JERRICA BENTON
Initially I was going to leave this to the minds and imaginations to the net, but I felt a balance must be redressed. There are a lot of positive character analyses for Jem and the Holograms, and bad ones for the Misfits.
So, my intention is to give you MY analysis of Jem and Jerrica based on evidence gleaned from the episodes.
It's interesting to note that when I began watching the Jem series, my sympathies lay with the Holograms...but the general hypocrisy of Jem's character irritated me so badly that I wound up feeling sympathy for the Misfits, whatever bad they did. They were, after all, the 'bad' guys, and bad things are admissable from villains in a show.
It is my opinion...but even the most die-hard Jem fanatic cannot escape certain bad actions of this show's heroine.
Anyway, here it is...Jem and Jerrica, laid bare!
It is probably fair to say from the start that if I was a parent with
small children, this is not the character I would want my kids to aspire
to. Jem is the epitome of a 'popular' kid at school. She comes from a good
and stable background, a family that loves her, good friendships and you
just know that Jerrica at school was captain of everything she could have
been (It is made clear to us that she was a girl scout). She has a long term
boyfriend in Rio Pacheco, and all is generally right in her world. This is
significant to me...I often feel that Jem has no concept of what other people
from other backgrounds feel or think. In Fathers Day, when Pizzazz
is so upset with Harvey for 'betraying her', Jem's reaction is a careless
shrug, whilst it is Shana and Kimber who actually sympathise with the situation
and try to help out. In The Music Awards, it takes Banee, Krissie
and Dierdra running away to make her decide to do Danse's benefit instead
of the award ceremony. Equally, in Roxy Rumbles, Jem makes no attempt
to actually find the root cause of Roxy's problems. She settles the fines
so she can get back to her own concert, taking her friends and Roxy's with
her, and it's only BaNee who actually cares enough to stick around for Roxy.
More I watch her, the more irritated I become by her lack of real compassion
for other people. In 'Journey To Shangri-La', her excuse to MorWenn
to get the map is that she wants to save Roxy and Pizzazz...but when she
gets there, the first thing she says to the music man is 'we needed
a new sound'. Helping out, it seems, was only good while it was benefitting
her own cause. Jem is also good at double-standards. At the end of Hot Time In Hawaii,
she and the Holograms perform a song called 'How You Play The Game',
which includes the line 'if you play it fair and square you can still hold
your head up high'. Yet, in several episodes Jem herself cheats. In Last
Resorts, she makes a tree appear in front of the Misfits in order to
pass them in the race..and even more unforgiveably she uses Synergy to holographically
distract Pizzazz during the Indy 500 in 'Intrigue At The Indy 500',
an action which was not only dangerous but dishonest, considering she's meant
to be the good girl. And then, of course, there is 'Share A Little Bit'
- the song from the end of the World Hunger Shindig which is meant
to advocate sharing, and yet Jem will not willingly share the stage or the
song with the Misfits, even though they are told at the start of the episode
that they can perform.
One good example of Jem's shallow nature is the song 'All's Right With
The World'...the lyrics 'I feel great again, feel first rate again' indicates
that she isn't looking further than her own heart to claim that there are
no longer 'problems', even though through the episode Talent Search,
where it first appears, Aja has been seperated from Craig, among other things...and
in the repeat performance the Stingers have been abandoned on the desert island
thanks to Rio's sabotage of the boat. She also fails to notice in the first
play's video that Raya is being left behind, and it's down to Shana to pull
the newest Hologram on board. Other examples in the songs include 'Tomorrow
is 'MY' wedding' (which should relate to Kimber, not Jem), and Imagine
Me (Which focuses entirely on Jem/Jerrica's stresses and hassles).
In Truly Outrageous, Jerrica tells Ashley that 'there is no room
in Starlight House for girls who steal and lie', and yet at the same time
she is carrying out her charade to the world over Jem, not to mention stealing
earrings from a museum in China in Adventure In China. Where Jem's
duplicity over her identity is concerned there is some excuse, since Synergy's
safety is at stake, but there is no reason why she can't confide the truth
in Rio from the start...yet she doesn't, and never does tell him. There is
barely an episode that goes by where she doesn't tell him some falsehood to
cover her back. People have described Jetta as a compulsive liar, but Jem
to me is several thousand times worse.
The Misfits are often said to be reactionary to Jem and the Holograms' actions,
causing trouble for them, and often this is true. However, Jem is equally
as fixated with beating the Misfits. In Last Resorts, she's more concerned
that 'Eric will win' than the fact the resort owner might lose his lifetime's
work. In both The Beginning and Glitter and Gold she only gets
involved to spite the Misfits and Eric - the Holograms are only initially
created in order to get back at Eric Raymond for monopolising Starlight Music.
Jem is also possibly the show's bitchiest character. In Music Is Magic
she makes several unpleasant asides to other Holograms about the magicians,
particularly Devon Silverstone, and she is often scornful and mocking of the
Misfits and their music. Arrogant might be too strong a word for her, but
she verges on it on occasion. In Britrock, despite the fact that Roxy
and Pizzazz at least are innocent of any wrong-doing, she decides to humiliate
them in the kitchens anyway.
In Jem Jam, she merely stands and laughs as the Misfits crash their
gadget (from a height of several feet!) and in Music Awards she deliberately
creates a hologram of a bird in front of Pizzazz to make her crash her hangglider
into a tree...
Positive factors for Jem exist too...yeah, they do and I will concede them.
The only thing is, that in my mind they only occur when Jem is actually Jerrica.
Jerrica does care about the Starlight girls - in Alone Again she is
constantly trying to help Laura, and in A Father Should Be she and
the Holograms go in search of Banee's father. Jerrica also allows the Misfits
onto the train in Rock and Roll Express to prevent them being stranded.
I actually think Jem is schizophrenic...she and Jerrica are often like two
totally different people. I don't find either real appealing, but I'd take
Jerrica any day over Jem. Jerrica shows several very human foibles - she and
Kimber have an entertaining sister relationship, she loses her temper, gets
stressed, and basically does what any normal person would do in the situation
she is in. Jerrica perhaps is overprotective of Kimber, even to the point
of abusing her right to privacy (Bands Break Up when she searches
Kimber's room for the contract) and comes close to a violent reaction (Father's
Day, after the video shoot), but she has an overactive sense of responsibility
since her parents are dead and though for Kimber it must be a pain to have
a sister who classes you sometimes in her mind as much her charge as the
Starlight girls, all in all you can tell Jerrica cares for Kimber, as she
admits herself towards the end of Bands Break Up. Particularly touching
too is the scene where she remembers her last meeting with her mother - you
can't help but feel for her there.
But once the pink hair is on, she's a different girl. There is...nothing
positive I can find to say about her...her misnomas glare out too plainly
to be balanced. Words like cheating, revenge, lying, and laughing at another's
misfortune should not be applicable to someone who is a 'heroine' of a television
series, but all of them apply to Jem. Sure, she takes a lot of harassment
from the Misfits, more than most human beings could probably stand, in all
truth...but if you're the good guy, there are levels you don't stoop to.
She should have stuck to being Jerrica...Synergy, you created a monster.