Because we all like fluffy blogs, at least once in a while, here are my five favorite songs from Jem and the Holograms. (You might remember that I did something like this for The Muppet Show, last year.) That's right, it's a "best of" list. And it's about Jem.


Why Jem? We have all three seasons on DVD and my daughter has been consistently obsessed with it. So, I've seen every episode at least once - and some 5 or more times - and heard every song. Also, as hilariously unnecessary as it may be, Victoria and I have actually argued about which Jem songs are the best/worst/creepiest. Because that's something worth (gently) arguing about, right? Right.

Why five? I dunno, it just feels like a good, and manageable, number. I've also arbitrarily decided that I'll include at least one video from each of the three groups in the series: The Holograms, The Misfits, and The Stingers. I'm not sure that any of The Misfits' songs actually deserve to be in a 'best of' list, but it feels somehow wrong to exclude them.

One last note on the actual songs that I chose before I actually get to posting them. If you watch these and think 'hey, that's not bad', don't start thinking that the other 150+ songs aren't bad. Because they mostly are. On the whole, the music is, at best, awfully cheesy and repetitive. The songs that I'm including here are notable precisely because they're exceptional in some way - they're unlike a typical song from the series. So, it's actually a very misleading list. Anyway...


The Misfits - "Lovesick" (3x02)


Like I said, The Misfits aren't given much to work with. Most of their songs are generic mid-tempo rockers with fairly monotone melodies and uninspired lyrics about being infantile bad girls. The only thing interesting about them is Pizzazz's vocal delivery, which features a pretty delightful snarl. But that gets old quickly when she employs it on pretty much every song.

Anyway, I'm a bit ambivalent about including "Lovesick". On the one hand, the vocals and the lyrics are a huge departure from the usual. It's also got some really slick production and an atypically fancy video. But that novelty comes at the expense of Pizzazz's character, who is never worse than when she's shown fawning over Riot. Ugh. I might've just as easily gone with "I Like Your Style", I guess.

Jem and the Holograms - "I've Got My Eye on You" (1x03 & 2x01)


Jem songs are often bathed in romantic clichés, but rarely are they actually hot. This is one of the rare exceptions, which means that it's worthy of inclusion here. (It's relative, of course. "Hot" on a kids' cartoon can only be so hot.)

This is, by the way, the second version of this song, from the second season of the show. It also appear early in the first season, where the video made the song a bit unsettling, if not creepy. In that version, Jem sings the song to a visibly discomforted Rio, who is developing a crush on her. Which would actually be okay, because Jem is the alter-ego of his girlfriend, Jerrica. Except that she hasn't told him that. (And she never does!) So, in the video Jem is hitting on a guy who is dating someone else... though that someone else also happens to be her. Weird and unnecessary.

The Stingers - "Take It or Leave It" (3x02 & 3x11)



Every group has some duds, but The Stingers have a higher proportion of good songs to bad than either of the other two groups. The Stingers were also around for only the final, half-length season and had something like 10 songs, so that might have something to do with it. They also had the only male vocalist, so that novelty could also explain why so many of the songs aren't terrible. Maybe.

Anyway, this is the second Stingers song we hear, but it effectively serves as their introduction - they're unrepentant assholes who treat everyone like garbage and they like it that way. This song is a bit of an exception to the rule that these songs are, themselves, exceptions: it's entirely indicative of The Stingers' sound and content, and it just happens to be the best of their 'we're better than everyone' songs.

Jem and the Holograms - "It Depends on the Mood I'm In"  (1x12 & 3x09)


For whatever reason, the songs about fashion are usually better than average - the next song on this list is also about fashion.

The Holograms' songs are usually overly serious - emo music for pre-punk, pop-listening tweens, basically. But when they decide to just have fun with a song, it usually turns out okay. Or, as with this song, better than okay. "It Depends on the Mood I'm In" also benefits from being somewhat meta, and being a bit playful with the whole hologram/dual-personality conceit that, when it's addressed, is usually discussed in a really tedious manner. And it includes the trademark "truly outrageous" line, which appears in a couple other songs, too. (And is a strange slogan for a group that is neither "true" in the sense that Jem is holographic, nor "outrageous" in the sense that they're really boring. Discuss.)

The Stingers "All in the Style" (3x09)


Like I said before, The Stingers are kind of bad ass. Well, bad ass for an 80s Saturday morning cartoon, anyway. They're telling you to "catch them [people] unaware" and "make them stop and stare".  And they want you to "set the world aglow" and "radiate heat". I might have said that "I've Got My Eye on You" was hot, but this song is saying that you are hot.

It doesn't matter that, within the plot of the episode, Riot is being disingenuous - he's complimenting a designer because he wants to convince her to work for him instead of Jem. This is a genuinely smart and even empowering song, if also a somewhat cynical one about how your power is connected to your ability to capture people's attention. Still, a Jem version of this song would be full of empty platitudes while this Stingers version, at least, addresses your agency.

So, Kids' CBC is looking for a new co-host for their morning programming. Presently, the morning show is hosted by Patty, a 40ish white woman, and Mamma Yamma, a yam-shaped puppet. So, I guess that means that Sid Bobb, an Aboriginal man whose on-air role has noticeably declined in the last few months, is moving on to something else.

For the record, I've consistently watched Kids' CBC - sometimes more frequently than other times - with my daughter for more than 3 years, now. Aside from some bizarrely interesting musical guest choices - Billy Bragg singing with a puppet-crab, for instance - it's a remarkably tame show, no different from any other morning show aimed at the kindergarten demographic. So, this shouldn't be big news. But it turns out that it is. (Again, it shouldn't be, but it is.) Because this is what a hiring agency posted for the CBC:


The contentious line is the last one in this screen cap - "any race except Caucasian". (That this is the only contentious line is a hilarious irony that exposes the ridiculousness of the 'controversy', but I'll get to that later.) Twitter erupted with rage over the exclusion of white men, and both the CBC and the casting company they hired apologized. The casting agency also amended the ad so that it no longer mentions race, and you can read more about the agency and CBC's responses here. You can also check the coverage of this story at the Huffington Post, where Marni Soupcoff makes a number of observations that I both agree and disagree with, but all of them are quite thoughtful.

But as for that rage... the ads elicited a predictably conservative reaction, but I think that it's probably fair to look at just one. A friend of mine tweeted that it was an example of "sickly racism" and added the familiar cliché, "how about hiring the BEST host, rather than one with certain skin pigmentation?" He also made a connection between these hiring practices and the spotty record of Affirmative Action in universities, posting this link to a story in The Atlantic.

To that, I say "bullshit". (Well, in the actual interaction I called it a "non sequitur". But, y'know, it's bullshit.) The story in The Atlantic is about admitting students who lack the preparation and skill to compete at top-tier schools; this story is about a children's morning show host. The story in The Atlantic mentions that academic "mismatch"* might be responsible for black students dropping out of engineering programs at more than twice the rate of white students; but this job is literally not rocket science.

Some of the Kids' CBC cast: Sid, Patty, Captain Claw, Mamma Yamma, and Salmon. Not rocket scientists.

There are two main points that I want to make, one in response to my friends complaints, and another more broadly in support of the CBC's hiring directives.

One, there is no "BEST host" out there. No one is finishing in the top-percentile of the Standardized Hosting Test and being overlooked because he's white. And to the extent that the CBC should be looking for the "BEST host", it's worth considering the actual needs and objectives of the program. Reasonably, I think, Soupcoff points out that "we also have to remember that what we're talking about here is casting an entertainer in a dramatic enterprise, not staffing a position in the bureaucracy."And indeed, a letter from the CBC told the hiring agency that they wanted actors who reflect "Canada and its regions as well as the country's multicultural and multiracial nature", since the show is very much about showcasing various regions and people in the country. In that case, the "BEST host" might very well be one with a particular race or gender that is otherwise under-represented.

And this leads directly into my second point. Regardless of the CBC's responsibility to aspiring hosts, they have a much larger responsibility to the kids that watch Kids' CBC. Canada's multicultural and multiracial nature? It's the audience for this show. Those same non-white kids? They can look forward to years of TV and film programming filled with the faces of white men, with the stereotypes of their own race and ethnicity, or with the exclusion of their race and ethnicity altogether. Representation is power, and for non-white kids watching a morning show that's populated only with white people? Well, it follows that lack of representation is disempowering.

I mentioned, at the top, that there was an irony to all this outrage. And it has to do with the fact that all the anger is directed at the exclusion of white people. The thing is, they're not the only demographic groups that were denied the opportunity to apply. Let me spell it out, in case you missed it. This was the very first requirement listed:

• Male between the ages of 23-35yrs

So, who else can't apply? Anyone under 23. Anyone over 35. And women. No women can apply. An entire gender has been barred from applying. And where's the outrage? Where are the cries of sexism? Why aren't the people who successfully lobbied CBC to consider white men also asking them to consider women of colour?

Unsurprisingly, those hypocrites are nowhere to be found.


[*According to the article, "mismatch" is the term for situations where the student simply doesn't have the proper educational background for their program. The reasoning is that we don't want mismatches because we're doing those "mismatched" students a disservice - we should, instead, nudge them toward easier programs. What the "mismatch" rhetoric fails to address, of course, is that systemic racism has a lot to do with the lack of preparation - the disservice is done well before they ever set foot in a university classroom.]