be the "daughter" of Kenner's Darci, the
fashion model doll of the early 1980s. Jem used Darci's torso, arm and leg molds
and she could easily fit into any existing Darci fashion. Not that she really
would have wanted to. While Jem may have been the successor to Darci in the body
mold category, that's where all comparisons stopped.
While Darci had been high fashion, like the early years of Barbie, Jem was more
grounded in popular culture, just as Barbie's cousin Francie had reveled in the
Carnaby Street fashions of the 60s. Even though she was supposed to be a
business woman, all of her clothes and accessories reflected not just the story
Hasbro created for her, but the time in which she "lived", the height
of the "Me" decade.
The story of Jerrica and her alter ego, Jem, was really as old as time itself.
Here was a motherless young woman who's father had just died, leaving her in a
power struggle with an evil ex-protégé of her father's, in this case Eric
Raymond, president of Misfit Music. Along the way, she had the help of her
friends Aja and Shana and her kid sister Kimber, who Jerrica had protected all
of their lives. She also had an understanding boyfriend in the boy-next-door,
Rio.
In the end, the heroine wins, but here's where Hasbro changed the story and
expanded it to fit a play line of dolls with a hook. The young woman needs money
to keep the orphanage going so she creates a band, The Holograms, and an alter
ego, Jem, made possible only because of a fantastic last invention of her
father's, a computer known as Synergy. Enter the evil Eric and some more
antagonists for Jem/Jerrica, the equally evil band known as the Misfits. Stay
tuned for their adventures, or so the story went.
All of those ingredients combined to provide a glitzy, glamorous world that
appealed to little girls, and, truth be known, adults as well. Mass media
inundated the culture with these gold plated images not so far removed from the
days of Studio 54, and most children of the day saw the world through the skewed
lens of MTV. These same children craved a world where they could be like the
artists they saw on the music channel. They wanted a part of that adult world
for themselves where they were the sexy rock star and no longer the
little princess of the house.
Jem provided that in a way that most parents felt was safe.
For little girls who wanted to dress and be like Madonna, the Barbie of that
time held little interest. This doll, too, lived in a fantasy world, but one of
spring gardens, winter wonderlands, and moonlight walks under the stars with
glowing gowns and an unwavering beau in Ken. It was fantasy and it was romantic
and pretty, but it wasn't glittery. It wasn't glitzy. It wasn't what they saw on
tv or heard on the radio. It was too sweet and sugary for a generation of
children being raised on MTV and Dynasty.
Jem was different. She was all of those images rolled into one and a positive
role model too, for a country that was beginning to care about such things.
Parents bought their daughters Jem dolls to play with and let them watch the
cartoons, feeling that this was a better way to feed an obsession with a
sparkling lifestyle and still let their little girls be little girls. Jem cut
out the parts dealing with drugs and sex and the darker side of life in the
1980s and let the fantasy of adult-type life live in girls who craved the next
Wham video as much as button candy.
So what went wrong?
In reality, probably nothing. The world simply changed and Jem failed to change
with it.
Near the end of the Jem run, two separate things had happened to change the way
the doll was viewed by the public. First was Mattel's introduction of Barbie and
the Rockers. Released around the height of Jem's popularity, Barbie was now a
rock star too, projecting the same wholesome image that Jem did. Only Barbie was
still Barbie, and mothers who had a Barbie doll as a child were more likely to
buy a Mattel made Rocker doll than a Jem doll for their girls. Barbie and her
band could fit into clothes that were already at home, a problem that had also
plagued the Darci doll.
Jem also had the Misfits to contend with. This was the one down side to the
whole Jem story. This band of renegade women were never punished for misdeeds
and cast a negative light on the entire Jem line at times. They were the sex and
drugs of the Jem's rock n' roll fantasy world. Barbie didn't have a competing,
evil band, so parents who wanted to shield their child from this kind
unpleasantness, yet still please their daughters, now had an alternative to Jem,
who's fashion booklets and boxes featured the unruly Misfits. Jem sales were
down and sliding further, with Barbie and her Rockers taking part of what had
previously been Jem's exclusive market share.
Secondly, American society as a whole changed. Wham broke up, Queen's Freddie
Mercury died of AIDS, and Poison fell to the downward spiral of drugs and a hard
rock life. Glam rock began its slow slide into oblivion with the emergence of
rap and grunge and a fashion world that was no longer tied to the bright neon
and plastic that had been a hallmark of Jem's world.
Hasbro did try to change Jem, at least a little. An entire line called Hollywood
Jem was drawn up in sketches and character profiles. Jem was to become a movie
star, the Misfits would be gone and a new, European band was to take their
place. Rio was even going to get a run for his money for Jerrica's heart with
the introduction of Riot, the lead singer of the new band, the Stingers.
It sounded wonderful and the artists' sketches and character back stories were
beautiful, but it never came to pass. No one's quite sure why. Perhaps financial
losses at Hasbro were too great or the new line wasn't going to be ready in time
to compete with the ever changing Barbie and the society that she usually seemed
to mirror with ease. It could have been that by the time Hollywood Jem would
have reached the shelves, her style would have been out of favor too. Or,
perhaps the time of Jem, like the decade she had been born into, had simply come
and gone.
The story of the future of Jem is borrowed from A. Glen Mandeville's book,
"Contemporary Doll Stars". For more information on the story of Jem,
you can order this book from most major booksellers.
My View
By Bethany M. Sefchick
So why was Jem successful, at least for a time, even in the face of Barbie?
Perhaps because she was being Barbie before Barbie was being Barbie.
Confused? Let me try to explain.
For as long as Barbie has existed, she's remained on the cutting edge of
fashion, careers, and societal changes. In the early to mid 1980s, however,
Barbie was a bit complacent. She had stopped mirroring the real trends of the
day and took the safe road most of the time. Even though Barbie sat out the
Vietnam War and took up wearing prairie skirts instead, she still reflected a
real part of the culture of that time. Women dressed in navy surplus pea coats
and granny skirts at that point in history. She was still a mirror of reality,
even if it wasn't pretty.
But in the mid-80s, Barbie wore more fluffy, frilly ball gowns than anything.
They were beautiful, but they weren't tied into any real fashion trend of the
time. Even the women of the popular tv series of Dynasty who did wear
ball gowns wore sexy ball gowns designed by Nolan Miller, not the fluffy
stuff that Mattel was marketing. Barbie wasn't quite the societal mirror that
she once was.
So Jem became, just for a brief instant, the trend setter that Barbie had
previously been. A career as a rock star was something that Mattel did not
consider wholesome enough for their pink princess, yet, more teenagers were
dressing like Madonna than were dressing like Barbie. Jem showed that there
could be a doll that represented a rock star life and still be the
"good" person and role model that was needed for a child's toy. Jem
took over Barbie's role as trendsetter of the doll world. And it made Jem and
Hasbro successful until Mattel jumped on the band wagon.
Then, Barbie and her Rockers appeared and stole some of Jem's thunder. However,
the Rockers didn't overstay their welcome, disappearing a year or so later to
make room for the Sensations, a new 50s inspired group that Mattel used to
capitalize on the revived interest in do-woop music that recalled soda fountains
and car hops instead of gang wars and Live Aid .
Barbie was back to her old role as doll world queen and trendsetter. For as good
as an idea as Jem and the Holograms had been, they never changed with the times
like Barbie and her world did. But, I think they might have, if only Hasbro had
given the line one more year and changed a few more things.
The Hollywood Jem line sketches look stunning, having been restored under Dick
Tashin's skilled touch. This was a Jem doll that would have changed with society
and given Barbie a run for her money. But, would that have happened had Jem and
her world stayed in their holographicly projected world of rainbow colored hair
and wild makeup? Probably not.
The dolls were beautifully made and most of the clothes and accessories were,
too. New dolls like the Russian ballerina, Danse, and the music video producer,
Video, added to the diversity and scope of the line. While they didn't look as
human as Darci had, they still looked real enough in a time when Barbie still
didn't look all that human herself anymore. The story was solid and captivating,
and could have been made even better had it been allowed to develop. The artwork
that adorned the lunchboxes, posters, and merchandise boxes were breath-taking.
Not since the early days of Al Anderson's artwork at Mattel had any doll been
drawn to look so human. One artist's drawing of the Giltter and Gold Rio is
still enough to make an adult woman look twice to make sure that it's not a
portrait of some real-life hunk with a smoldering gaze. The dolls had real
stories and personalities that were more than just the blank slate that Barbie
usually was.
But would the changes on the drawing board have been enough? Again, I don't
think so.
Part of Jem's problem was that as a child's toy, parts of her story were too
real. The good band and nasty band scenario was playing out in real life every
day on the radio and in the media. For every "good" band like The
Hooters from Philadelphia, there was the nasty band, as exemplified by
Harrisburg's band boys of rock, Poison. Most parents tried to keep the images of
sex and drugs from their children. Unless changes were made in the Misfits
behavior, why would parents continue to buy those dolls for their children?
Interestingly enough, one of the changes in the proposed Hollywood line was to
do away with the Misfits and introduce a new group, the Stingers. But one of the
members of the new group, Mystique, was to have been into Voodoo and dabble in
the so-called "black arts". For a child's toy? I don't think so.
Parents would have been up in arms. While it may have been 1980s reality, it
wasn't for children.
Also, Hasbro would have shattered the biggest part of the fairy-tale if had they
gone ahead with plans and paired Jem/Jerrica and Rio. Despite the punk rock
clothes, little girls still believed in fairy tales. Jerrica, the sweet girl at
heart, and Rio, the boy next door who was her one true love, were the fairy tale
couple that most girls envisioned. Taking that away would have been devastating
for the doll's main audience. Just because Madonna's marriage to Sean Penn
ended, didn't mean that it had to be the same in the Jem world. Again, being too
real might have doomed any chance the line had in succeeding.
After so many years out of production the question is, is Jem ready for a come
back? Can she even hope to make a come back? As a Jem fan and a doll trend
observer, I think so.
The Jem line has always had a small, but loyal following that never really let
the doll and her story die. They kept her alive via the Internet and fan clubs.
These groups were mostly made up of the people who played with Jem as a child.
They, like so many others who are now adults, want their childhood toys back and
are prepared to pay. Even now, Jem items are some of the most in demand on eBay
and other on-line auctions. So more importantly, Jem's fans have the money to
spend. And, they would most certainly buy any new Jem items that Hasbro might
market, provided they tied into the world that they remembered from their
childhood.
The other primary market for these dolls is not the people who played with them,
but the people who lived a life similar to the one they represented. It's the
reason that I collect Jem. I was too old to play with her when she was first
released. After all, I was a teenager then. But, I dressed like those dolls did
and I lived as a young adult in the same world that these fictional adults had.
They were the cartoon equivalent of my peers. My friends and I may not have been
rock stars, but we acted as if we were. We lived a life similar to the one John
Hughes made popular in his movies starring the so-called Brat Pack, a life that
was also tied into the fantasy of the doll line. Jem was a mirror of my
teen-aged society.
Today, Hasbro as a toy company is doing well. Well enough to bring Jem back, to
life but not as a doll for children. Rather, market her as a doll designed for
adults. Keep the story, keep the basics of Hollywood Jem. Even keep the
Stingers, if necessary. Change a few characters and rewrite some of the Jem
story that was never told. But, make her a doll targeted for adults. Mattel has
been successful with a similar tactic in their reproduction dolls and others
like Far Out Barbie that are new dolls based on an old theme. It could work just
as well for Hasbro.
The public interest is there and the cash to buy is too. The recently released
Star Wars dolls from Hasbro shows that at least the basic doll molds still
exist, as evidenced by the shape of the Princess Leia doll's hands. Other
non-Barbie dolls like Gene, and Daisy and Willow are selling well and cashing in
on an ever-expanding collector's market. Most of those companies are showing
healthy profit margins and keep the new doll lines coming.
Would Jem be a 100% certified hit? I really don't know. I do know that the time
for more competition in the adult doll collector's market is ripe. Never has
there been such an explosion of new dolls and new collectors coming into the
hobby. Current and older collectors are looking for ways to branch out. Jem just
might be the key.
Is it possible that the star that was once called Jem could rise again.
Maybe.
I, for one, hope so.
The Day AFTER Christmas
By: Linda Smith
T'was the day after Christmas
And all over the floor
There's still lots of clutter
Wrapping paper, tags and more!
In the kitchen there's hardly
A counter that's free
They're all covered with plates
Bowls and food items for me!!
Under the tree there are boxes
Filled with all kinds of Loot!
(Well of course there were dolls
This question is moot!)
My tummy is stuffed 'til it's
Almost ready to pop!
When I sat down to all those
Goodies, I just couldn't stop!
Friends and relatives came
With gifts and to chat!
All this has made me so
Tired, I don't know where I'm at!
I'd like nothing better than to
Just sit here on my rear!
However, there are dollies on sale
And I must bring them HERE!
HAPPY DAY AFTER CHRISTMAS!
I love you guys
- Linda
(for Archived previous rants!
please click on the titles)