Why Did Jem Have To Keep Her True Identity A Secret?

I've always wondered that.

Her love of abortion was controversial in her community.

I blame Hannah Montana for setting the trend.

I think about this every day, OP

Electronic Drug Dealer?

FUCK'ER UP!

Hannah Montana was 20 years after Jem, R3.

I still blame Hannah Montana, and I will continue to do so for many things, reasonable or not!

I asked my partner, who, apparently, when he was younger, had quite a thing for the show. He said that the reason for keeping her identity a secret is that the hologram technology which transforms Jerrica into Jem could fall into the wrong hands and end up being used for evil purposes..

R8 That’s weird I recall a episode of Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew that had hologram technology at the core of the crime, I think it was a cross over episode with all three of them.

R8, that doesn’t explain why she chooses to use it.

She needed the hologram to hide that she was really a FAT WHORE!

I thought it was because Jerrica was a businesswoman who worked for the record company Jem was on or something, so she had to do both. But then again, I don't think I've ever actually watched an episode of the show.

She owned the record company... and an orphanage. lmao

To me the hologram always seemed like an very literal allegory, written in line with Rule of Cool i.e., a snazzy and pointlessly high-tech way of saying, “my glamorous persona and my vast wealth/access to elite technology is nothing more than screen behind which I hide my TRUE SELF”. Because obviously, sacrificing all your freedom to raise your lesbian sister while simultaneously running an orphanage for wayward girls and a sketchy multi-million dollar company in the ‘80s is far more important than dedicating your time to making music that millions love...

The “synergy!” catchphrase was probably just coined to glom onto the merchandising tactic of recognisable gimmickry (see: Sailor Moon), but the word choice does imply that the hologram tech is somehow intricately and intimately connected to Jerrica in a metaphysical sense (didn’t her dead Dad build it, or something, iirc? Ooh, incesty subtext..) Also, computers were only just starting to take off at the time and still seemed exotic and impressive, which makes sense for the character of Jerrica.

Jerrica was constantly writing angsty woobie songs about her ambivalent feelings toward the Jem hologram, describing it as just another one of her many ‘masks’. She was quite self-absorbed for a philanthropist, thinking about it, but she was a young bereaved woman with a mile-wide tortured romantic streak so perhaps that must be forgiven. The holographic tech and the sentient Synergy almost seem incidental.

All this to say, Pizzazz & The Misfits we’re better because they didn’t need sparkly pixel magic to make them great.

Because the men, like Eric Raymond, would feel extra threatened by a star who's also a smart businesswoman.

Plus there was the extra special episode where she wanted to tell Rio and, in a simulation, he's super pissed that Jerrica kept this secret from him and made him look like a fool for being in love with both of them.

It would have been more progressive to have Jerrica be an ambitious successful genius scientist/inventor who built Synergy herself, instead of the girl who inherited a fortune and sat on a committee then donated all her time and money because she felt guilty and traumatised.

Jem in cancelled. Long live Jiz!

What I don’t get is why Kimber needed Jem or the other Holograms to have a music career. Kim was a multi-instrumentalist composer, and she proved to herself that she could write and perform alone or with others to great success that time she went off on that solo tear with her illicit girlfriend Stormer. Why twenty-something Kim went crawling back to Jerrica and the band every time still baffles me to this day. It was the ‘80s, she could have made it big on her own.

Kim was traumatized by her parent's death and Jerrica was her last remaining relative. She was fixated on keeping a close relationship with her sister even when they squabbled at times.

sorry, her parents' death. Both died (mom in an airplane crash and dad because of an illness).

r18 I don't know. It takes a lot to survive in that world.

R15 Rio was such a massive cunt. A gorgeous, glamorous, rich & successful woman who also has intelligence and a big heart wants to settle down with him, and all he does is throw it back in her face and call her a liar. I think he was jealous of her successes and threatened by her wealth.

Jem had more chemistry with Pizzazz, anyway. You just know that Jem secretly harboured thoughts about Pizzazz licking her out and fingerbanging her before a show.

Never, EVER heard of this craptastic show. And WHY anyone would start a thread about something so obscure...

Sorry you find this thread truly, truly, truly outrageous, R23.

Do you think Pizzazz & The Misfits had more interesting songs than Jem & the Holograms?

I think it's sad that they were constantly pitted against one another simply because they were both female bands. This wouldn't happen with two male bands. That being said the Misfits were far superior.