My Little Runaways

The Dyke Punk Movement Has Not Even Begun to Tell It Like It Was

I’d never forget the day my ex told me to check out the trailer for The Runaways. 

"What is this Little Debbie BULLSHIT?" I said. "This is a disgrace."

Director Floria Sigismondi's "pretty-in-glam" Runaways feature isn’t the underground punk scene I remember from Los Angeles in the 1970's.

The Runaways performing on the Strip in 1977. L to R: Joan Jett, Jackie, Lita Ford, Jackie Fox, Cherie Currie. The incredible Sandy West, drummer, not in this pic, unfortunately. This is what it was really like.

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I was 18 in Long Beach in 1977 — that’s the southern working class lip of the LA Basin. My hippie girlfriend— who once looked like Joan Baez— cut off all her hair one day, made a minidress out of a plastic Hefty bag, and started shredding on a bass guitar she pulled out of a pawn shop. She wrote "Suck My Cock" on it with a black Sharpie. We became punk impresarios overnight.

Joan Jett, one of The Runaways' founders, was an executive producer on the Sigismondi film. I fondly remem…