LOOK AWAY
LOOKING back, there have always been clues. The Stones’ “Stray Cat Blues”, with its 15-year-old protagonist. Ted Nugent’s “Jailbait”. Iggy Pop’s “Look Away” – the lyrics referencing the relationship between teenage model Sable Starr and the New York Dolls’ Johnny Thunders. There are “countless” instances of what Runaways co-founder and songwriter Kari Krome calls “little girl songs”. So many, she says, that “it’s become a thing that’s normalised”.
The music industry, this normalisation is partly to blame. Of the stories that anchor director Sophie Cunningham’s narrative, none are new – Cunningham told that “money and power” prevented her from sharing allegations made by other women. But the bleak, brutal way in which they are presented would, one hopes, give encouragement to others who feel ready to come forward.
