Headscratchers / Jem

• Why was Jetta so nasty to Stormer? It was because of Stormer that she got in the band in the first place, that ungrateful bitch.
  • Jetta is nasty to Roxy too and I'd like to know why.
    • This is a question? Jetta's a bitch. She's nasty to just about every character in the show, except usually Pizzazz, probably because she wants to stay on her good side cause she's rich.
• So was there ever really a good reason why she had to have a secret identity? I can understand that things got complicated with her boyfriend, but beyond that, there really didn't seem like a reason that she had to keep it up besides Status Quo Is God.
  • Probably because she was initially required to screw over Eric Raymond to save Starlight Records, and after that she had to keep it up.
  • But that was just to establish herself and get her company off the ground - it's not like he could have sued her for taking a stage name. Of course I can imagine other legal trouble she might have, for starters, having to fake passports and such for Jem. But then it seems like just admitting a stage name would have been easier and the secret of the show could have still been the technology of Synergy.
    • Maybe she was afraid revealing the truth might hurt the band (and thus the income for the company and girls). Remember, becoming a famous rockstar was unexpected, as she initally just wanted to one up Eric and get her company back. Then, the deals became more and more lucractive until winning that battle of the bands gave her a mansion, and a film deal, this sealing the deal of becoming a big star, at which point she was too far along to reveal everything without causing possible problems.
  • Throughout the series, it's been shown Eric has friends in both low and high places. He mostly like knows some evil lawyers—so if Jerrica spills the beans, Eric could use his lawyers to get entire control of Starlight Music.
    • And sue her for what, using a stage name? Nothing she did was illegal.
  • My take on this is that Jerrica just plain liked having an alternate personality. As Jerrica, she's the responsible one, the manager, the surrogate mom to the Starlight girls; as Jem, she's still a nice person but she gets to hold all that responsibility at arm's length. (In the song "Imagine Me" she expresses a desire for a life without all the responsibilities she has as Jerrica.) Not to mention that maintaining the two personas allows her to be a huge star but still have a private life.
    • Okay, I have to admit - personal vanity is probably the most logical reason here. It makes Jerrica kind of a jerk, but it does make sense that she might just flat out like maintaining the deception on some level even as it gets harder and harder to do.
    • There is also the fact that it would look like she was promoting herself or that she would look desperate if Jerrica was a singer for her own company.
    • So what? Plenty of musicians have their own labels - in fact, if you can self-publish and actually have the distribution network in place, it's far more profitable since you don't have to share your profits with a label.
    • Things weren't quite that simple in the eighties.
    • Uh...yes, yes they were. Creator owned labels were a thing well before the opening of the 1980s.
  • Some episodes implied Jerrica could only sing when she was Jem, considering she would transform into her for practicing. At least once, however, Jerrica was shown singing, so it is a bit debatable.
    • She practices as Jem in case someone walks in and sees Jerrica singing with the holograms and starts to wonder. The one time she sang as Jerrica in the imposter episode Rio nearly walked in and caught her and she had to make up a quick excuse about having the playback on. So it's not as if she can't sing as Jerrica she just opts not to usually because hearing Jem's singing voice coming from Jerrica will kind of blow the secret.
  • The show clearly shows us why. In fact, it's Synergy herself that explains it. If anyone found out who Jem really was, it could lead to the secret of Synergy's holographic technology, and if that fell into the wrong hands, it could be used for evil purposes.
    • There's another reason, too. Jerrica knows Rio all too well. As she stated in one episode, "[Rio] is very proud". She was afraid that Rio might assume the worst, thinking that Jerrica was deliberately trying to deceive/fool him. Indeed in the episode "Glitter and Gold", Jerrica's fears were more or less confirmed when he yelled at Kimber. It also serves to establish just how Jerrica fears he might react if he ever found out (Rio: "I hate deception, and I despise liars!"). So, that's another reason. Should she have told him right away? Maybe, but things happened, and she never really got the chance.
    • The problem with the whole "Double Identity" situation is that there's absolutely no reason why Jem couldn't have told Rio right from the beginning — she told all of her closest friends (the whole "he despises liars" thing came about many episodes later, to justify the continued ruse). And since Kimber's a member of the group, it doesn't quite matter that a Co-Owner of Starlight Music is also in the band. The Synergy answer somewhat fits, but that's almost never been referred to.
    • Jerrica's failure to bring Rio in on it from the beginning is especially nonsensical given that she recruits him to be Jem and the Holograms' road manager, a position in which he could have been invaluable help in maintaining her dual identity if only she'd told him about it. Instead, she gives herself and her band the extra headache of having to keep up the deception for someone directly involved in the planning and execution of the band's performances.
    • Also, when the Rockin' Roadster was hanging off the edge of the cliff in the first episode, Jerrica said Rio would be coming this way soon, so she projected a hologram of Jem (who he recognized). So, between finding Synergy and the Battle of the Bands, there must have been an unseen scene in which Jerrica introduced herself to Rio as Jem and told him where they'd be on the following day. WHY DID SHE DO THIS?!
    • The Synergy example just creates another problem - why does Synergy need to be a secret? The entire reason she was invented was for the purpose of creating entertainment. Why would her father sink all that money into an elaborate entertainment invention if he wasn't planning on patenting and selling it? Sheesh, Jerrica could have just patented and sold the Synergy technology, made billions on this ground-breaking technology, bought all the shares in Starlight Music for herself, AND had a rock career that would put a public face to the power of her technology!...oh my god, I think I just cracked this show's central premise open like a walnut...
    • The reason why Synergy needs to be kept secret seems to make sense if we use the comics released by IDW Comics: Synergy is an advanced AI and poses a danger by its very existence. Not because it can project holograms, but because it could initially be used by malicious individuals who would eventually lose control over it. Synergy basically has the potential to become a Skynet.
    • Again, the show clearly shows us why for the reasons previously stated. She may have been created to create entertainment, but to approach this from a different direction, imagine what would have happened if the Russians (or some other unfriendly government/world power, especially one from the Third World) had gotten their hands on this technology? If anything, it's implied to be one of the many things Synergy meant by "evil purposes" (Eric Raymond creating his own holographic band and using the technology against Jem and the Holograms in other ways would have just been a start). Remember, these are very realistic holograms. Besides, at the time he (more or less) completed her, Emmett Benton didn't have long to live.... We also need to remember that the reason Jerrica (as Jem), Aja, Shana, and Kimber became a band in the first place was so they could stop Eric Raymond from rigging a Battle of the Bands contest, and even then, it's not like Jerrica is only in it just for the money (unlike Eric). That's not the kind of person she is. As Jem, she just wants to entertain people and make them happy (hopefully), while as Jerrica, she just wants to give the Starlight Girls a place they can call home.
    • If everyone knew about the hologram technology though, it's applications in war would be quite dented. For that matter, Jerrica never seems concerned with, say, war breaking out over entertainment holograms. Synergy's holograms aren't so realistic as to create things like bombs or even in Eric's case, not to create something like a fake rock band (which considering this actually happened in the 1980s, without the use of any kind of advanced technology, is even more hilarious.) And while Jerrica isn't in things for profit, she is explicitly funneling most of her fortune into the foster home - to the point where she has essentially no personal fortune of her own and is frequently shown to put herself at great personal risk for the children. Heck, the entire reason she wanted full control of the label was because Eric woudldn't let her use the label's profits for the Starlight Foundation. She may entertain to make people happy and clearly loves it, but she's also got a strong personal reason for the work she does.
  • I strongly think Jerrica must have just been acting out some sort of fantasy. Maybe it was a Loves My Alter Ego fantasy — Jem is the one coming onto Rio from the start, and neither Jem nor Jerrica have a problem with him liking, kissing, or acting jealous over the other; plus, the plots and the musical numbers portray Rio's interactions with both Jerrica and Jem as romantic and sweet (emphasizing shots of them embracing, kissing, etc.), not as creepy or problematic, as if the entire thing is something both Jerrica and Rio enjoy and isn't the least bit morally questionable. Or maybe it's just a "being someone else" fantasy — that is, she just likes being this glamorous, alluring, sexy, desirable pop star instead of the responsible Team Mom (in one episode, when Rio tells Jerrica how much he likes those qualities in her, she responds, "You make me sound like an old pair of shoes," clearly not taking it as a compliment even though that's clearly how he meant it); as Jem, she feels disinhibited and can be more... well, exciting, adventurous, and outrageous than she would be as Jerrica. But as the lies make Rio uncomfortable from the start (he tells Jerrica in the beginning that he doesn't want to work for Jem anymore because "I don't want to hurt you"), deceiving him and putting him in such a position is not only unnecessary but wrong. It only works if you imagine Rio did know all along, and he and Jerrica are both acting out some sort of Loves My Alter Ego Love Triangle role-playing fantasy (they pretend he doesn't know because they both find the scenario fun and romantic).
  • Maybe it's like Banksy, and they play on the mystery for part of the appeal.
• Was Jem outrageous? Honestly; I've never seen the show and I'm curious.
  • Truly truly.
• Jem and the Holograms, HOW did no one think, "hmm, maybe they use a hologram for their appearances," Not to mention the incredible fridge logic involved for Synergy's system to even WORK.
  • For the same reason I never listened to Hootie & The Blowfish and thought "Hmm, maybe those guys are actually blowfish!"?
    • Of course not. Hootie and the Blowfish weren't secretly using SUPER BLOWFISH TECHNOLOGY to project blowfish onstage during their concerts, or inflate themselves up to several times their normal size, or poisoning people who ate the wrong parts of the band. The Holograms were clearly using VFX tech well beyond what their contemporaries had access to, so it wouldn't be unreasonable to think there was something to the name.
• How incredibly dense was Rio? He grew up with Jerrica and yet can't tell that she and Jem are the same person, despite looking almost the same and having the exact same voice. And the couple of times Kimber screws up and says that Jem is her sister.
  • That would require him to have a reason to suspect that his girlfriend was pretending to be two different people. It doesn't help that Jerrica presents the image of Jem being a different person to the public and has the ability to literally be in the same place as Jem at the same time. On the other hand, there was an episode where Jerrica created yet another persona just to test whether Rio loved her for her personality (which was a really Broken Aesop when she was happy that he fell in love with a third woman).
    • Rio doesn't know he's in a TV show, so he's not on the lookout for secret identities. ('Hey, Jem and Jerrica are pretty similar, I wonder if...oh yeah, I saw Jem on the other side of the room while I was with Jerrica the other day. Man, do I have a type or what? I want a cheeseburger.')
  • I seem to recall reading an interview with Christy Marx where she said she had planned to write an episode where it turned out that Rio had known all along. I don't know how well that would mesh with the continuity of the series, but it's an intriguing possibility.
  • It wouldn't, which was why she opted not to write it. She decided that as easy as it would make things she'd rather keep the very clear continuity of him not knowing countless times instead.
• Why doesn't Jerrica press charges against the Misfits, at the very least for reckless endangerment of lives?
  • High-priced lawyers? Then again, Pizzazz's father cuts off the moneywell for her pretty fast and Eric Raymond eventually sold the company off and gave them the boot, so... ummm... the Holograms are just really understanding?
    • But by then the Stingers are the focus of rivalry so they are no longer a obvious threat.
• When Kimber was going about dating two different guys, rather innocently, Rio got extremely angry about her being deceptive. Meanwhile, the whole time He's dating Jerrica & also kissing Jem and telling NEITHER. Granted, it's irrelevant because it's the same woman, but he doesn't know that!
  • It's especially jarring when Rio openly kisses Jem RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE BAND INCLUDING JERRICA'S SISTER. Do they just all forget that Rio doesn't know the secret??
  • It's a wonderful little thing called a Double Standard.
  • Rio's known for having a temper and his reaction to Kimber's dating actually got him in hot water with Jerrica anyway, so it's not like the show isn't on some level acknowledging the hypocrisy.
  • In Rio's defense, as early as the 3rd episode he tried to distance himself from Jem because he knew it would complicate things with Jerrica. And I'm pretty sure he attempted it later too. However Jerrica always convinced him to stick around as manager because "Jem" needed him and she didn't mind their closeness. So it's not like he doesn't know how it looks and isn't complicated himself, but whenever he tried to do the "right" thing the very girlfriend he was trying to avoid cheating on would push him towards this other woman. So the problem is almost entirely on Jerrica's end, as he chose Jerrica over Jem right away and tried to make it clear but she kept giving him mixed messages and not let him avoid Jem.
• There's 12 Starlight girls, but only one person who is actually on staff at Starlight Mansion, which is Mrs. Bailey. With Jem/Jerrica constantly on tour, doing benefit concerts, being on TV, running Starlight Music, etc. how is Mrs. Bailey keeping an eye on all 12 of those girls?
  • They're in school from 8am - 3pm, and it's shown they have afterschool activities (so more like 8-5,). They also sleep from 10-6, so really there's only 7 hours that she needs to be able to account for the children most days. On weekends, they likely employ the buddy system, or participate in group activities in the mansion, so really, the girls look after each other, and Mrs. Bailey is there to make it all look legal-ish. They take the Madeline approach.
• Speaking of Starlight Music, did Jerrica ever sign any other artists to the label?
  • The Fifth Avenue Boys are a group that's signed to Starlight in the episode Glitter and Gold.
• How did Glenn Danzig never sue Hasbro/Sunbow? Did he just...not know? Surely some fan/reporter in the 80s must have pointed this show out to him at some point. Furthermore, while the real Misfits were still fairly obscure in 1985, surely SOMEONE in marketing could have done a little research and found out that the name was taken. Or perhaps some sort of agreement was reached we never heard about?
  • Danzig's Misfits had broken up in 1983 and wouldn't be back in action for some years yet. Mr Danzig himself was with another band at the time. I've no idea if he (or any of them) had any extant trademark claims by 1985 or thought they'd use the name again.
  • Most likely, the name was never copyrighted or trademarked, which means he wouldn't have been able to do much. After all, "The Misfits" was also the name of Marilyn Monroe's final film.
  • Names and titles generally aren't copyrighted, only content. Example: There's nothing illegal about me creating a work of fiction about an 8th century Chinese ruler and calling it "King Kong", but if I were to present the story of the original "King Kong" as my own without permission, that would be highly illegal.
    • Actully, King Kong is in the public domain. But your point in general is still valid.
  • Christy Marx said in an interview she was totally unaware a real band called the Misfits existed before the show!
    • Maybe the whole Danzig thing is why they (The fictional Misfits) are not going to appear in the new movie!
• The whole "She uses a Hologram to appear as Jem" thing kinda falls apart sometimes, when you consider that Jerrica has short hair, and Jem has long hair — basically, anyone who touches her head or neck area (ie. Rio or Riot), should be able to tell there's not enough hair. Not to mention all the times that her holograms have convinced people that there's a rainstorm and a flash flood (you'd think someone would ask "hey, why are we not wet?"), or something like that.
  • She's often shown having people work on her hair and makeup too - you'd think they'd notice pretty quick.
  • On the make up issue, perhaps Synergy is able to alter the Jem hologram while someone is working on the make up, making it appear like the artist is doing all the work. As far as floods and rain go, if you can see and hear a wall of water coming at you, you probably won't be wanting to stay around to see if it's real or not.
• How did Eric Raymond and the Misfits not end up doing 20 to life for all the crap they pulled? Sure, money and lawyers can get you out of some sticky legal troubles, but realistically there are limits to what the courts and the public will tolerate, no matter how rich and famous you are.
  • Truth in Television. No matter what the criminal justice system might say, celebrities will always get special treatment. That's why Justin Bieber and Lindsay Lohan keep getting slaps on the wrists, despite the fact that regular people who have committed the same crimes as them have gotten prison time.
  • Eric tells Jerrica when she raises this very question, "It's amazing what lawyers can do when you pay them enough."
• How could Ba Nee's mother have told her that her father was an American with red hair? Jerrica says Ba Nee has been in Starlight house since she was a baby, meaning the mother died shortly after the birth( I think I read somewhere that she died on the boat trip from Vietnam)meaning that Ba Nee would've been a baby and therefore wouldn't remember anything her mother might have said about her father...is anyone else confused here?
• Ba Nee's backstory doesn't make sense time-wise. Her father was a soldier who served in Vietnam and her mother was a local woman. Given that the last American troops left Vietnam in 1973, Ba Nee would have been at least 12-13 by the time the show begins (in the mid-1980s, she's supposed to be 8, right)?
• Roxy is unable to read, yet she flunked out of high school. Last time I checked, people in high school learned to read in primary school. How come she can't read?!
  • The high school illiteracy rate is higher than you think - in low income areas in particular, high school students can record rates as high as 80% and illiteracy is the main reason most drop out. Roxy grew up in Philadelphia and from what I've read, she came from poverty, hence she probably didn't have much of an education. Roxy probably hit a point in high school where the illiteracy was such a handicap she couldn't scrape by at just barely passing.
• In the first episode, Kimber starts the fire when she drops an oil lamp. True, they couldn't just turn on the lights as the electricity was out, but they don't own any flashlights?
  • A good reason is that they, more than likely, were using the oil lamps as temporary bedside lighting, like some people use candles. And who in the 80's would keep a flashlight to hand after going to bed?
• In "Out of the Past", Kimber finds mementos of her and Jerrica's parents, including her father's old diary in storage in a chest. Wouldn't these have been destroyed when their original home burned down early in the series?
  • Did the sisters live full-time at Starlight House prior to their father's death? I got the impression they were only staying there because there were so many problems to fix at the time and later moved into the replacement mansion because, well, it's a mansion.
• In "The Middle of Nowhere", when Harvey Gabor is approached by Eric Raymond, who already lost him a lot of money, with a business proposition (acquiring property for an oil refinery in Alaska), he accepts on condition that - of all people - his daughter Pizzazz come along with him to oversee Eric's actions and hopes she will "make him proud." When the nearly-signed deal falls through, Harvey acts as if it is all Pizzazz's fault, without even looking into the reason for the outcome (the owners had a change of heart due to concerns about the wildlife). Given that he is a shrewd and successful businessman who knows to mind the dotted line, it is odd that he would allow his judgment to be so clouded by the hope that his rock star daughter will shift her interests to business, that he would entrust her with work in which she is clearly completely inexperienced, and then hold her wholly accountable for the result.
  • Well, the guy is a terrible father. His first appearance alone makes it clear that his only parenting method is, "Give your daughter whatever she asks for to keep her out of your hair." Unfairly blaming her for something is no less irrational or selfish.
• Why did Jerrica's dad leave her costumes along with everything else in her inheritance? Or more to the point, why did he have costumes stored in the same place as Synergy? If Syngery was, as the show suggests, intended to be used for live performances, then there would be no need for any potential performer using her to have actual costumes, since Synergy can make a T-shirt and jeans (or a basic dress or whatever else) look like any outfit the user requests.
  • Jerrica expresses concern in at least one episode about too many holograms straining Synergy's power. Every electrical appliance has a limit. Either Synergy doesn't have the capacity to repeatedly maintain entire holographic productions, complete with costumes, or it's just safer not to put unnecessary strain on the system.
  • or it's in case there's a drop in Synergy's signal/power, if her hologram fails, then they wouldn't fully transform back. It's a safety net that the girls never use.
  • In any case, Synergy may have been "designed to be the ultimate entertainment synthesizer", but they never said anything about live performances (necessarily). Either way, the Holograms still have to be the ones to actually perform the songs. Yes, they do use holographic costumes sometimes, but that's likely just in case they need to change costumes in a hurry. Otherwise, they usually don't wear the holographic costumes in every single performance (let alone all the way through).
• So, uh, the episode about Jerrica's mom's master tapes. In one scene, she and Eric Raymond are sitting on a couch, and next to him, completely within Jerrica's reach, are the tapes. Tapes that, keep in mind, do not belong to Eric. Despite this, she spends her time with Eric trying to appeal to his better nature, instead of, you know, grabbing the tapes and getting outta dodge. So why exactly does she trust the guy who's been screwing over her and the Holograms for months enough not to destroy the tapes again?
  • Jerrica isn't usually seen fighting unless absolutely necessary, maybe she was trying to avoid a fight?
  • It's true that she could have just taken the tapes, but that would have made her no better than Eric. She had to negotiate for the master tapes...no matter what the results might have been. Besides, Eric figured she wouldn't have tried to just take the tapes anyway.
  • If Jerrica has any common sense she could have just called the police on Eric and been done with it, the tapes were stolen property he has no legal claim to.
• Did Synergy really need to be in the show? The producers could have just have Jerrica put on a wig and costume (Hannah Montana) instead of magically transforming into Jem. It's like if the sunbow GI Joe joined forces with a genie to fight Cobra. Synergy seems out of place in Jem's world.
  • Synergy could have been needed to guide Jem and the Holograms to the solution. It was said in the show she was made to be like a mother figure to them. Also, they may not have wanted to make it too sitcom like, which would be harder to do without having the big secret like a hologram to protect.
  • When you realize it's supposed to take place in the same world as Transformers and GI Joe (even if they're only connected through a single minor character and never directly mention the giant aliens and international terrorists shooting each other up a few states away) that kind of supertech fits right in. Plus there's examples of other such stuff in the show like Techrat's lasers or time machine or UFO. It's supposed to be set in a somewhat fantastical universe.
  • Having something like Synergy makes the show more interesting, every show needs a hook after all. Plus it gave them an excuse to do all kinds of things without having to explain them. If anything Synergy was wasted on a show like this.
• How does Synergy always know how to help Jem? Even with the excuse that Synergy can hear what's going on though the earrings, they would not be on the same page all the time with Jerrica/Jem's vague statements. She rarely tells Synergy what kind of hologram she needs. There is no way they would have the same holograms in mind all the time.
• Why do the Misfits' songs have drumbeats when they aren't ever shown to have a drummer? Is that what Jetta does when the song doesn't have a sax part?
• Is Jerrica in full control of her Jem persona, or is this a case of split-personality?
  • She's in full control.
• Why is this lyric in "The Real Me?": "How could I be so unkind? I had to be out of my mind." In context, the song refers to the events of "One Jem Too Many", but Jem wasn't unkind in that episode. That literally wasn't the real her. It was Clash in disguise. Does Jem feel that she owes her audience an apology for the bad behavior of someone else?
  • The lyric is actually “I’d have to be”, not “I had to be”. She’s saying that if she was acting like that for real, it would be a major Out-of-Character Alert.
• Has Riot's father never heard of Elvis Presley or Johnny Cash? In the show, there's Ben Tiller's orchestra and Vietnam vet Randy James. Music and military can and do mix.
  • Riot's father is shown to be very stubborn so he still didn't think highly of musicians (before his Character Development) despite those named performers having served in the armed forces.
• What became of Jem and the Holograms in 2005 in-universe (not ours)? It is established that The Transformers, G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero and Inhumanoids all take place in the same continuity due to the presence of reporter Hector Ramirez. During the Transformers 3rd season, it is established that Cobra had collapsed and/or was destroyed by 2005. This begs the question of what Jem is up to in this future.