The “sex symbol” frontman that Debbie Harry borrowed from
Though it’s natural to understand the broad appeal of Debbie Harry and Blondie today, their first foray into fame was met with a mix of admiration and confusion. The harshest critics claimed they struggled with their identity, particularly with Harry fronting the band, stating that her appeal drew in a very specific kind of audience. Of course, this wasn’t the case at all.
While monumental and impressive for countless reasons, many aspects of Harry’s legacy and fame expose the different seeds of ugliness that have always plagued the music industry. While Blondie’s fans were a mix of people from all over, critics stated that she mainly only attracted male audiences, who were drawn to her appearance more than the band’s music.
This wasn’t true by any measure, but her being a woman in the spotlight—and one who stood confidently and proudly, celebrating womanhood and femininity—drew in a storm of sexism that she couldn’t escape. Thankfully, her charisma stemmed from a real place of self-assuredness and desire to stand up in the face of toxicity. “Rock and roll is a real masculine business and I think it’s time girls did something in it,” she told New York Rocker in 1976.
Rock and roll was a “masculine business”, but mainly only because of the characteristics and traits people have long associated with being masculine or male. Harry never once tried to mould into a stereotypically male showman to appeal as a musician and frontwoman, but many of her attributes—namely her strong presence—mirrored the many that were doing the exact same thing. Many of which, granted, were men.
Therein lies some of the issues. Mick Jagger is renowned as one of the most iconic and confident musical performers of all time, but his play into showbusiness was celebrated as fun and quirky, while Harry’s was disapproved of by many and disregarded as disingenuous. Most of the time, her demeanour was forced into the same categories, like “sex symbol”, whether it was known that she intentionally pandered to that trope or not, but with different attitudes.
While Jagger was attached to similar descriptions, his didn’t directly impact his reputation or career, because he wasn’t necessarily as conscious of fitting the mould, just as Harry wasn’t aware of it either. During an interview with ZigZag in 1976, Harry and Chris Stein discussed the similarities and how Blondie wasn’t “created” to appeal to any specific audience, no matter how much others tried to say otherwise.
“I don’t think we [play into sex appeal] any more than the Stones did with Mick Jagger. He was always a big sex symbol,” Stein said,
Harry added to that, stating: “That’s the obvious interpretation. So many girls come up to me and say Great, keep going, do it, ya know. They say that to me. I’m not making enemies of girls, I’m making fans of girls.” Stein also discussed the qualities they adopted from Jagger and how he naturally exuded sex appeal in a broader way that didn’t alienate audiences like Blondie supposedly did.
“I think girls identify through Debbie,” Stein said. “I always thought Mick Jagger was sexy. I’ve always been heterosexual and I’ve always sort of identified through him, you know as a big stud and I knew he could pick up all the girls he wanted.”
