New ‘Bad Reputation’ Trailer Details Joan Jett’s Rise to the Top
In a new trailer for the upcoming documentary Bad Reputation, Joan Jett takes audiences through her take-down of the rock 'n' roll boys' club of the '70s.
The trailer opens with Jett discussing the first piece of advice she received when she began taking guitar lessons at the age of 13: "Girls don't play rock 'n' roll." A more reserved present-day Jett responds with a stone-faced "bull."
The movie hits theaters and streaming services on Sept. 28. You can watch the trailer below.
Jett persisted, often to her own detriment. She discusses her fight to break into the male-dominated industry, and how she blazed a trail to the top, first with the all-girl rock band the Runaways — the subject of a 2010 biopic — and later as the frontwoman for Joan Jett and the Blackhearts.
Also in the trailer, she describes the long metamorphosis from being called "'cute, sweet' to 'slut,'" and the many injuries to her body and pride that she brushed aside after male audiences hurled anything from beer bottles to batteries at her onstage. Her later triumphs include founding her own label, Blackheart Records, and induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2015.
In addition to Jett telling her own story, the film includes interviews with other musicians, including Iggy Pop, Debbie Harry, Miley Cyrus, Pete Townshend and Billie Joe Armstrong.
Throughout, Jett remained defiant. "Tell me I can't do something and you know I'm gonna be doing it," she says in the trailer. Jett just completed a co-headlining summer tour with Styx that started in May.