I bought a cardigan sweater for my dad, which made me think of the Weezer song and I was like "If you want to destroy my sweater, pull this thread as I walk away…" which segued into a "Oo ee oo, I look just like Buddy Holly. Oh oh oh, and you’re Mary Tyler Moore…" singing in the shower life segment. As tends to happen.<\/p>\n
And then I was thinking about Buddy Holly, and that led to thoughts about what does Buddy Holly actually look like, because I think I’ve only "seen" him in like biopics of other musical artists. "La Bamba" was my first introduction to Buddy Holly, and that’s just a guy pretending to be Buddy Holly in a fictionalized reenactment.<\/p>\n
And then I thought about "Great Balls of Fire" where Dennis Quaid played Jerry Lee Lewis, who married his 13 year old cousin played by Winona Ryder. Or I guess she was his second cousin? Anyway you look at it, she was THIRTEEN YEARS OLD and married a 24 year old MAN.<\/p>\n
And I know biopics are an easy way to whitewash someone’s favorite celebrity years later, because yeah. "Great Balls of Fire" was an entertaining movie right up until he suddenly married Winona Ryder and then they were moving into their "perfect" house. At which point I was like "What is happening here?"<\/p>\n
It’s all grooming. That’s what was happening.<\/p>\n
That poor girl met a grown man who was working with her dad, and boom.<\/p>\n
Don’t try to gaslight me into thinking it’s a romantic story. She was THIRTEEN. He was TWENTY-FOUR. He’d moved into her home with her family when she was twelve. He groomed her.<\/p>\n
And the idea that those kinds of relationships didn’t have a backlash on celebrity careers back in the day the way they would now… Jerry Lee Lewis’ career was completely derailed by his marrying a 13 year old that was revealed to be HIS COUSIN.<\/p>\n
Same with Elvis. He hooked up with Priscilla and she was only 14, though he at least waited until she was an adult before marrying her. Or maybe they didn’t have a sexual relationship when she was a teenager… but there was some kind of grooming happening there.<\/p>\n
It’s like the idea of rock musicians hooking up with their teenaged fans. I think Liv Tyler’s mom was 15?<\/p>\n
It has never been all right<\/em>. It was simply something that happened, and social media wasn’t a thing back then. So there’d be rumors and small scandals would break out in magazines and newspapers, but people would sweep it under the rug and the majority of people would have no idea it was happening.<\/p>\n And then decades later a biopic gets made and people are like "What a romantic love story!" Because the actors are like 20 years old playing young teens, and if you saw a real 13 year old in that role you’d be like "That’s a baby. Why is that man hugging and kissing A BABY?!?"<\/p>\n I remember really loving "Coal Miner’s Daughter," and I was so young that I didn’t realize how weird it was that he was like 24 years old and she was 14 or 15. I was like "Why is her dad so mad about her dating Doo?" because I was a child and it never clicked in my brain that "THAT IS A GROWN MAN AND A LITTLE GIRL<\/em> GETTING MARRIED AND HAVING BABIES!!!"<\/p>\n Probably because Sissy Spacek was 30 years old when she played the role. I never really saw her as a child. And in real life, yeah, Loretta Lynn was a child<\/em> when she met and married a grown man after knowing him for one month.<\/p>\n That’s bonkers, is what it is.<\/p>\n But back in the day, there wasn’t social media and the near instantaneous ability to spread news. Everything was relegated to the slowness of newspapers and whether a news reporter was interested enough to share the story with the public. So a lot of things just never got publicized.<\/p>\n It’s like the Jerry Lee Lewis thing… His child bride story got broke to the public because there was a reporter with a video camera and things ended up on TV. Otherwise he would have been able to spin the story that "She’s 16 years old and we’ve only been married for 2 months" when she was actually 13 and they’d been married for 5 months.<\/p>\n Video definitely did destroy that radio star…<\/p>\n And I can’t help but to think of the sad story of Celeste Rivas Hernandez, that poor girl murdered by D4vd.<\/p>\n She was groomed, assaulted, and murdered by an adult man, and news reporters are calling her a woman. No, dudes: She was a CHILD.<\/p>\n He groomed her from the time she was like 11 years old. Started assaulting her when was like 12. And then murdered her when she was 14 and tried to break it off with him. To protect his career and all the money he wanted to make, he murdered a child.<\/p>\n It really makes you wonder how many children were assaulted and murdered by celebrities in the time before the Internet. Like, how far is a pedophile willing to go to protect their career?<\/p>\n It makes me think of all the biopics I’ve watched and wonder why they went so far out of their way to whitewash the stories. I mean, I get that you enjoy their music and you want other people to be fans of your favorite celebrity… But geesh.<\/p>\n ~Harper Kingsley<\/p>\n https:\/\/paypal.me\/harperkingsley<\/a>.<\/p>\n https:\/\/patreon.com\/harperkingsley<\/a>.<\/p>\n https:\/\/ko-fi.com\/harperwck<\/a>.<\/p>\n https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/c\/HarperKingsley<\/a>.<\/p>\n https:\/\/amazon.com\/shop\/harperkingsley0<\/a>. https:\/\/harperkingsley.bsky.social<\/a>. https:\/\/www.everand.com\/author\/262822558\/Harper-Kingsley<\/a>.
\nhttps:\/\/www.harperkingsley.net\/blog<\/a>.
\nhttps:\/\/kimichee.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n
\nhttps:\/\/www.smashwords.com\/profile\/view\/HarperKingsley<\/a>.<\/p>\n
\nhttps:\/\/www.kobo.com\/us\/en\/author\/harper-kingsley<\/a>.
\nhttps:\/\/books.apple.com\/us\/author\/harper-kingsley\/id444850597<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"