In the debut episode of Off Hollywood
We talked to Christy Marx
creator of the original Jem and the Holograms
and trace her history and diligence
in the progression of female representation
in the comics and animation
Well this is something I got
somewhere along the way
Up here I have VHS tapes
from various shows that I've worked on there's
old Jem VHS tapes, production tapes
Conan, The Sisterhood of Steel
these are all the original issues
Now this box hasn't been open in a very very long time
Treasure hunts and we shall see what we find
This is my one and only
Jem doll
When I was a kid and I was reading comic books
I was desperate for strong female
role models because there weren't very many.
I loved Lois Lane but depending on who was writing her
she was either this crazy neurotic jealous bitch
or she was a strong clever reporter
So it was hard to find the kind of female role models I wanted
I still have some Batman comics
in which I took a ballpoint pen and I turned Robin into a girl
and I gave him long hair
and a skirt and little boobs
and that was my way of projecting myself into
a Batman story
"5th grade, 10 years old" I wrote on there
Why did I write that on there? I don't know
I sort of fell into the entertainment business
but I didn't come to LA to pursue at first
It took me a while to figure out what my path in life was
I started meeting people in LA
who worked in the comic book industry
and I met Roy Thomas who was
Editor-in-Chief of Marvel Comics
at a gathering of fans
and I brought a story that I had written
I'd written a Conan story and I told it from the point of view
of a woman who becomes involved with Conan
because all of the Conan stories
are just about Conan being the big, strong
sexual, barbarian
and there's always the nubile woman
that gets dragged along with him on these adventures
and then get discarded in the next book and you never think about them twice
and so I thought, wouldn't it be interesting to tell a story
from the point of view of one of those women
You know, what's 'her' experience
and that was my first sale in comics
Then a friend of mine say "Oh, by the way there's this animation company
that wants to make a Fantastic Four series"
I called up to DePatie-Freleng
I got an interview with David DePatie
I walked into his office. He was a very nice little gentleman
Kind of a short dapper little guy with an enormous ornate oak desk
and so we chatted and he said "Have you ever seen an animation script?"
and I said "No, I haven't"
So he pushed this script across the desk to me
and he said "OK, well that's what an animation script looks like."
And I got hired.
Welcome to Marvel Productions near Hollywood, California
This is where we're turning many of your favorite comic book heroes
into animated TV shows
I loved working on anything that was comic book oriented
and I particularly loved Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends
He did "The Origin of Firestar" story
and Stan and I sat down and collaborated quite closely
but that led to this job for G.I. Joe
So I did get a chance to create some backstory for Scarlett
[Scarlett] In spite of what Cobra has done to them. They certainly won't hurt us.
and I thought it would be a lot of fun since she's such a tough fighter
that her family like her father and her brothers would all be martial artists
and once Scarlett goes to visit them you think she's being attacked
but it actually turns out to be her family
[Scarlett] I came here for a work out
but I wasn't expecting anything like that
Sunbow Production was the animation arm
of an ad agency called Griffin-Bacal
So Tom Griffin and Joe Bacal
are the ad agency that worked with Hasbro
[Commercial] She's Jem the most glamorous rockstar ever
she's also Jerrica the president of Starlight Music
but only her friends the Holograms: Kimber, Aja, and Shana
know that Jerrica is also Jem!
The basic concept behind the doll
was created by a man named Bill Sanders
He came up with this concept of the
secret identity with the holographic projection
There was criticism that these animations were nothing
but 30 minute commercials for toys
From our point of view as creatives it was to make great stories and great animation
When I first got the job all I had were the product names
and finally after a great deal of begging I did get some rather rough Polaroids
of the prototype dolls
So I sat down with all of those elements and I researched
everything I could about the state of holograms at that time
There was a group of men that were in the forefront
of that technology
and so I took their names: Benton, Leith and Elmsford
so it became Jerrica and Kimber Benton
and Shana Elmsford, and Aja Leith
and they said to me "OK, we want to make sure when Jem comes on
so, you have to have fashion and romance and glitter, BUT
it's gotta be enough action and enough cliffhangers
that the boys aren't going to change the channel
[Animation] The Misfits are taking our stuff!
You have the good girls
Jem and the Holograms
and then you have these bad girls, the Misfits
and they have the holographic projector computer
called Synergy
[Animation] I am Synergy
a holographic computer designed to be the ultimate
audio visual entertainment synthesizer
[Marx] and the earrings
and they've got this car. This rockin' roadster thing
MTV was very hot. It was new, it was fresh
and so consequently in order to come up with good ideas
for music videos I spent quite a bit of time watching them
[Animation] Hey babe I got my eye on you
and I'm watchin' your every move
[Marx] They didn't even want me to have a character do martial arts
If you can't have the same kind of physical action
then there has to be a lot of emotional action
that was one of the reasons I created the triangle
between Jem, Jerrica and Rio
You have to remember the secret identities
are absolutely a standard part of comic books
The most classic
double identity involves
someone who is meek
becoming someone who is bold
The fun is what do you with the one character
versus the other character
Jerrica who has grown up with foster girls
and taking care of foster girls, and now
her parents are gone and she's trying to take over her father's business
and then when she becomes Jem she doesn't have all of that baggage
all she has to do is sing
It's fun when you can have a kick ass character
who can actually physically kick ass and be a warrior, but
a character can equally be strong
in the emotional and mental realm
the thing I like about Jem and Jerrica
is that she's kick ass in that she
cares about this entire household full of foster girls
or she's kick ass because
she has a musical career or she's
a music executive
She's someone who's strong and independent, and directs her own life
Part of my responsibility as a writer
especially when creating animation is to think about
what I'm giving to those kids
how do introduce them to new thoughts and new ideas
One of the things that happened a lot in animation
is that there was good ethnic diversity
in the same way that I tried to identify by turning Robin into a girl in the comics
by having a wide range of these Starlight girls
it meant that all the little girls out there watching the show
had someone to identify with
[Interviewer] Have you seen the trailer for the new film?
Oh yeah, I've seen the trailer
I was not involved. I was not involved at all
in the development or in the writing or anything whatsoever
I didn't know about it until
the day before they were going to make the actual announcement
that it was going into production
Initially I was quite upset about it
I was upset about being excluded
and I was upset because I've actually been knocking on their door for years
trying to get them to do a reboot of Jem
and I tried and tried. My agent tried
I could not get anyone to meet with me
I couldn't get anyone to talk with me
I was trying everything I could try to bring Jem back
and yet I couldn't seem to get into the door
and that was frustrating to me
The important thing to remember is
I don't own Jem
It's a Hasbro franchise
reboots happen
reboots happen to every franchise
but it's been astounding to me
to see how it's affected people and how people react to it
even after all these years
Even though the music is from the 80s
the fashion is from the 80s
and the technology god help us is from the 80s
but stories still work. The stories still speak
and that I think is what makes it still
maintain it's longevity
Hi Jetta! [Laughter]
[Interviewer] Can you tell us who Jetta is named after?
Jetta is named after
she's named after Jetta of the Misfits
and Jem and the Holograms
because she's black haired
and scruffy. She's always scruffy no matter what I do
but she's got a little bit of white
