‘Bad Reputation’: Joan Jett and the angst-fuelled anthem that sparked the later riot grrrl pioneers
In the late 1970s, Kathleen Hanna attended a Gloria Steinem rally with her mother, where she learned about the power of female rage. “It was the first time I had ever been in a big crowd of women yelling, and it really made me want to do it forever,” she said, reflecting on how she realised her calling at the young age of nine. A few years later, Joan Jett released ‘Bad Reputation’, mirroring the vengeful riot grrrl sentiment Hanna had already discovered but had yet to set in motion.
Before Hanna revolutionised the ethos of the movement in music, she was a spoken-word poet who often delivered her art to a sea of displeased faces. Some were there to enjoy and appreciate what she had to say, but too many saw it as an opportunity to heckle a woman in the spotlight whose only drive was to do what they always did—bring her down to a level below them.
Perhaps this was because many of her pieces tackled the kind of sobering realities that many men weren’t ready to face, despite the root cause stemming from their inability to see the problem through unprejudiced eyes in the first place. During one of her performances, she began with the words: “I am your worst nightmare come to life / I’m a girl who you can’t shut up / There’s not a gag big enough who can handle this mouth / I’m going to tell everyone what you did to me.”
Joan Jett always adopted a similar position of defiance, not just in the subject that defined ‘Bad Reputation’ but in her visual and artistic presentation. Jett wasn’t a conformist; rather, she knew how much social expectations hindered women in the industry and chose to represent the opposite. The words themselves, “I don’t give a damn about my reputation”, echoed the kind of rebellious nature shared by earlier activists like Steinem in an industry that had yet to go full throttle on the pedal towards gender equality.
While the riot grrrl movement wouldn’t charge until the 1990s, ‘Bad Reputation’ laid the groundwork for the kind of rage-filled energetic thrust that later inspired acts like Bikini Kill, challenging sexism while establishing a community not only of like-minded musicians but music lovers who had long felt the burden of industry and societal oppression.
Granted, the song wasn’t the sole reason that more female musicians began to feel safe and supported enough to allow their experiences to bleed into their art, but it certainly provided a stepping stone that both enabled as such while establishing the typical aggressive and DIY ethic that later categorised the riot grrrl movement and beyond.
The fact that ‘Bad Reputation’ wasn’t explicitly a feminist anthem also made it more impactful in many ways. It claimed its moment without being too overt or forthcoming in what it was trying to achieve, and, as a result, it effectively opened a necessary dialogue, allowing countless others, like Hanna, to explore the boundaries of political activism in music by building on the work that stars like Jett had already done.
As the song puts it: “The world’s in trouble, there’s no communication / An’ everyone can say what they wanna say / It never gets better, anyway.”
