a division of the Chersonian Institute

Category: Film (Page 1 of 15)

So Much Stuff!

It’s election day. It feels very anxious out there. I’m appreciating any distractions the day has to offer.

And in the Cher-sphere, there is so much to catch up on.

I’m very behind because I just returned from a vacation to Cleveland (a fun one this time), Tucson Arizona, Joshua Tree California and then back through Phoenix. And during that time Cher has been very, very busy.

We’ll need to review it quickly before the Cher book comes out in 14 days.

First, since it’s November we can start listening to the Christmas album again. Some people choose to wait until the day after Thanksgiving for Christmas music, but if you are in desperate need of some pre-holiday cheer, I think it’s okay to indulge early.

There is some memoir news (variations on formats to discuss). We need to recap the week of October 19 with the Victoria’s Secret runway performance, Cher’s Spotify playlist, (which is already down but I captured the songs on a list because I’m a Cher nerd and there’s a lot to discuss around that). We also have the Hall of Fame induction. I was able to attend and see the exhibit at the museum. I’ll review all that along with the Insights video and this year’s program chapter on Cher.

I also want to talk soon about the Cher singles that have appeared throughout the years in Rolling Stone Magazine‘s “best singles” lists. I had to deep dive into my Cher She-Shed to pull out one of the old 1988 lists. Cher songs on those have come and gone and we’ll consider why that is. There’s a podcast out there about “Believe’s” appearance on the latest list.

I also want to start some song spotlights beginning with “Love and Pain” from the Take Me Home album.

While I was digging through my Cher shed, I found some 1970s magazine memorabilia with Cher beauty tips. Since this was a recurring theme in the Ask Sonny & Cher in16 Magazine articles, we’ll look at those.

And then we need to talk about Teri Garr, who has just sadly passed. And the Kamala Harris endorsement video…

In the meantime, Silkwood has just become available on Streaming for the first time with Hulu. It has one of Cher’s best performances under the direction of Mike Nichols and the tutelage of Meryl Streep. If you’re feeling election stress, transfer it for an hour and a half into a movie about sinister corporate malfeasance.

Little Bites

Little Bites (2024) - IMDbSpeaking of Little Bites, here is a post to catch up on bits and bites of the Cher news we’re behind on.

Lawsuits

Cher and her son, Elijah Allman, have come to an agreement via mediation and Cher has dropped her conservatorship lawsuit. More info:

Cher won her royalties lawsuit against Mary Bono. More info:

Chaz Bono Appearances

Chaz Bono recently spoke in Rochester, New York, at a sobriety event and also discussed his family’s history of addiction and mental health struggles.

Chaz Bono’s new movie Little Bites also premieres this Friday, October 9. Not in my town but the step-and-repeat wall indicates the movie might be coming to streaming on Shudder. I will be able to watch it there.

Watch the Trailer

It looks scary! Reviews have so far been mixed but it has a 70% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The premiere was held in Los Angeles on October 3. Cher is listed as Executive Producer on the film and attended.

You might recognize this jacket from the late 1980s People Magazine picture in New York City. One of my favorite Cher pictures.

Ted Lasso and Cher

Ted Lasso (TV Series 2020–2023) - IMDbThere are few good things I have to say about this shitty, heartbreaking year. But one of them is the time I’ve spent watching an amazing show called Ted Lasso. My family has been prodding me to watch this show for a while now but I didn’t have AppleTV.  The show has a strong foundation of kindness and perseverance and goes against the grain of decades of Machiavellian TV plots. We have been so bombarded with fictional and reality characters showing us all the ways we can be assholes, it’s refreshing to see something that shows us all the ways to not be assholes…and still maintain dramatic interest, as if assholery is the only thing that could.

The show is well-written and full of inspiring sayings like “aint nothing to it but to do it.”

Anyway, it’s was a happy thing that Cher makes a few of the show’s references in Season 2, episodes 7 and 9.

Episode 7 opens with the song “I Got You Babe” played in its entirety to show all is not blissful in the relationship between Roy Kent and Keely Jones.

In Episode 9, “Bones & Honey,” we follow the character Beard through an episode-long adventure not unlike the movie Nobody mashed up with Martin Scorsese’s After Hours. Beard proposes taking some Richmond football fans to the ellusive club Bones & Honey to sneak in as nonmembers. One of the characters is doubtful, saying “even Cher couldn’t get in! Do you believe they did that to Cher?” complete with pitch voice.

Later when Beard does get them in, the characters are amazed, saying “You did what Cher couldn’t do!”

It was interesting to get the show’s read on the cultural meaning of Cher as a person who is normally cool enough to get in anywhere. Like the coolest of the cool.

Sammy Hagar

While I was in Boston, my oldest brother Andrew told me about driving from Champaign/Urbana to St. Louis with a bunch of his frat mates to see Sammy Haggar play a 1983 show at the Checkerdome for an MTV special. Recently I had to make an unplanned visit to Cleveland where my other brother Randy admitted he was also at that show.

I watched the concert on a bootleg recently and was struck by all the big stage props in it, the crane rigging Sammy Hagar climbs up and hangs off of like a monkey, the hot rod Hagar jumps on. It’s a fun show.

But these pieces of staging aren’t that different from Cher’s big shoe and lava lamps, just people designing shows for the last row of their arenas. Instead of dancers hanging from cranes, Hagar just did it himself.

He was just designing a more masculine show and so no one ever accused him of putting a car up on stage to detract from his music or due to his lack of talent.

Funny that.

Cher Show on the Road

New dates have been released for the traveling version of the Broadway Cher Show. I will be seeing one of these in 2025.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony

It appears Cher will perform. Ozzy will not. My Ozzy-loving friend Julie has talked me into attending the ceremony. We’ll be going with my brother Randy (of the aforementioned Sammy Hagar show which is ironic because Sammy Hagar is also attending). It seems Dua Lipa is slated to do the Cher tribute. This is a bit disappointing. I was hoping some older, establishment person would do the honors. But in many ways Cher is all about the future, not the past. But these legend tributes seem to always come from younger artists like Gwen Stefani (except when Steven Tyler did it or, recently, Meryl Streep).

The show will air on Disney+ which is just about the most unrock-and-roll channel imaginable (except that The Mayhem are on Disney+).

Last week the Hall of Fame released a tweet about Cher which was a closer look type thing. They mentioned her “distinctive voice”, “captivating stage presence” (which is way short of the real fact that she always steals focus), her “avant-garde fashion sense” (which is way short of calling out her huge rock-fashion influence), that she is a “generational force” (short for saying we didn’t think she would last this long), her “tenacious talent,” (which sounds great but what does that even mean?), and her “musical versatility” as showcased in the tweet with a short video on…”Believe”). What? “Believe” is important but it is hardly a showcase on her versatility. They should have referenced instead samples of her dance, rock, folk, pop, country, rap, r&b, torch, showtunes, opera, gospel and new wave music. Is that the best they could do?

I am going to this with a bit of skepticism that the Hall of Fame really appreciates Cher yet. This could just be the long-standing chip I have on my shoulder. But I just hope, if nothing else, we get a snapshot of Cher with Sammy Hagar out of this. I could usefully troll some brothers with that.

Dear Sonny & Cher from 16 Magazine, Part 9

Oh boy. I was feeling pretty good this weekend thinking we had only two more advice columns to review after this one. The questions about boys have been trying on my soul, especially this week’s responses from Sonny. Add to that the reading of the Susan Dey advice book, which is a nightmare of conflicting and problematic guidance for girls. Alarming warnings are made to not under any circumstances  “chase” and then soon after there’s a chapter called “Chasing.”

It’s  rough and I don’t know if I can make it through it. In fact, I’d put Susan Dey’s book right up there as one of the more difficult books I’ve ever read.

I’ve been complaining about these depressing time-capsules of dating advice to a few people and I hear in response the same thing: “That was a different time, Mary.” And I get that. Times have changed. And yet we are now hearing ever-louder calls for a return to this “quaintness” (from the Chief’s kicker, J.D. Vance, a whole slew of creepy people on Twitter/X). So…I don’t know. I still don’t feel like I’m on steady ground here as a girl. And I get a bit anxious just reading this shit.

This week I kept thinking thank God (thank God!!) I learned everything about boys and dating from John Hughes movies instead of columns and books like these. At least Jennifer Grey was allowed to be surly in Uncle Buck; and Molly Ringwald was allowed to be confused and critical in all of the John Hughes movies she was in. I can’t tell you how helpful that was to a confused person such as myself. That you could be just a normal person, not super feminine (see below) and the boys didn’t have to be “alphas.” In fact, those kinds of boys were played very villainously by actors like James Spader. Thank God also for the somewhat gender-fluid 1980s where boys could wear eye-liner and girls could have bi-lateral, funky hair. You had the freedom to explore ways of being. And maybe people were freaking out about it then, too, but those freak-outs were just off our radar screens.

Anyway, I was so happy to see the finish line with these old pressures of bad flirting and then I went into the Chersonian Institute (a.k.a. the Cher She-shed) this weekend and found two more lost columns! Eek! And one was compromised, so I went online afterwards to find a better copy and found another two more!!! Ack! So now we have six more to do instead of two. Oy vey.

So let’s keep going. I like the landscape photograph in this week’s column because I like to imagine Sonny and Cher are pondering over these letters and the weight of their responsibility in answering them.

 

If your young life is full of problems, there’s no need for you to suffer alone. In fact, there’s no need for you to suffer at all. Cher—and Sonny—want to help you—right here in the pages of 16!

Sonny and I are back again, reading your letters, answering as many as possible, and (hopefully) helping you to solve the problems you encounter in your day-to-day life. If your letter is not here, please don’t feel neglected—there just is not enough room in 16 to answer all of the many letters we get every month. Sonny and I carefully select a cross-section of the mail [see them  cross-sectioning above]  that represents your most important problems. If your questions aren’t answered this month, please come back next month—for sooner or later you will find your problem and our advice right here in 16 Magazine.

Dear Cher, I don’t like the way I look and I want to do something about it. What should I do to change my looks and become a new me? Waiting, Charleston, S.C.

Cher’s Response:

Dear Waiting, I think it’s very exciting to do yourself over from head to toe once in a while. The first thing you should do is get a bunch of hair styling and beauty magazines (or, better yet, order 16’s Popularity and Beauty Book—see the ad on the following page). When you have gathered together all of these magazines, scan through them and try to find your type. Study all the types for people with a face shaped like yours. Are you round, oval or square? Magazines dealing with make-up and beauty tips cover all types. The hair magazines have setting and comb-out instructions for all lengths and colors of hair. The hair books also tell you how to correct faults—like if your hair is too curly, what to do, etc. [Just wait until the 1980s]. Try to get a girlfriend to join you in your campaign to re-do yourself. It is always more fun when you have someone to share your thoughts with and to exchange ideas with. The two of you could spend a “beauty weekend” together and probably come out with some great new results. Good luck.

Cher Scholar’s Response:

I got really into my local library’s coffee-table beauty books for a while as a tween. This is not to say I ever became good at it, but I do like all the do-dads and beauty artifacts. And I have always fantasized about the styling weekend with a girlfriend. Or even the spa weekend of the skin care side of things. But most of my girlfriends aren’t as interested in this stuff.

I also love the make-over in movies. There’s actually a scholarly book about this, The Makeover In Movies. I haven’t read it yet but it’s on my list. Cher’s makeover in Moonstruck would most definitely be addressed in this book, (she’s in the index), as this is an iconic makeover sequence in a movie. Cher visits a hair salon, buys a new dress and does her makeup slowly in her living room all in anticipation of a date to the opera with Nicholas Cage.

You can also see grooming images in Good Times and the ladies go through a somewhat big, albeit offscreen, transformation in The Witches of Eastwick. (It’s the sex doing the makeover in their case.) And we can’t forget the bad makeover Cher receives in Silkwood from her mortician girlfriend, where she’s made to look like a corpse by mistake and Drew is snarky about it and then Angela gets into a snit and moves out. And it’s a subtle one but the Madame at the whorehouse in Chastity does a creepy baby-doll dress makeover on Cher’s Chastity character. And then Cher tries to make herself presentable to her parents (and not look like a drug addict) in the movie Mask. (I tried to recreate that star necklace, by the way.)

So lot’s of Cher makeover moments in the movies, which is an understandable cinematic impulse because there have been so many Cher transformations in her personal timeline. Cher has always changed her look to suit the times and she seems to enjoy updating her personal and professional looks: from the grunge bangs and hippie duds of the 1960s to the sleek, long-haired goddess in jeans look of the 1970s to the big wigs and tight clothes of the 1980s, and it goes on.

Cher is much more outrageous than me in her explorations. I just like to try different brands of mascara.

Dear Cher, I am going with a boy I am not sure I really like. I go with him because I am lonely, but I really love my old boyfriend (who doesn’t love me). This new boy is nice and sweet. Do you think I am doing the wrong thing? In Need of Help, Bow, Washington

Cher’s Response:

Dear In Need of Help, You definitely are doing the wrong thing. If this boy is so nice, you should not lead him on—for eventually you will hurt him very deeply. If your old boyfriend snapped his fingers, you would go back to him in a flash and leave your present boyfriend suffering—just as you are suffering now. Since you know what it feels like to be hurt, learn something from it and don’t hurt this nice boy. Take my advice and you’ll be a better person for it. 

Cher Scholar’s Response:

I don’t even think this would be Cher’s response anymore. I mean she didn’t have the same feelings for Gene Simmons she had for Gregg Allman. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Each relationship is its own weather system. Simmons, like this boy, had all the markings of a rebound relationship. Getting back on the horse, romantically speaking. Not every relationship is your forever home. Some are truly “We’ve Got Tonight” situations and this is fine if the two people are on the same page. All sorts of people are out there in the wilderness trying to find their way. And we can’t even assume that much about this relationship based on the question. The boy hasn’t weighed in about where he’s coming from.

Sometimes rebounds rebound again into something permanent. Seems to me what makes any relationship healthy is communication. So just make sure intentions are clear at all times and if or when feelings change, talk it out.

What is not okay is withholding your feelings about a relationship and leading another person into believing you are more serious or dedicated than you are. I have a very good friend who’s parents divorced when he was an adult because the husband had been having a marriage-long affair with a woman he had always considered his true love. The wife wasn’t as upset by the affair as she was by the fact that she had wasted her youth on a relationship that wasn’t true love.

There’s a difference between using someone and being lonely together.

That said, relationships are very complicated and even in my friend’s parents’ case, who’s to say what was going on and what torment people go through when they are navigating current relationships and when to end them. For example, why did Sonny stay with Cher when he was often distracted by other women? I’m sure his motivations were complicated: loyalty to Cher, desire to keep the money coming in, true affection. Why did Cher stay with Sonny so long during that same time? As Cher has said over and over, theirs was a very complicated relationship. She saw Sonny as a parental figure to her, a lover, a sibling, a co-parent to Chastity. Relationships are rarely smoothly operating machines or rarely cleanly broken off. It’s almost a topic that is beyond advice.

Sonny gave Cher a big wet kiss immediately after their divorce hearing! A very public kiss. Cher says it was hard to stay mad at Sonny, even minutes after a custody battle. Sounds very complicated to me.

Dear Cher, My parents won’t let me buy records or any of the other things teenagers like, even though it’s my own money. How can I convince them that it’s my money and that they should let me do what I like with it? Kar, Northbrook, Ill.

Cher’s Response:

Dear Kar, If you earn this money, either by babysitting or by doing other work, then you should be allowed to buy anything you wish with it within reason. If you get an allowance, you might tell your mother you are willing to set aside a certain amount of it for savings, but that you feel you should spend the rest on harmless “fun” things you enjoy.

Cher Scholar’s Response:

This is a tough one. Teenage years are mostly about testing your independence. Some very controlling parents out there inflict an “anything under my roof goes by my rules” policy. My parents were not like this (that practically had to push me out of the nest) although they were what you would consider strict in many ways. I was the last in line and my parents were pretty laissez-faire by the time I came along. They didn’t much notice what I was doing with my little amount of money. I was saving up my lunch money and buying record albums and Taco Bell dinners with friends. Nothing to test a “within reason” qualification. I wouldn’t even have known where to find the unreasonable stuff. But I was below everyone’s radar, I’m pretty sure. Recently, a family member labeled me as a goth kid, which surprised me because I had pink wallpaper, pink carpet and listened to Barry Manilow all day. But I guess within those confines, I was kind of a Barry-Manilow-listening, pink-loving kind of sad kid. Maybe a Pink Goth. Was that a thing? No it was not.

Some parents believe in providing trust until trust is broken. Some parents have to control every aspect of their habitats. And I don’t know any way around those kinds of parents aside from hanging in there until you can secure your own independence and move out as soon as you can. I don’t see this type of parent being suddenly convinced by arguments from Cher in 16 Magazine. In fact, I think those parents turned out to be some of the Cher-haters we see out there today. “That hippie Cher tried to corrupt our daughter Kar!”

This is a real problem, though, especially now that there is a whole segment of the population trying to re-define what it means to be a girl, limiting her choices in marriage, family planning and education, let alone all the fun teenage stuff.

But in this case, it could also be a parent who has come from nothing who is attempting to teach their kid about saving money or goal planning and not fettering all their monies on movie tickets and rock-and-roll records.

I’m sort of thankful for the latitude I did receive. It allowed me to follow my intellectual pursuits and learn self-sufficiency, which is what my parents wanted for me (including and maybe especially my father), not to depend on relationships for those things. But that’s not every parental motive out there so…

I don’t know what kind of parents Sonny and Cher were. Chaz Bono has written about this mostly in Becoming Chaz. Cher was gone a lot and some of the nannies seemed better than others. Elijah spent time in boarding schools which he seems to resent.

I haven’t talked to any parent who doesn’t bemoan the fact of how difficult parenting is. Just existentially hard. How you never really know what you’re doing. Short of abuse, it’s good to give parents some latitude for screw-ups. ‘

Does not letting your kid have popular music constitute abuse? I don’t know. I do know a lot of kids who grew up in restrictive households that forbade pop-culture and junk foods and as adults these friends of mine now have trouble navigating moderation with those very things. I’ve also seen problems resulting from over-indulgence. Teaching moderation itself seems to be a good idea.

Dear Sonny, I have a crush on a boy in my class. I think he likes me. How should I act? Just Asking, Bellflower, Calif.

Sonny’s Response:

Dear Just Asking, When you are around this boy, act sweet and not snooty. Don’t go overboard and come on too strong, but at the same time don’t be shy. Let him know “diplomatically” that you’re interested, and then see if he responds. If he does, show him that you are really interested in him, but at the same time try to make him feel that he is flirting with you—not you with him. Try to start one of those “accidental” conversations. Find out what his interests are, and if they are different from yours “bone-up” so that when and if you talk to him, you will be able to say something he wants to hear. Good luck.

Cher Scholar’s Response:

Good luck, indeed. Does dating in this world require a poli sci degree so you can flirt “diplomatically?” Just asking, myself.

“At the same time,” maybe I’m also just asking for a friend. Like all of them. Because this is crazy-making. There are two “but at the same times” in Sonny’s headache-inducing response. And that’s not okay. But at the same time….no, still not okay.

There was a very sweet Muppets (ABC) episode, “A Tail of Two Piggies”  where Gonzo, Pepe and Rizzo became bachelor roommates and were having trouble getting “the womens” (as Pepe says) to come to their house parties. They discovered that one of the best ways to initiate friendship with women was to become interested in what they were interested in. I think this is fine advice. But it could also send you off in a direction that is both a flirting-fail and something that changes the trajectory of your life. This has happened multiple times in my life, once when I tried to become a better high school student because I thought boys liked smart girls and another time I became interested in Buddhism and then 42 books laterthis.

What’s not okay is all the intricacies around how to flirt properly. This is simply the tortured evolution of culture and it becomes stupid at some point  You can’t manage that tightrope of flirting rules all while trying to “be yourself.” Just not compatible tasks. And you might be a genuinely annoying self. What then? Then maybe what you do is to go work on yourselfjust in general. The whole population will probably appreciate that, not just someone you fancy. Work on being less annoying (which is full-time job for some of us, I get it). Keep tweaking into a self you feel you can comfortably be. You may not match up comfortably with people you like. They might even get annoyed with your best self.  As unfortunately as that is, the alternative is pretty grim.

One of the saddest of the Hans Christian Andersen stories is “The Little Mermaid” which is a cautionary tale about this very thing, trying to be what someone else wants all while losing yourself in the process.

I guess in all things, moderation. It’s hard.

Dating is full of strife in Cher movies. Sonny and Cher battle about their futures in Good Times. There are all those poor fellows who try to decipher Cher’s character in Chastity, Dolly’s short burn-out with Angela in Silkwood, Rusty’s comparatively stable romance with Gar in Mask, the various jealousies that develop with the foursome in The Witches of Eastwick, the illicit affair with a juror in Suspect, the tumultuous beginning for Lorretta and Ronny in Moonstruck, the silly and sad relationship between the flighty Mrs. Flax and Lou in Mermaids.

The women don’t ever behave as Sonny advises girls to behave in any of these stories, nor did Cher herself ultimately behave that way. In fact, you can make a case they all flirted pretty badly in a plethora of wonderful ways.

Dear Sonny, Doesn’t femininity count with a guy nowadays? To be popular, does a girl have to be immodest? Where I live, it seems that ladylike girls are “duds.” What’ is your opinion? Curious, Medina, Ohio 

Sonny’s Response:

Dear Curious, No matter how a guy acts, in his heart he much prefers a feminine girl. He will go out with girls who come on strong, but not more than once or twice. Stick to your principles. Be your real self at all times. You may have to wait a little longer to get asked out on dates, but when you do it will be guys who really respect you. 

Cher Scholar’s Response:

(By the way, I was just in Medina, Ohio.)

First of all, this unfortunate answer says more about Sonny than anything. This is dating advice dreck, this “boys only really like nice girls” answer.

Secondly, I can’t tell if this “immodesty” refers to mini-skirts or free love. I also can’t tell if this is a parent writing in masquerading  as a teen.

Some guys (and girls) are attracted to sporty girls, to bad girls, to nutty girls, to “feminine” girls. Some people are attracted to others who are sometimes sporty, sometimes tom-boys, sometimes feminine and sometimes every other type of way to be a person. What a weird idea that flirting has to be so performative toward femininity.

Sonny is definitely not the best person to be answering this question. In fact, it’s relevant to consider Sonny’s age here. He is ten-to-fifteen years older than these hippie tweens and his answer is going to be much more antiquated than, say, if Paul McCartney were answering these letters. This was a time of sexual revolution and it made many older adults, like Sonny, very uncomfortable.

“Guys who really respect you.” Please. You know where you can put that respect, right? As a girl who didn’t fool around enough, I will defend any girl who did.

Do you need his respect? No, you don’t. Do you need your self-respect? Yes, you do. Let that be the guiding principles you stick to. If you don’t want to be “immodest,” whatever that is, don’t. If you don’t feel particularly modest, go out there and live your best life. For me, this modesty shit is part of the fetishization of virginity. Which is all to say men have historically wanted to determine how and women should mate and procreate.

It was a different time. Well, different times are always around the corner again. I am just very thankful to have grown up in the time I did, as a carefree pop-culture addicted Gen-Xer in the 1980s.

I don’t even think this answer has anything to do with how Sonny or Cher behaved as young adults either, or at least Cher who was an aspiring street kid.

One of the amazing things about The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour was how they refashioned the vamps of history as sexually independent, provocative and ultimately persevering women. Better examples of being a  human could be found there.

 

Read more Dear Sonny & Cher from 16 Magazine

Dear Sonny & Cher from 16 Magazine, Part 7

This is a big two-pager! A quarter of which is taken up by a gigantic pic of Sonny & Cher. I hate this outfit Sonny is wearing, by the way. It’s the black and white, psychedelic, chessboard, optical illusion animation suit pattern. Bleh. I can’t directly look at it without my third-eye twitching. Sonny & Cher wore these matching chessboard suits on the back of their 1967 duet album, in Case You’re In Love, a spread that included some otherwise great photos of Sonny & Cher walking outside in Paris.

We have a lot to get through this week so let’s get started, four questions for Cher and three for Sonny.

 

If your young life is full of problems there’s no need for you to suffer alone. In fact, there’s no need for you to suffer at all. Cher—and Sonny—want to help you—right here in the pages of 16!

Dear Cher, I am almost 13 and there is a boy whom I have liked for over a year. He has never paid much attention to me. I have tried all the little tricks and secrets, but none seem to work! I do something “special” once in a while to get his attention. I am popular and have been told I am cute. Can you give me some new and helpful advice? No results, Beirut, Lebanon

[Beirut! Lebanon!! Cher goes international again!]

Cher’s Response:

Dear No Results, Maybe you are trying too hard. Maybe this special guy feels the pressure and is retreating from it—and you. I remember once when I was popular with all the kids but this one guy. I really went out of my way to try to get him—and he knew it. And I didn’t get him. So, I advice you to “cool it.” I think it would be smart to suddenly be indifferent toward him. Maybe that special trick will arouse his interest.

Cher Scholar’s Response:

Maybe he’s not into cute. I’m serious. Love is mysterious. If it made any sense, atoms would probably collapse or something. This is actually a good response. I so hope this story will end up in the upcoming Cher memoir but it’s not likely.

I don’t think even the trick of indifference will do any better than the other “special” maneuvers, sorry to say. It comes down to much we can’t control at the end of the day.  This reminds me of a poem I wrote a few years ago about Swann’s Way and love being a mysterious switch that comes on (or it doesn’t) from sometimes subconscious reasons or past life reasons. Hell if we know.

He might be gay. He may not be ready. He may not be into you. Biologists think it might even all come down to a smell.

Even the idea of “cute” is an existential crisis in the making. Who told you you were cute? Your mother? Another boy who likes you? Your girlfriends? The mirror? Aunt Maude? They all have agendas, No Results. You can’t even trust the mirror.

Forget all that. Just do you the best you can. Let the chips fall where they will. Magic will happen. Heartaches will happen. Very strange things will happen.

Cher keeps saying “what belongs to you, comes to you” and I do believe that although if we all sit around waiting for things to come to us, procreation will probably come to a standstill because everybody’s waiting and nobody’s (figuratively or literally) coming. Nothing much comes naturally. Is a bar atmosphere really all that natural? Is filling out an online dating form natural? Some of the mating dances out there in the wild don’t seem all that natural either. Have you see male blowfish art? Is he trying too hard? I really don’t know. The blowfish ladies seem to like it.

I like to think of it as a dance. Sometimes you move foreword, sometimes you move back, sometimes you don’t move at all.

In Sonny and Cher’s case, a forced separation did shock them into realizing what they meant to each other. And technically, that was Cher’s mother’s doing.

Dear Cher, I am 13 and there is this girl (I’ll call her Amy) who simply hates my steady, so she is spreading bad gossip about him and me and is shattering my reputation at school. Neither I nor my steady has ever done a thing to this girl. We have no solution. Can you help us? “Rep,” No City

Cher’s Response:

Dear “Rep,” First off, you ought to be aware of what is really going on by now. The girl digs your boy friend! That is why she is trying to hurt you and to break you two up. Naturally, there are some kids who are going to wonder if her gossip is true, but your real friends won’t give this girl a second listen. Just be polite to her—but in general, ignore her and her bad remarks. Most people are going to realize that it’s all just “sour grapes” on her part. As for your steady, I am sure he is man enough to ignore her, too. If he really loves you, this sort of thing will not deter him at all.

Cher Scholar’s Response:

Mean girls. Now we’re getting into some juicy stuff.

This is not a bad response either. I’m going to bring my mother into this here. First of all because she was showing me her high school yearbook last week and when we came to one girl’s photo, (let’s call her June because I don’t know any Junes except TV’s June Cleaver), she mentioned that the girl was “wild.” As I inquired further, I found out the word “wild” could mean anything from slutty to lawless. Which was quite a range. And I don’t want to quantify this girl’s character here but it’s all to say a “reputation” among girls, we can see, can last over 70 years! It’s no small thing.

My mother and I also discussed the terms “easy,” “fast” and the 80s insult of being called “slutty.” Words like this are what society uses, however you feel about it, to control the sexual (or even affectionate) behavior of women. You can call him a man-slut (f*%kboy is the most recent term I’ve head the kids use on reels) but this just comes across as funny for obvious reasons. (The funniest term on this list was homme fetal.) Just the idea of a promiscuous man seems culturally strange. Lothario is not quite the successful insult.

I’ve had plenty of drama with means girls myself (in my own house, sometimes) but not for Rep’s reasons. Remember I was so behind in matters of love,  I couldn’t be the target of salacious sex rumors (unfortunately). But I did plenty of other transgressive things to ruffle the mean-girl feathers. Due to copious amounts of pride, (probably cultivated from early pre-school mean girl experiences), I was steadfast in being who I was in a world-scape determined to make you conform to popular-girl norms. I followed the path(s) of what I genuinely liked. And suffered the consequences….and to this day still do.

The music I chose to listen to, the clothes I chose to wear, the ideas I had. the things I said.

I found safety in a group of boys and girls who were outsiders as well. And no, not those cool outsiders. The geeky outsiders because sometimes who you really are is not all that hip.

I also posed this problem to my parents while I’m here in Cleveland. We talked about the way teen girls and boys handle conflicts differently. My Dad commented how difficult these social problems are. I wondered wouldn’t it just lead to a fist fight between boys? No trash talk. Girls tend to go all devious and political on each other socially. In my experience millennials and younger girls tend to be better and my best female bosses have been younger than me. Also, I have some amazing girlfriends in my life (of all ages). But overall, statistically speaking, I find my relationships with women much more complicated and hazardous.

This year’s big meme is relevant here, the one where women were asked if they found themselves lost in a forest, would they rather encounter a man they didn’t know or a bear. Most women polled picked the bear and men took great offense at this, like men were bad and bears were good. But I can completely see the computations running in a woman’s head considering this question. She’s running the odds.

The odds are good a bear won’t attack unless the bear is hormonal or starving or fretting as a bear-parent. On the other hand, the chance of a sexual assault by a man is concerningly high out there in the wild. Anywhere from 1 in 5 to 1 in 6. The chance of a bear attack is 1 in 2 million. It’s just a game of odds.

And contemplating mean girls, I find it interesting no one has posed to women the idea of an encounter with a woman they don’t know versus a man they don’t know. Because this changes the equation a bit (for me at least). There’s a chance the woman might become my bestie. Totally! That would be great, surviving in the woods with a fun girl (I’ve already done this twice, once in roller skates). Outdoor slumber parties. I love it! But, if I’m being honest, there’s a greater chance a woman will throw me under the bus. A rapist is terrible, no doubt, but at least he might keep me alive for some nefarious purpose. The woman might probably get rid of me immediately in completion for resources or in competition for the questionable men-folk in the forest.

Actually, my biggest enemy in this situation is going to be myself because who the hell wants to deal with any of this dangerous human bullshit? I might just sacrifice myself to the bear.

Deep breath. Survival is hard. Social survival is harder.

Susan Sarandon got called to the carpet a few years ago for some subliminally mean-girl comments she made about Cher. She said Cher stole her part in The Witches of Eastwick and then claimed Cher said this during filming: Y’know, I really have a hard time being in a scene that’s not about me.” So we just took her lines and she got to go home.”

Immediately, Sarandon tried to qualify it by saying, ‘Y’know, nobody would say that but certainly everybody feels that way. Good for her to say it!” (Bitchiness disguised as compliment.)

Sarandon went on to say she got her beautiful wigs and gowns in the movie from Cher and that Cher was  ‘fantastic,’ ‘generous’ and ‘so funny.’ Cher responded with love for Sarandon and then Susan took to Twitter to clear the air, writing: ‘So much love & respect 4U. Devastated was taken as anything else. Also said how I wish I had balls 2 say same.’ Susan also tweeted: ‘And mentioned how generous you were in giving me ur wig & gown. Anyway, please accept my heartfelt apology.’ Read the blow-by-blow.

The press loves mean-girl drama. Cher famously shaded Madonna one time and made some mean-girl comments about Miley Cyrus (that twerking, tongue-gate performance) after which Cher  apologized and called out her own ego and big mouth. They have since had very positive exchanges, especially about Miley’s “Believe” cover.

It’s a work in progress, this mean-girl stuff. Cher has since worked on trying to be positive when discussing other women in interviews.

 

Dear Cher, I am FAT. That is a fact—and I can’t lose weight as I have no will power. My mom won’t let me wear mod fashions or hair-dos, because she says I don’t look good in them (she’s probably right). Please help me find out how to lose weight. Also, how can I whiten my teeth? Desperate, Thornton, Col.

Cher’s Response:

Dear Desperate, If you have really tried everything, I think there is hope for you in only one direction now. I think your mom should take you to see your family doctorYou should have a check-up and (if it is not harmful for you) you should be given some kind of medication that will help you to control your appetite. When you start to lose a few pounds, by all means get some mod gear—as that will inspire you to stay on your “diet” and give you pride in the fact that you are reducing. To whiten your teeth, brush them gently with common household baking soda once a week. Brush downwards only. Since most of us are born with our teeth a permanent color, it is hard to whiten teeth that are naturally sort of yellowish, but you can try. Best of luck.

Cher Scholar’s Response:

Teeth whiteners have come a long way. Diets have not. Many dramatic methods have come and gone, from a plethora of extreme diets to suction to stapling to medical appetite suppressants, most recently injections. The first step in any weight loss journey should be guided by a visit to a nutritionist, as they are the most science-based practitioners in the morass of opinions about weight issues. (See the responses in Part 5).

You can find teeth whiteners everywhere: toothpaste, mouthwash, strips, pens. You could argue, (not to go full-Sneetches here), that teeth are oppressively white these days. Sometimes I miss the natural look of 1970s television shows. Technicolor teeth.

Cher pretty much had pearly whites from the beginning of her professional career. Maybe this is because her mother was a model and actress and had some beauty tricks to pass along.

Dear Cher, My hair is at the length where I can’t do anything with it. It almost touches my shoulders, and it flops when it should flip. It also needs straightening (I have a deadly permanent and when the weather is damp my hear gets absolutely kinky!). Any help would be appreciated. Super-Curly, Vacaville, Calif.

Cher’s Response:

Dear Super-Curly, First of all, you must let your perm grow out before you can do a thing. Sorry about that—but it is a must. When your hair is grown out, if it is still too curly (and if it “reverts” in damp weather), then you will have to have it professionally straightened at a beauty shop. They have harmless, easy straightening methods—it’s like you will the opposite of a permanent. After your hair is straightened you will just have to experiment with a variety of hair styles and ways of setting your hair. Eventually, you are bound to hit upon one that is just right for you.

Cher Scholar’s Response:

We call them salons now. Who can promise beauty anymore? And what did we know back then from harmless? Girls did plenty of harmful things to their hair and definitely still do. We are always just as safe as we know how to be. Last week I talked about a cool girl I once went to concerts with in St. Louis. When she found out I was a Cher fan she told me she spent her teen years literally using a clothes iron on hair while it was spread out on an ironing board. She was trying to straighten her beautiful, natural curls to get “Cher hair.” Aieee! Insane because in the 80s we were all suffering through perms for curly big 80s hair.

The pointless things we do to impress the boys and the mean girls. And ourselves.

Cher has done some crazy stuff to her own hair. The movie studio tried to color it for Mask and it fell out. So she had to cut it all off into a crew cut that she then dyed blonde and then later skunkified.

Cher learned from television that the safest thing for hair versatility was investing in a wig room. Her long-time hairdresser, Renata Leuschner from the Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour, designed many, many wigs for all the Cher TV shows and concert tours.

Cher’s wigs even have names. Cher’s friend Paulette documented the Cher wig room and that fun fact turned into an original fan-fiction comic story in Cher Zine 1, “I Know My First Name is Joan: Perils of a Wig-naping” written and drawn by Julie Wiskirchen.

 

Now we turn to the questions put to Sonny:

Here’s Sonny to carry on with answers to the letters from those of you who chose to present him with your particular problem.

Dear Sonny, I have a very unusual problem. Instead of being too shy, my boy friend is too forward—and not with me, but with other girls! I mean he digs me, but he is always doing things to hurt me. He’s a real playboy [man-slut, homme fetal, gigolo]. He tries to act like is is 20 (he is 15) and flirts with girls who are three and four years older than he is. He hangs out with a couple of rough guys. I only see him in the summer and on long weekends (because he lives in another city). When we are together, he is very nice. But I’m worried about his “double-life.” Concerned, Chicago, Ill.

Sonny’s Response:

Dear Concerned,  You must bear in mind that young men are very [horny, idiotic, maladaptive] impressed by certain outside influences. When he sees these “rough” guys carry on, act tough and flirt—he probably thinks they are hot stuff and then seeks to imitate them. Believe it or not, boys do like to attract attention and this is just one way of doing it. However, since he is very nice and straight with you [Is he though?], he must feel sure that you look up to him and that he doesn’t have to put on an act for you. So, for the time being, let well enough alone. Let him go through these normal changes without giving him a hard time, and he will love you for that.

Cher Scholar’s Response:

I am going to give this response a big, fat F- Sonny. In fact, this is rich coming from Sonny, the one who perfected the art of cheating all while telling America (via Cher) to just calm down. This is like the love-bead necklace of icky-lines. It’s a chain of manipulations, the whopper being “this is just a phase I’m going through.” What exactly does “well enough alone” mean here except big red flags. If this guy, albeit only 15 years old, cannot refrain from getting distracted from a girl he supposedly “digs” but sees only in the summer and on long weekends, that says it all. I grew up with friends who pined for the girls they didn’t get to see nearly enough. The last thing they would have wanted to do would be to blow it with her the few days they actually had.

Blow up the life raft, girl. Strap on the parachute. Time to jump ship on this turkey. Unless you’re into open relationships and then good for you. You do you. But girls I know in open relationships never ever use words like “concerned” unless they are worried about getting knocked-up or developing STDs.

Unfortunately, this red flag for Cher was Sonny himself, the responder! And his ideas are illuminating considering that. Let’s not get further into their private life than we have to. Sonny admitted in his own book he wasn’t faithful to Cher. (There’s even a song he recorded in 1973 about it.) So I don’t think that’s a news flash now. Sonny made Cher very blue at times. When the last straw came, she consoled herself, allegedly, in the arms of a guitar player and then future-Toto keyboardist David Paich (who’s father, Marty, was Sonny & Cher’s band leader; David was also the songwriter / subject of “David’s Song“) and then David Geffen who guided Cher through an aggressive de-coupling from Sonny. As far as we know, none of those men flirted with other women (or men) when they were with Cher. Which is how it should be for Cher and Concerned herself.

Dear Sonny, I am 14 and for the first time in my life I hate school. I don’t like any of my studies, and I always had an interest in some of them before. I can’t finish my homework. I am perfectly satisfied to lie on my bed and listen to music or watch TV. I also day-dream a lot. Please tell me what is wrong with me. Sometimes I just wish I could die. I feel that I am all alone in this.  Dawn, Newton, Mass.

Sonny’s Response:

Dear Dawn, Don’t worry—you’re not alone! Probably everybody goes through this stage. I did, and Cher tells me she did. It’s perfectly natural. You are at the stage where you want something very different from the life you have, where you have grown weary of your day-to-day existence. It’s is O.K. to give into your “laziness” to a degree—it will take the pressure off you in other areas. But you must not let this world take you over. There are a number of ways to prevent this. First, take a good look at yourself and analyze your qualities. Everybody is good at something and wants something. Decide where your talent is (writing, painting, singing, or maybe something like cooking or sewing). Anyway, set yourself a goal and go after it. You must fight for it. It is hard, but you certainly don’t want to waste your teen years and wake up one day with no education and no skills. Remember: activity breeds activity—so hang in there!

Cher Scholar’s Response:

So first of all, the suicide crisis line. You can get help if you want and need it. Depression happens to a many of us and it comes in many forms. I grew up in a family with a person with depression and Mr. Cher Scholar has been very public with his experiences with same. In many cases, the cause is chemical and manageable with medication. Like any other part of your body,  some things don’t function 100%. Medicine and our understanding of brain activity has come a long way. Others (like me) have more situational experiences with sad. What’s going on in your life?

When you’re a teenager, you have no idea which case is which. There are a ton of situationally depressing things happening to you. You’re not growing up to look like Don Johnson or Cindy Crawford (80s sex symbols for those youngins). You are not turning into a genius like Albert Einstein and you are not going to be the top of your field like a Magic Johnson or a Meryl Streep. That is depressing! Also, the social environment has become suddenly very politically confusing and treacherous.  (See mean-girls above.) And you have no skills to navigate these things. And not only that but you are really not all that great at introspection yet.

Plus, if you are at all intuitive, things extra-suck. You kinda know but also never really know. I remember when I was a Junior seeing ahead into my future love life. This was not a psychic vision. This was just intuitive prediction. I was slow socially and very confused but I knew who I was. I could see the troubles play out. And I felt sure I was not strong enough to live through it.

But I misjudged myself in three ways: 1) I turned out to be a lot stronger than I imagined (without even trying), 2) I never knew how funny those upcoming sad things could also sometimes be and humor is a great mitigating factor on hard times, and 3) I never imagined the good stuff that would be happening simultaneously with the bad stuff. Another great mitigating factor.

I also agree with Sonny here that activity will proliferate into plenty of things to do to keep your mind off of self-obsession. I would say I struggled with sadness until I became involved with an animal charity in college and became familiar with more acute suffering than what I had ever been through. For some people, this works: perspective. For others, this does not work, it just piles on the sad to their existing sad.

Some people also call this gratitude but that word sounds too nebulous to me to be very helpful. I think we can be more specific. There is an ironic side of humor to be found in the darkest places (some call this dark humor but its also yin and yang at work and paradox). It also helps to keep tally of the good stuff. I had a therapist who asked me to make a list of the daily good as well as the daily bad because she said the human brain will focus on the bad as a matter of instinctual survival. The list was practice at keeping the good things in play.

There’s also such a thing as intellectual malaise and I can’t tell if Dawn is maybe feeling this. Being unchallenged in school just when your brain is starting to get thinking about interesting things. Sonny’s advice to explore interests is good here. I would add to this: go out into the intellectual world of book readings, museum visiting and wandering around the library. Start following your own trails.

I get sad myself if there’s nothing ahead to “look forward to” like a project or a trip or a new restaurant to try. And then bouts of “the pointlessness of it all” can attack anyone already in a state of sad.

Cher has admitted to suffering from depression, which she says runs in her family. She talked about it a bit after making the Not Commercial album. It was seen most publicly in the 1990s after the Infomercials and all her success in the movies. I contend success itself can be as depressing as failure. You can struggle with a sudden “what’s left for me to do” syndrome.

Cher was also struggling with a debilitating chronic fatigue at the time. All the things.

She went on to the biggest comeback of her career, “Believe,” a record-breaking concert tour, Kennedy Center Honors and practically Sainthood now. Good stuff was awaiting. And bad stuff too. She still struggles with parenting dramas, the death of husbands and friends, the loss of her mother, financial challenges and lawsuits and probably a thousand headaches we don’t even see.

Nobody promised us a rose garden. This is actually classic Sonny “good” advice (because he was brilliant at turning lemons into lemonade): you must not let this world take you over.

Here is a spread of Cher-sadnesses. Sometimes there are happy tears, like Cher crying with pride when her son Chas danced on Dancing with the Stars or Cher crying from being moved at her Kennedy Center Honors.

Then there is acting crying in movies like Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Silkwood, Mask, Suspect, Moonstruck, Mermaids…and the photo that made the cover of most newspapers the day after Sonny’s funeral. Cher-critics loved accusing Cher of fake-sadness at Sonny’s death, but I contend that her acting-cry is always pretty crying and you can definitely tell the difference.

 

Dear Sonny,  I have been going with a boy for a month and he says that he loves me. I feel that I have to break up with him because I don’t want to go steady. I am too young to go steady (14), and there is a lot of fun I want to have before being tied down. How can I tell him this without hurting him! Scared, New York City

Sonny’s Response:

Dear Scared, There is no way to tell him this news that will not hurt him. the sooner you tell him, the better—for the hurt will be a little less. The longer you stay together, the deeper the hurt will be for him. You have phrased it very well in your letter—so just tell him that little piece of truth. Be kind (not cruel) when you tell him.

Cher Scholar’s Response:

Is this the flip side of Concerned above with the playboy boyfriend? I’m sure he was in the same boat. Still so much fun out there to be had.

That aside, I actually have some experience in this no-ready-for-steady thing because I wasn’t ready before the boys were. So although I  was interested in them (eventually), the boys were still already more mature than I was. And I wasn’t able to deal with that kind of attention yet.  I wanted to be able to deal with it. Everyone else was living Peyton Place soap operas and I felt very left out.

There were two situations I can think of where I got myself into a situation that I felt overwhelmed with and had to break it off. Both happened in high school. One boy’s name was Doug and he was my first kiss (after a football night game by the purple bank of lockers) and I thought he was perfect but quickly found myself out of my depth. I said I wanted to stay friends and he did not take it well, never speaking to me again, except a curt “hi” at our 20th reunion.

All the girls flocked to Mark, another early dating attempt, the year he came to our school as the new kid. He was very handsome and wore the latest 80s parachute pants. This was very thrilling to the girls. I don’t know how many girls he went through, if any, before asking me out (I was clueless, really). But he got really intense really fast. He had some much more experience in all the things. In this case, Mark did not stop talking to me but he kept his distance and we were never part of the same social circles so I never saw him very often after that.

The tragedy of these breakups was that I liked these two boys. And if we had stayed close friends and they had waited, I would have caught up to myself and we could have continued. But so few teenagers are willing to do that. It’s too painful. And you can’t really ask anybody to do that. They either can and do or they don’t.

But I have always regretted my inability to communicate the complexity of my feelings for them (and myself) at that time. Avoidance was all I knew how to do. After all, I didn’t agree to go on a date with them because I didn’t find them handsome and amazing. I didn’t get suddenly disappointed. I was terrified and I had no language to navigate through what we were feeling.

So a lot of pain and drama resulted from misunderstandings and immaturity. It happens every day a million times in high schools all over the world.

Interestingly, Cher usually stays friends with her exes, which has been one of the best things I’ve ever learned from Cher. If you love somebody (if you really do), you can’t just break up with them and stop feeling love. And if you can, did you really love them in the first place? They’re the same person after all. You can distance yourself from toxic people, definitely. And you ex doesn’t (and maybe shouldn’t) turn into your bestie. But usually all the hurt lies in pretending you don’t love someone you really do.

Just keep your feelings straight and keep an open dialogue and that has never served me wrong ever and I wish I had done that with Doug and Mark.

Cher with some of her exes:

 

Read more Dear Sonny & Cher from 16 Magazine

Dear Sonny & Cher from 16 Magazine, Part 6

I was thinking this week would be another Dear Sonny & Cher, but it’s actually another solo Cher with a picture of Sonny & Cher. So technically Cher made it through four columns by herself. The final four of the ten will all be “Dear Cher…and Sonny.” So six total were with Sonny, four solo.

This is an interesting picture. It shows the mature Sonny and the doe-eyed Cher. They look like brother and younger sister here. Sonny showed some real courage to wear those polka-dots.

This was a frustrating week for me, the obvious answers for teeth and nails and always the boys. I think I’ve reached my limits on the variation of “does he like me” questions. These boys are gonna be the death of me.

 

If your young life is full of problems there’s no need for you to suffer alone. In fact—there’s no need for you to suffer at all, Cher wants to help you—right here in the pages of 16!

Dear Cher, I like this boy who lives near my house, but I’m not sure whether he likes me—or is just teasing me. It seems like all the boys tease me. I feel like they must hate me. How can I be sure just what they mean? Unsure, Mystic, Conn.

Cher’s Response:

Dear Unsure, I think you are nurturing a queen-size inferiority complex—and all over nothing. First, if a boy notices you enough to tease you, you can be almost positive that he is interested in you. Second, it is a habit of fellows, when they are hanging around together, to single out a girl or two and pick on them. All this means is that they are watching. Don’t take [it] the wrong way. Just be a little lady and don’t be afraid to smile at them occasionally—with a dash of humor in your eyes. Soon you will find that they will stop teasing and start talking to you, which is probably what they are building up to, anyway,

Cher Scholar’s Response:

Oh boy. There’s a lot to unpack in here. I even ran this one by my mother this week. We were talking about sensitivity gone amuck. Common wisdom on “picking on” as flirting is pretty strict. It’s “not okay” and practically considered abuse. Sometimes the more innocent “teasing” gets caught up in that, however, which makes flirting in this century very complicated.

As the “little lady” in a house with two older brothers I was obviously teased and this was in the 1970s so it was obviously tolerated. The issue wasn’t the teasing per se (which all four of them did). It was the not-stopping after teasing fatigue set in. I gained a reputation for being explosive when my buttons were pushed for too long. Plus, I tend to be sensitive, after all, practically emotionally fragile.

When I moved from Albuquerque to St. Louis I was also teased by the Missouri boys, (I think that was a genetic predisposition), because of my last name being Ladd, (which is why I’ve always found name puns to be low hanging fruit, comedically speaking). My mother consistently would tell me that the boys were only teasing me because they liked me. That did help take the punch out of their puns.

But where does teasing end and bullying begin? I do not know. But I do know, if the teasing crosses the line into bullying than you can f*%k that shit about being “a little lady” who smiles “with a dash of humor.” That would not be the recommended strategy today. Bullying is not funny. It’s basically the pre-stage of a fist fight.

However, teasing is not always bullying. Even though gaslighters will tell you “they’re just teasing” as they’re bullying you (ask me how I know). It’s all very complicated.

And here’s the rub. I am teaser myself. And I’ve been told I tease like a Ladd (which is not necessarily a good thing). I definitely, like those boys, wouldn’t bother to tease someone I didn’t care for. But I also wouldn’t tease someone I didn’t know very well or trust. It is definitely one of the ways I express both affection (dare I say the primary way) and a sense of feeling safe.  Which brings us to the love languages. I’m not a huge fan of the love languages because they seem to train us to accept our default (and everyone else’s) comfortable languages and I contend we should all be good(ish) at all of them. (To review the love languages are service, touch, gifts, words and time. I get it, we’re all bad at some of them, (err, or all of them). But we all needs goals, right? We certainly should have goals to love better. We all need a repertoire of thoughtfulness, conversation, experiences…and teasing.

The dialogue at the beginning of The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour was designed to be marital teasing. Sometimes it got pretty barbed but the idea was that it was all in fun and games and that Sonny and Cher would go home as a happy family. That didn’t exactly turn out to be truth, but it wasn’t because of height jokes or Indian jokes or Italian jokes. It was due to much more serious fault lines around infidelity and control. Cher actually liked short Italian guys…like a lot. Her barbs were just part of the game playing and the banter was popular because everyone was getting used to seeing more “ethnic” looking people on TV making fun of each other. Then maybe racist America wouldn’t take it all so seriously either. I think the banter was doing real cultural work via the guise of teasing. Looking back it seems more mean-spirited than it did at the time.

And in the real space of a relationship between two people, teasing has a function. It is part of the suite of affections. But the world is full of misinterpretations and sensitivity; so where flirting is concerned, we probably aught to be a safe word for teasing deployments.

I’m going to pick one right now: “fluffernutter.”

Dear Cher, I am 14 years old and I have always been thin—skinny, to be honest. I feel afraid of people. I can never talk to them easily and I feel as though I want to run away and hide sometimes. Frustrated, Glen Allen, Va.

Cher’s Response:

Dear Frustrated, If I were you, I would look at the bright side of things. It is easier to gain weight than to lose it [not true], for instance. I suggest that you eat a well-balanced diet of three big meals and day, and then help yourself to between-meal snacks. You can eat pizza, popcorn and ice cream—all those groovey goodies that most teenage girls have to say “no” to. [Uh, is this a good idea?]  I would advise you to avoid chocolate, coconut, soda pop and sundaes, as these can cause acne. To overcome your intense shyness, you will just have to force yourself  out of your shell. Try talking to yourself in the mirror. Don’t laugh, I really mean it. Then try talking to two or more friends. I know it’s hard to do, but if you don’t make some kind of effort, you’ll never get anywhere. Good luck.

Cher Scholar’s Response:

What a mess. Half of us have fat thighs and half of us have toothpicks (my Dad’s word for his legs today). The very idea of the ideal is exhausting.

Metabolisms can get really screwed up with extreme diets in one direction or another. So this advice seems very dated now: pig out, basically. This could have bad unintended consequences down the line at the other extreme. Science is just now figuring out how metabolisms function and it’s kind of wacky. There’s still a lot we don’t know about food and how our body processes it. Neil DeGrasse Tyson in his Master Class talked about “frontier science” (science at the very outer edges of our knowledge and understanding) and food seems to fit into that category for me, which is why the media jumps on all the contradictory studies about common foods: eggs are good for you, eggs are bad for you, coffee is good for, coffee is you bad for you, wine is good for you… We don’t know yet fully is the thing. The weight-loss show The Biggest Loser demonstrated how much we really don’t know scientifically about weight loss and weight gain.

The Cooking with Cher cookbook is a good example of this. When this Cher’s fat-free-everything cookbook came out, fat free was the fad, accepted on faith. But as it turns out, we need some of those fats. Eating is complicated.

My friend Julie and I once hosted a A Battle of the Stars dinner party in Los Angeles with our friends: Jack Nicholson’s fat-free cookbook recipes pitted against Cher’s fat-free recipes. Cher did win in the final voting but everyone was pretty unilaterally unenthused about the goods. And that’s not surprising for diet food. Fun jobs don’t pay. Good food tries to kill you. C’est La Vie.

Michelle Obama’s new book The Light We Carry (one of the books saving my life right now) had some great advice about talking to yourself in the mirror. She tells a story about a man she knows who starts every day with a look in the mirror and a friendly, “Hey, buddy.” It’s about starting the day with something nice to say to yourself. I am trying to figure out what the girl equivalent should be. I don’t like the Barbra Streisandly “Hey gorgeous!” Too much. I want to talk to my little self, actually. With some bit of teasing, truth be told, like, “Hey there, wiseacre” or “Good morning, smarty pants!”

Sonny teased Cher about being too thin and this was probably one of the things she was actually a bit sensitive about. She said before Bob Mackie, she wasn’t even sure people realized she was a girl. Which just goes to show what the power of an outfit will do.

The great ones have like super powers I guess.

Dear Cher, I have boy trouble. I am 13 and every time I get a boy to notice me, he seems friendly at first but [then] he loses interest. How can I get a boy to keep liking me? Troubled, Pablos Verdes, Calif.

Cher’s Response:

Dear Troubled, To get a boy to keep on liking you is an age-old problem with us girls. I think you have to make something “special” of yourself [oy vey]. To be special, you should have your own flair with clothes, have an original hair style, or do something that is different (but no way-out) [god forbid]. Most girls have a tendency to “run with the herd,” and guys get bored with that type. [Is this Sonny, talking? It sounds more like Sonny in some of these.] It is the girl who tries new things, [*snicker*] who is stimulating and full of life, and who has imagination and uses it that keeps a fellow alert and interested. 

Cher Scholar’s Response:

Sigh. So what is the recipe again? Be stimulating, full-of-life, not boring, imaginative but not “way-out.” Good grief. No, bad grief. This is an age-old story. It’s called Scheherazade.

You know what? This is the right answer (and I’m not disagreeing with Cher here; she came to this answer eventually): girls don’t need boys. That’s the answer. Stop all the “does he like me if he teases me” or “does he like me if names his car after me” or does he like me if I do A,B,C,D,E,F….

I’m getting bored with the bored boys, to be honest with you.

Let me tell you a story. I once worked at a Mortgage Company in St. Louis. My job all day was to make legal-sized photocopies and send faxes to the corporate office in Minnesota. I did so much faxing I started to dream about it. In the dream I had trouble flipping over the double-sided legal paper correctly. (I hate work dreams.) Anyway, there were two women there I completely misjudged. One was a very cool, beautiful curly-haired brunette woman who I thought would never want to be friends with a boring person like me. But she invited me to dog sit for her and we went to concerts together (the best one being Steely Dan) and she became the only friend I maintained out of that job.

The other woman was a very tiny, trad-wife looking woman. Or trad-fiancé anyway. Just the way she dressed, talked and did her hair. She was at that time planning her upcoming wedding and it was all she was talking about. I thought, she’s just waiting for her “real” life to begin. I wasn’t dismissive so much as I considered her an alien property. I was only 22 or 23 at the time. Little did I know she was over 30, (all the girls in that office were over 30, the cool, beautiful girl, the getting-married girl, the girl training so hard to get into the FBI she passed out one day by the fax machine).

We had an amazing boss there. He was a Baptist minister. And I told my first joke in that office. I remember it like it was yesterday. I sat next to the boss and we had an open office plan. There was a light flickering above us and we could see a bug up there dying in the light fixture. I said, “Well, I guess you can say he’s finally seen the light.” The whole office starting laughing and not because the joke was any good but because quiet-Mary actually told a joke. I turned beet-red and became committed to doing more of that.

Anyway, after a few months I got to know the not-so-trad-wife girl as I delivered copies to her desk by the window. She asked me if I had a boyfriend and I said no. I was just moving into my first apartment. She said, “Good. Live on your own for as long as you can. You will discover who you are, learn how to stand on your own two feet and then you will never feel trapped by a bad relationship.”

I thought, “That’s f*%king brilliant!” She wasn’t a trad-wife at all. She turned out to be a god-damn love guru.

Cher has said as much. Boys are fabulous but you don’t need one to live.

I don’t want to live in a world without boys. I want to be friends with boys. Relationships with boys are important and exciting and fulfilling. But if all the boys in the world find me boring or unimaginative or unstimulating, I will survive it.

Dear Cher, I have trouble with my hair, my face, and—worse—I have buck teeth. Please don’t laugh. I really want to know what to do. I am 11 years old. Carol, Atwater, Col.

Cher’s Response:

Dear Carol, you must never think for one minute that I would laugh at you or anyone with a problem. I was young once [like two days ago], too, and I know how very serious all these problems are. I only hope that I can help you and any other 16-ers who write to me in some small way. I think it would serve you well to order 16’s Beauty and Popularity Book, as you did not spell out your problems in any detail and the Beauty Book covers all problems, from shyness to skin and hair care. Buck teeth can only be treated by a dentist (who will probably send you to a good orthodontist). I advise you to get your parents to take you to the dentist at once, as you are still young enough to get the braces that will cure your buck teeth problem forever.

Cher Scholar’s Response:

I had braces too. I was thinking the transformation was going to be bigger than it was after that year of mouth metal. Like I would have magic new teeth basically.  But I pretty much looked the same. I had the same teeth. I didn’t suddenly have Farrah Fawcett face.

I wish I could get a copy of this 16  guide book to beauty. I still can’t find it. But I did find an ad for it. Yikes!

And I found the next best thing: Susan Dey’s Secrets on Boys, Beauty and Popularity.  I can’t wait to read this. The answer is out there about beauty and boys, folks. This is just more “frontier science.”

Cher’s mother did not have the money to fix Cher’s teeth. And Cher didn’t get braces until she was in her late-30s, somewhere between the movies Silkwood and The Witches of Eastwick. In some ways, her straightened teeth completely changed the look of her mouth. The fist time I saw Cher’s new mouth was in the movie The Witches of Eastwick. I had cognitive dissonance watching the first outdoor lunch scene where Alexandra Medford meets Daryl Van Horne in the beginning of the movie.

Maybe if you’ve got a magic smile you shouldn’t fuss with it. More “frontier science” right there.

(Click to enlarge)

Dear Cher, How can I stop biting my nails? They are a mess. I want to hide my hands when I go out on a date. Please help me. Nails, Ft. Lee, N.J.

Cher’s Response:

Dear Nails, First try to get a “substitute” habit. In other words, every time you want to bite your nails grab a piece of gum or a Life Saver—or twist a piece of your hair. Next, run lanolin (it’s cheap at the drug store) in your hands and massage your finger-tips each night (this is to keep your cuticles soft). Every time you feel like “biting in,” stop and  say, “That’s silly. I’ll find something better to do with my hands”—and do it.

Cher Scholar’s Response:

The old “substitute habit” theory. I don’t think that works. I think that’s just regular ole science. Besides, twisting your hair could be just as annoying for everyone else to have to watch. How about this, the next time you want to bite your nails, smoke a cigarette instead. See? And soon we’ll have to start ranking and color-coding all the bad habits and it will be a mess. Mo habits, mo problems.

I either have the best nails or the worst nails. It’s called life balance, people. Sheesh. My grandmother always has glamourous nails and sometimes having my grandmother’s long fingers with her glamourous nails can feel like Dumbo’s feather, but sometimes I feel like nails should get a breath of fresh air or I’ll be taking a ceramics class and fingernails wreak havoc when you’re doing pottery.

Cher, too, has gone through nail phases. Her most famous nail phase was in the 1970s when she popularized the crazy-long talons. She was so infamous for her long nails that there are stories about her bringing recording sessions to a halt if she needed a nail repair.

But then she went to a more natural look when she started acting in movies because well, of course, serious actors need to have serious nails. It makes total sense.

She has recently started wearing longer nails again but with less color.

(Click to enlarge)

Biting your nails is probably one of the better bad habits, all things considered. I mean they keep growing back so…live a little.

 

Read more Dear Sonny & Cher from 16 Magazine

Dear Sonny & Cher from 16 Magazine, Part 5

What a picture this week! Cher is wearing some future-Cher-signature hoop earrings. She was literally before her own time, not just everybody else’s time. This is also classic 60s-Cher with the thick eyeliner and the neutral lips, the thick bangs. She looks slightly miffed, like kids are writing to her via 16 Magazine and they are not telling her how old they were. (Can you believe it?)

This also marks the last solo effort of this column. From now on, Sonny will weigh in on questions, too. Maybe his new movie-mogul schedule has freed up. Who knows. The bottom line is Cher only got through three of them by herself.

 

If your young life is full of problems, there’s no need for you to suffer alone. In fact, there’s no need for you to suffer at all. Cher wants to help you—right here in the pages of 16!

Dear Cher, Do you think it is wrong for a girl to try and make herself look like another girl? For instance, I think you are beautiful and I model my hair, clothes and looks after you. Who would I try to look like? I flip for John Lennon. Worried, Niagara Falls, Ont.

Cher’s Response:

Dear Worried, Since you didn’t say how old you are, it is hard to give you advice. You 16-ers must remember to state your age when you writer to me—as that does make a difference. If you are 14 or younger, I think it is quite a good thing to choose another girl whom you admire to model yourself after. However, as you get older, you should start discovering yourself. You should—sooner or later—get your own style. That’s like letting the real you emerge. Everybody starts by copying, but in the end they must come to themselves. I agree with you that John Lennon is quite flippy.

Cher Scholar’s Response:

From Canada. She’s getting international letters now! I think this is a very good response, except for the scoldy you-16-ers part…and the part about John Lennon being flippy. I don’t agree with them on that one and the comment itself seems aside from the question. Just a non-sequitur. Maybe it was a hey, girl-to-girl thing, look at that hottie John Lennon. Wink-wink, nudge-nudge.

Truth be told, I don’t find any of the Beatles “flippy” or handsome and I know this will piss off millions of Boomer ladies by saying that. I have always struggled with the mandatory exercise of “picking my Beatle” and I have defaulted to Paul just because he and his wife Linda sided with the animals and Linda had a line of TV-dinners taste-tested in St. Louis. The dinners didn’t ever “go” but it was back when there were no vegetarian TV dinners in grocery stores and, incidentally, they were very tasty and so I also have her cookbook. You could argue I’m more of a Linda McCartney fan. But I do like the Beatles themselves. It’s more of a problem of picking a cute one. (And Cher Scholar’s gonna drop some catty bits here).  I contend that there is a fatal flaw in each of the Beatle faces. I had these thoughts watching the excellent Get Back documentary. For Ringo, yes, unfortunately it is the nose. For Paul, it’s those droopy eyes that most Boomer girls did indeed flip for. George Harrison has the most classically handsome face, but I can’t get past those teeth. For John Lennon, the eyes, nose and teeth are fine. It’s his mouth.

That all is needlessly (and maybe inappropriately) said because quantifying beauty is very subjective and cultural. For example. I love Cher’s older crooked teeth. I don’t like George Harrison’s crooked teeth. Probably sentimentality plays into our evaluations more than we like to admit. I have no sentimental attachment to the Beatles so I can nit-pick away. Maybe if I was an older person, I would have joined my peers and “flipped.” As it was, I was born later and flipped (and floundered) for people in my 1980s-teen-era instead. (However, I did not pick a Duran Duran member either. Sigh. Okay, maybe it’s me.)

And how are all these I-want-to-look-like-you Cher questions coming through the slush pile anyway? Is that the bulk of the mail coming in? Are they choosing only questions that discuss Cher beauty or Cher hair? Which is an interesting marketing strategy to pick only those questions that made Cher look good (but look at me being all conspiracy theory right now).

I am fascinated by these changing age borderlines in the 16 Magazine responses. Like was some teen-psychologist being consulted? Age 14 seems like the fulcrum of many changes in one’s life. Boys getting more sensible with girls, girls coming into their “real you-ness.” The real Eunice, as it were. How can I get to my real Eunice?

I actually love the idea that you begin to discover your own look by copying others and then making small tweaks away from that copy, so many tweaks that eventually you won’t recognize the source. I would love to hear (or read) about Cher’s childhood models, what and from whom she copied to finally define her Cherness, her Eunice. And I think this practice applies to probably everything we do as creative people or thinkers. We model other things until we understand the thing fair enough to try out tweaks for ourselves. There’s some great quote out there about artists who become great because they fail at trying to be someone else.

I was 15 or 16 when the Cher movie Mask came out. But since I was a slow kid, let’s just say I had the maturity of a 14-year old and that’s being generous. Watching the movie in the theaters I remember thinking Cher looked so great and that of all the eras of Cher, this look seemed somewhat copy-able for a girl from Missouri. You know, a sprinkle of hillbilly in there? Her 1960s-hippy chic look: eh. The glamourous TV star look: not do-able. Biker chick: possibly. Looking back it seems folly but I did try it out. And the form it took was to copy her character’s white undershirts and ribbon/shoestring necklaces. The shirts didn’t work immediately. But I did wear those shoestring necklaces all through my Sophomore year until I decided, you know, I’m not really a choker-necklace person.

Dear Cher, I have very dark, coarse hair on my forearms and on my face. Do you have any suggestion as to how I could get rid of this unwanted hair? Hairy, Ft. Collins, Col. 

Cher’s Response:

Dear Hairy, YOU FORGOT TO GIVE YOUR AGE!! If you are under 16, I advise you to try to ignore this excess hair for the time being. It may just be a passing thing and soon gradually begin to disappear. But if you are over 16, it is probably going to be a permanent problem, and you should speak to your family doctor about recommending a good electrolysist. There are people who scientifically remove hairs permanently—one at a time. Do not use “hair removing” creams and plasters on your body or face, as it is very dangerous.

Cher Scholar’s Response:

First of all, THE YELLING!! Maybe 16 Magazine needs a form kids can fill out to send in with their letter. That would eliminate all the forgetting to tell Cher what age you are. I now feel compelled by these stern reprimands to give my age when I have a question for anyone. “I’m 55!” That’s got to be the boundary of some kind of life cycle change, right? Wait a minute. Maybe Cher should start an AARP advice column right now! “Dear Cher, I’m 55 and not yet having hot flashes like all my friends? Am I a freak of nature. I feel so left out. What should I do?”

And I notice the age boundary has moved to 16 in this case. I hope there’s a chart somewhere of all these teen thresholds. Or is 16 just the age when girls can start going through draconian beauty practices? Boys can get drafted into the military at 18; girls can start electrolysis at 16?

There is some intense social pressure to be hairless, oddly. As a race, human animals are turning into hairless cats. I personally like hair on people, cats and dogs. And I know some very beautiful girls with hairy arms. In the third grade, a girl named Laura moved to our neighborhood from somewhere in the south. She sat next to me and we became friends for a year. All the boys went nuts. She was very pretty and had a southern accent. And hairy arms. The boys did not care. She was the most popular girl that year.

It’s interesting that this response differentiates between removing hair scientifically as opposed to what? Magically? I think they mean these snake-oil type remedies. You know, the whole skin care industry basically. I have a love-hate relationship with skin care products and I wrote about this extensively in Cher Zine 3, “Cher and Your Skin (The Infomercials).”

Hair removal has come along way (err, scientifically) since the 1960s. Just look at this Wikipedia page with its hilarious drawings of human hair and old-tyme ads for hair removal. There is now sugaring, threading, drugs, laser, IPL, diode epilation.

One thing is for certain, people care an awful lot about their hair. It’s a very serious business. Do I have too much? Not enough? One good thing about hair is that you can play with it.

Dear Cher, My father is in the Army and we lived in Europe for five years until about five months ago.  Before I left, all of my friends told me they would write to me. I have written to them all and given them my new address, and not a single one has responded. What is wrong with me—or with them? Now that I have gone, have they forgotten me? Depressed, Ft. Ord. Calif.

Cher’s Response:

Dear Depressed, Nothing is wrong with you or them—except that you are all human beings acting in a very human way. You remembered to write and [were] anxious to hear from them. In fact, it was probably easier for you to spend a lot of time writing to your old friends, rather than make new ones. They, however, still have each other, and are not lonely—though I am sure they miss you and speak of you often (and also feel guilty about not writing). But you should also remember that writing a letter is hard for your former friends, as they are all caught up in the busy life they share. That doesn’t mean they think ill of you. Don’t be such a pessimist. Go out and get some new buddies and start all over. When you remember the past, think only of the good things and—if you feel so inclined—if you feel so inclined—just drop your old friends a happy little picture postcard from time to time,. You’ll make out all right—you’ll see.

Cher Scholar’s Response:

Europeans!

I was a big nerd and also in French class so I had a lot of international pen pans in high school. The two pals who petered out first were the boy from Germany and the boy from France. I really don’t think this is because they were Europeans. I think this is because (can we all agree?) they were boys. My best pen pals were from New Mexico (Maureen I had as a pen pal the longest, through my twenties, and yet have never met her, even though I lived in the small city of Santa Fe for three years where she was from and probably still living), the French-Canadian (who wrote to me in French and I returned letters to her in English) and the girl from the Philippines (who wrote to me until the Marcos were deposed and then I never heard from her again). So it’s situational is what I’m saying.

I guess I’m pretty hot-headed because I didn’t spend much time making additional attempts after one went unanswered. So for this question I went to one of my bffs, Julie, to get advice. She has a remarkable reputation among our group for doing something we call “never forcing a falling out.” You know, sometimes you get fed up with a friend and you “force a falling out.” You instigate trouble to cull that friend from your herd. This may be a catty girl thing to do but we would often find Julie in a situation where “forcing a falling out” would seem beneficial and we would recommend she do it and she would never do it. Admirable really. So I told her this scenario and she texted me back: “I wouldn’t send more than two unanswered letters unless this was a really long-time relationship, then maybe three or four. And I would probably try calling if it was a long-term relationship before accepting being ghosted.” We then discussed the word ghosting and me using it here in this anachronistic scenario and we decided it was a very useful term. Because ghosting was happening long before “ghosted” was a word. To be clear, ghosting is not nice. To force a falling out is, although still dysfunctional, somewhat nicer. At least the victim has closure.

I do like the idea of converting to postcards as a way to touch base without the pressure of a response. “Remember me? I’m in America now doing obnoxious American things! Thbbbbffttt!” Then again, I can see where that wouldn’t help things much.

There’s probably not much hope in this sort of situation and I see Cher now giving me the stern Cher-stare and saying, “Cher Scholar, don’t be such a pessimist!”

Dear Cher, I have fat thighs. I am not tall, so it really shows on me. I am 14 years old. [Thank God she said how old she was!] What should I do? Out Of Shape, Bossier City, La.

Cher’s Response:

Be glad you are 14—for that means that some of this weight is still “baby fat” and it will slowly disappear in the next couple of years. However, I think you should practice rolling around on the floor. [Is this code for sex?] What you do is recline on the floor propped up by your arms with your elbows straight. Point your toes and stiffen your leg muscles. Now slowing roll over to the right as far as you can. Hold it for a moment, and then slowly roll all the way back to your left. Repeat this 25 times a day, and within two weeks your measurements will be on the way down.

Cher Scholar’s Response:

Roll around on the floor?? There’s not a better, more “scientific” name for this exercise? Ok, I’m gonna try it. Hold on a minute…

Okay I don’t think I did this right because it seemed more of a workout for my arms than my thighs, which were also chubby as kid. I have a distinct memory of being in my Wonder Woman swimsuit down at our neighborhood pool where Lillian, Diana and I would yell “Laugh at Me,” (after Sonny’s solo opus, no kidding and no idea why), and then jumping into the pool and grabbing at each other underwater and then Lillian coming up to tell me she found my legs chubby. And I wasn’t mad about it but I do remember being a bit irritated, thinking “Oh great, now I have to worry about my legs.”

Those chubby legs turned into tween-anorexic skinny legs (you saw that coming) and then I had a decade in my late-teens and twenties with normal legs and now we’re back to elderly chubby legs again.

I just did a google search that made me feel a bit fat- shamey: “best workout for fat thighs.” I got the usual suspects: lunges, squats, dead lifts with weights and jumping jacks (which are hard on your knees…just ask Jane Fonda).

Cher obviously couldn’t have thrown this out in the mid-1960s but there will come a time in the 1990s when Cher would turn into somewhat of a fitness guru. So we have quite a suite of workouts, guides and encouragements to suggest now.

Cher’s VHS A New Attitude, a step workout, was released in 1991. Body Confidence was released in 1992 with weight band exercises and a hot dance. When these came out, I just watched them while eating ice cream. I was thin then and the devil may care. Years ago I actually bought a step and tried the workouts. They were good and hard. The most distracting thing about them is the fact Cher is really overdressed in them. And that is kind of a turn off somehow. She does honestly struggle through her own workouts sometimes and that is refreshing. But to show up dressed for singing “Turn Back Time” is not motivating for those of us who do not have Turn-Back-Time-fits or care to.

In 1991, Cher also came out with a nutrition and fitness book, co-authored by nutritionist Robert Haas (who wrote Eat to Win), not to be confused with the poet Robert Hass (who wrote “The Nineteenth Century as a Song“).

Cher also did a series of commercials for Jack LaLanne gyms from 1984 to 1989. You can get some inspiration for your fat thighs here by listening to some memorable Cher epigrams about sweating:

 

Read more Dear Sonny & Cher from 16 Magazine

Dear Sonny & Cher from 16 Magazine, Part 3

We’re back again with more advice from 16 Magazine. But next up is some solo “Dear Cher” responses. From what Cher (or the 16 Magazine staff dude pretending to be Cher) says, this must be the first installment of the column. Plus there’s such a long preamble.

Did Cher start this solo and Sonny joined her later? As often happened in the Sonny & Cher story, Cher might have started off alone and then beseeched Sonny to help her out, like when she talked him into doing the final variety series or when she couldn’t talk on the “Hello” 45 record and Sonny had to do it all or when Sonny did all the talking to the live and studio audiences or when he tried to get Cher singing in the first place.

Anyway, hang on because this is going to be a long, repetitive and somewhat laborious introduction.

 

If your young life is full of problems there’s no need for you to suffer alone. In fact, there’s no need for you to suffer at all. Cher wants help you—right here in the pages of 16!

[Jesus! That sounds so dire. Don’t suffer alone!]

Hi there! It’s me—Cher—and (like I told you in the last issue of 16) I have what I hope will be a groovey [sic, or maybe that’s really how they spelled it back then] surprise for you? I know it is for me. What it is, is this; beginning with this issue I am starting a column called Dear Cher right here in 16 Magazine. It will be a regular feature in which I will try to answer any of your questions concerning make-up, beauty, hair and self-improvement. I will also help you with your personal problems—[good lord, if only]—you know, like how to overcome bashfulness, how to get that special guy to notice you, how to get along with your parents and brothers and sisters (not to mention with your teachers), how to get a boy to keep on liking you once you’ve got him interested, what to do about those “moods” you fall into, etc.”

[So the target audience for this at the beginning was young girls, not boys. So much for their problems. Interesting we’ve already seen that some boys did write in.]

“In other words, I—Cher—promise you that I will do all I can to help and guide you in every way possible in your day-to-day life. I’ve just emerged from my early teens and I know what unhappiness and suffering a young girl often goes through—and all too often has to go through alone. Well, you aren’t alone anymore. I am here. You can count on me and I will not fail you.”

[Some big and wide-ranging promises are being made here. Oy vey.]

“So if you have a problem—whether it’s a boy who’s causing you a heartache or a hair-do that is giving you headache, you can turn to me. Don’t be shy. I am the only one who will see your letters, as signed by you, and you know you can trust me. [Somehow, I’m doubting this. Whenever someone says “trust me”…and you know what, I think Sonny & Cher taught me that]. Tell me what your troubles and problems are—and then look each month for my answer, just for you, right here in the pages of 16. Since most of your letters will be of a very personal natures, I will not print your name. Be sure to remember to put a code name of your selection at the end of your letters to me. I will use this code name when I print your letter and my answer in 16—so watch for it.

Meanwhile, since I have some extra space in this issue [despite a herculean attempt to preamble this to death], I am going to take care of a couple of letters that came to me recently in my general mail. They will give you an idea of how I will write this column.”

[Ugh! I’m exhausted now. If only we could take a nap. No, let’s forge ahead.]

Dear Cher, When I look at a picture of you, I just flip. You look so beautiful—your eyes are sparkling and your hair is long and shining. Then I look into the mirror and I just hate myself. Please, please tell me how I can get to look like you! Miserable

Cher’s Response:

Dear Miserable, I am glad you like the way I look, believe me—but in doing so you are overlooking a most important fact. I am me and you are you! I am quite sure you are just as pretty (if not prettier) than I am, in your own way. So forget about me and let’s concentrate on you. To have sparkling eyes, you must get enough sleep, keep your face and eyes clean, and perhaps wear a little make-up [that word has unhyphenated itself in the last 40 years… isn’t that interesting?]. A thin eye-liner line on your upper lid and a little mascara may just do the trick. [Is that ironic advice from the woman who, along with Liz Taylor, gave the thick eye-liner look traction in the mid-1960s?] Give it a try. Be sure your eyes aren’t dull because you need glasses. Don’t laugh [too late]—that is sometimes the case! You can keep your hair shining by washing and brushing it regularly. If you want it long, then let it grow. [Is there another way?] Long hair takes extra brushing, so be sure that you have the time required to take care of it. If you do these things, you will begin to discover your own hidden beauty, and soon you will find yourself liking that little girl you see in the mirror!

Cher Scholar’s Response:

If you do these things, you will begin to discover your own hidden beauty…for like 24 hours only and then you will forget about it again and will have to discover new eye-liner tricks and spend some $$ on beauty books and magazines and the latest, most scientifically-improved (or mystical) makeup and then write to more advice columns run by other celebrities and influencers and do you see the problem with this right here?

I’m not an expert on this but I am always most impressed by those women who present beyond their face, so to speak. I just saw an example of this last night on a Diane Von Furstenberg documentary. She’s indisputably beautiful but she presents in a way that indicates she’s not operating from an investment in her own beautiful face. Oh sure, you say, easy enough to tap into your inner beauty when you’ve got outer beauty! Ok, fair enough. You can also see this same phenomenon in certain women who are not considered stylishly beautiful. (Look behind you 200 years to see how trends influence what we think ‘beautiful’ is.) These women are tapping into some kind of arresting self-assurance and inner light. I can think of a few women right now who do it. You think they’re beautiful and then you say, well, they’re not conventionally beautiful but they’re pulling off something that’s very lovely and stunning.

I couldn’t tell you how to get there, but I’m pretty sure it’s not by using a tube of makeup or hair coloring.

As a tween and teen, I did all the things. I read all the library books and paperback books I could find on beauty by the likes of Revlon or Raquel Welch or Christie Brinkley. I did all the hair and face things. I did aerobics religiously. I didn’t spend a single day in high school without my finger nails painted. It seems ridiculous to me now. I mean it’s fun to paint your fingernails. It really is. I still do it. But to feel you have to do it every day is a problem. Because it doesn’t really matter. And I didn’t even need to compare myself to famous women. I had a charismatic, elegant comparison in my own house, my grandmother. To tell you what kind of an “influencer” she was, you just have to meet all the Katharines in my family named after her. I would never measure up, I was sure of it. She was the thinnest, most effortlessly glamourous person and more interesting than any woman on TV; and by the way, her fingernails were painted every single day. The only time I saw her without her nails painted was when she was in the hospital and it was shocking.  I never for one second thought I could pull of a Cher. That never even occurred to me as do-able.  But at least I had the genetics of my grandmother. That seemed somehow do-able. And I went to great and dangerous lengths trying to do it.

I’m probably closer than I’ve ever been to understanding the charisma of my grandmother (because I’m nearing the age she was when I knew her and have had a lifetime to understand her possible struggles and feelings) and still I only paint my nails once in a while. It was never about the fingernails.

There’s a back door into this idea of beauty, is what I think I am trying to say. It’s not a front door. The paint job is only the front door.  And if you find you don’t have time to brush your long hair, “trust me” you will survive.

We lose ground in constant comparisons. They are irrelevant. Celebrity culture makes this  worse. Advertising makes this worse. You have to shut all that down. While you’re comparing yourself to Cher, she was comparing herself to someone else impossible for her to emulate (and that was Audrey Hepburn). It’s a dead end.

Since the mid-60s I have no doubt Cher has received thousands of fan letters telling her how beautiful she is. The letters probably increased significantly in the 1970s when she was a TV glamour goddess and the most photographed woman in America, if not the world.  More photographed than Diane Von Furstenberg even!

Fast-forward to the set of Silkwood with Meryl Streep and Mike Nichols in the early 1980s. I have a friend from High School and we were talking recently about Elaine Mae and Mike Nichols and so she sent me an excerpt she had on Silkwood from a Mike Nichols’ biography. I just read it last night. Here’s the relevant part:

“[Nichols] told Cher that he didn’t want her character to wear makeup. She was so nervous she wept—’I am so convincingly ugly,’ she said.”

Whaaaat? The makeup story is a famous Cher-Silkwood story but I had never heard that quote before and it just kills me! Cher was still beautiful in Silkwood! As I said in Dear Sonny & Cher from 16 Magazine, Part 1, we’re not always the best judges of ourselves (for good or bad).

Dear Cher, Nobody loves me. I know it sounds unbelievable, but it happens to be true. I am 13 and quiet and sort of bashful. When I try to talk to people, I stammer; and when people talk to me, I blush. My life is so unhappy. Is there anything you can do to help me? Scared

Cher’s Response:

Dear Scared, Don’t worry so much—you’re not alone in this terrible predicament. Guess what? I went through exactly the same phase when I was your age [which, let’s be honest, was six years ago]. I guess it is just a part of those awful growing pains. I think it would help you if you would try to find one good girl friend. It’s harder to get to know a group than just one individual. There must be one girl who seems a bit friendly towards you. Don’t hold back with her. Do something like asking her for help on a homework problem, or about how she gets her hair to go a certain way. Show an interest in her—and in others. If you can manage to compliment people in a sincere way—and there is something good to compliment in everyone—well, they can’t help but get to like you. Don’t be afraid of speaking to yourself in the mirror—out loud, I mean. I don’t care if it is just counting to ten, it will help you to get over the habit of not every uttering a word, and it will be a sure cure for your stammer. You don’t have to be a tiger, hon—but try to be just a bit of a ‘tigress.’ Good luck.’

Cher Scholar’s Response:

Tiger? Wha? Have we moved on to the bedroom? I’m confused.

Okay, compliments. Those are good, always appreciated. But you can go too far with compliments and you can actually get into trouble if you over-compliment or complement on a trigger subject. So stick to sincere feelings and strategically deploy it. Don’t blanket complement. Don’t complement to change the subject or as a diversion of any kind. Because then, your whole complementing apparatus becomes suspect and you’re right back to where you started.

My friend Christopher taught me a good lesson in conversation skills. I took him once to an art gallery in Taos, New Mexico, and he spent an hour chatting with the proprietor. We didn’t have time for anything else. But I was amazed he could do this for such a long time with a stranger.  He later said you can get anyone talking just by being curious and asking them questions and then seeing where that goes. People love to talk about themselves. And if you’re genuinely interested, you can play it as it lays. Be in the moment. Follow the threads.

Chats with the mirror aren’t a bad idea either. Inner dialogue. Get to know your self.

Cher has always said she is very shy and was once paralyzingly shy. She’s said she was even too shy sometimes to sing in front of just Sonny.

Possibly she’s an introvert, too, and you can’t turn an introvert into an extrovert. Their brains are actually wired differently. But you can learn how to communicate more effectively with others. And if you can learn some of these things at 13, you will not have to undo a lifetime of bad habits so good for you.

Cher was an early fan of the movie Dumbo. And like Dumbo, she had a feather to get her through anxious moments. This feather’s name was Sonny.

When I was a tween, I had to set myself a goal. I had a girl gang in Albuquerque. We did things like steal lawn ornaments and write FUCK on the sidewalks with chalky New Mexican rocks. I was on track to become a real problem child until we moved to St. Louis and I feel in with the wrong crowd, a group of nerdy bookworms. But it took some work.

My biggest problem was also bashfulness. Mine took the form of being terrified to express an opinion. Because I knew I would be judged for having an incorrect one. I was at my friend Jayne’s house one morning after a sleepover. She was asking me which box of breakfast cereal I wanted to eat from their pantry of many cereals and I was like, “Uhhhh…which one do you want?” and she lost her shit. “Like just pick a goddamn cereal already so we can eat breakfast.”

I decided right then that I would have one opinion a day. (Sigh. True story.) I even practiced having one opinion a day with my other friends Lillian and Diana. They’d be on there way over to my house and I would think, “Ok, get ready to have an opinion.”

And I started having opinions and it worked out really well and now I have too many.

Read more Dear Sonny & Cher from 16 Magazine

 

Cher Space and Time

While I was working nightshift last week, to stay awake I made a list of scenes, movements and styles Cher has been involved with over the decades. This is kind of a piggy-back to the music legitimacy article I did last week and thinking about prior categories I might have missed. But also thinking beyond music. Here it is:

– Part of the mid-1960s Southern California Pop scene with the Mamas and the Papas, the Byrds, the Beach Boys, the Turtles and the Association

– A member of Phil Spector’s Gold Star Studios circle

– Records made with The Wrecking Crew

– One of the first records made at Muscle Shoals Recording Studio

– A top participant in the Golden Age of Variety Television

– Worked with comedy-television icon, producer George Schlatter and his slate of shows

– First Met Gala fashion Icon

– A Vogue cover girl in the Richard Avedon era

– The Crown Jewel of Bob Mackie

– A hot ticket in Old Las Vegas in the late 1970s (the Sinatra/Barely-Post-Elvis Vegas)

–  Part of the Studio 54 scene

– A late-allowed MTV participant but made MTV history with a pretty tame video that was banned from daytime MTV (while in her 40s!)

– Acted under the iconic auteur directors of the 1960s and 1970s: Robert Altman, Mike Nichols, Peter Bogdanovich, Peter Yates, Norman Jewison and Franco Zeffirelli

– Infomercial Queen
Can I just say I still love the infomercials and I may be the only one. In a recent bio-drama, I heard the statement made that Cher had fought so hard for acting respectability and then blew it with these. But did she fight so hard for respectability?  I thought that was what the whole thumbing her nose at the Academy with the 1986 dress was about. Why wouldn’t she thumb her nose at them again with infomercials? Unless you only thumb your nose as an outsider? I am totally fine with Cher going off-script with these postmodern delights.

– Auto-tune ground zero (while in her 50s!)

– Spearheading the big circus live show before subsequent fierce divas followed suit (while in her 50s and 60s!)

–  Newly sainted and recurring Icon Award recipient (while in her 70s!)

 

In the bio-drama mentioned above Josiah Howard can be seen talking about how long Cher has been famous and how she has become part of everybody’s cultural memory because, “we remember it all.” She has become time itself.

Rock and Roll Royalties and Royalty

Rock and Roll Royalties

Cher has won her battle over Sonny & Cher song royalties with Sonny’s widow, Mary Bono. The court ruled that the “terminations rights” section of the Copyright Act does not trump a divorce agreement, which gave Cher 50% of the royalties on Sonny &Cher songs. Mary Bono and her family of heirs still maintain the other 50% of Sonny’s royalties.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the “isn’t Cher rich enough” thing. I think here is where it is important to remember that of all the wealth Sonny & Cher accumulated from 1964-1975, Cher received nothing. In fact, the contracts were written so much in Sonny’s favor that, at the divorce, Cher was forced to pay Sonny millions in “lost future earnings” due to their act breaking up. So for all Cher’s work for ten years, she walked away with their house and primary custody of Chastity, which she ended up sharing with Sonny anyway because, as she said at the time, she wasn’t about to take Chastity’s father away from her.

And although Cher didn’t write the songs, her participation in them made them hits and this divorce settlement can be seen as a reparation of that great abuse of contracts a man made against his own wife.

Rock and Roll Royalty

Paul Grein has written a great article called “12 Reasons Cher Belongs in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame” which was published last December during the Christmas album bruhaha and I completely missed it. To be honest, I got kind of tired of these rock-and-roll hall of fame crusades. And since this article was written, (maybe because this was written), Cher was finally included to the 2024 induction list.

And really this isn’t about a hall of fame. This is about Cher’s legitimacy and credibility in music. That’s what I’ve always been blathering on about. Cher fans are always concerned about her credibility in ways other fans of other artists (working in more respected genres) are not. So I really appreciate this article and I would like to talk about its points because they are the very markers of coolness and legitimacy in rock music.

Grein already points out that the HoF itself has broadened into many sub-genres, like R&B, rap, country. “If ABBA, Janet Jackson, Whitney Houston and Dolly Parton are in, what’s the rationale for leaving Cher out?” And here I’d like us to keep focus on the “keeping out” from the idea of legitimacy and credibility every time Grein mentions the HoF, because that is just what a hall of fame sanctions, a pre-existing status of credibility and legitimacy.

Grein pretty much follows the trail of rock legitimacy I’ve been tracking over the last umpteen years. What makes a person worthy of respect in music: is it record sales, is it concert tickets, is it loyal fans (or should we say the more male-coded aficionados?), is it years aboard the show biz, is it good critical reviews, is it influence, is it innovation, is it a stance or posture, did she help define an era or genre?

And…

Yes, She Helped Define an Era or Genre

Sonny & Cher helped define the mid-60s folk-rock and pop-rock era. Grein notes that Sonny wrote three “fine songs” with “I Got You Babe,” “Baby Don’t Go” and “The Beat Goes On.” I would add “Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)” to that list and call them strong songs of that era. Grein concedes that S&C were more pop-sounding than The Byrds (or the Mamas and the Papas, I would add), but that “their sound and look” helped define that era.

I would add that any thought of the summer of 1965 necessarily includes Cher singing “I Got You Babe.”

As a subset of this, Cher “was one of the first artists to have a big hit with a Bob Dylan song.” Her version (at #15) trounced the Byrds version at #40). Cher’s hit Bob Dylan song even preceded Dylan’s own first hit by a week (“Like a Rolling Stone”).

Yes, She Defines Rock and Roll Attitude

Grein says Cher has proven to be a risk taker. She gave up a lucrative Vegas career to become an actress. He says the HoF’s focus seems to be a youthful “rule-breaking attitude and spirit.” Grein says Cher telling the HoF to go fuck themselves on National TV was “a pretty rock and roll thing to do.” Grein also notes that, like Willie Nelson, “Cher exhibited an IDGAF attitude long before anyone had coined that acronym.”

Grein calls Cher’s Oscar dress of 1986 “one of the greatest sight-gags in Oscar history.” It was also a f*ck-you to the Academy for their snobbery around her performance outfits, boyfriends and prior status as a music and television star.

Cher: not afraid to say F*ck You.

Yes, She Has Many Hit Records Spanning a Record-Breaking Period of Time

All while multi-talking. “One month before she won the Oscar,” Grein says, “she had a top 10 hit with the rock ballad ‘ Found Someone.’ The very week she won the Oscar, she entered the Hot 100 with the follow-up hit, ‘We All Sleep Alone,’ co-written by Rock Hall members Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora.”

Her albums, Grein says, span53 years from Sonny & Cher’s Look at Us in 1965 to her Christmas album of 2023. Her No. 1 singles on Billboard Hot 100 span 34 years from “I Got You Babe” in 1965 to “Believe” in 1999.  Grein also points out that her Grammy for “Believe” spanned 34 years after Sonny & Cher were nominated for best new artist.

Yes, She Has Killed It In Concert Tours

“Cher was among the first female artist to undertake a massively successful solo tour.” She has headlined “seven major concert tours” including her farewell tour which “was one of the top 10 highest-grossing  tours of that decade….For the first half of the decade, it was second only to The Rolling Stones’ Licks Tour in total grosses.” At that time it was “the most successful tour ever undertaken by a female headliner. The 236-date tour finally ended in 2005 after having played to more than 3.5 million fans and earning more than $250 million.”

The TV special of that tour earned Cher a Primetime Emmy, joining “an impressive array of women who have won in that category for one-woman concert specials” including Liza Minnelli, Barbra Streisand and Adele.

Yes, She Has Had and Impactful Influence

Grein also talks about the artists Cher either paved the way for or artists who cite her as an influence: Madonna (the aesthetics of shock), Miley Cyrus, Beyonce, Lady Gaga, Gwen Stefani, Taylor Swift (there’s a Cher quote on the wall that begins the great song, “You Need to Calm Down.“), Cyndi Lauper, Little Big Town, Adam Lambert, P!nk. Tracy Chapman and Chrissie Hynde (who re-recorded “I Got You Babe”) have cited Cher in interviews as well.

Grein quotes Shon Faye to say, “If Madonna and Lady Gaga and Kylie [Minogue] and Cyndi Lauper were playing football, Cher would be the stadium they played on, and the sun that shone down on them.”

Yes, Cher Has Had the Harshest, Meanest Critics but Some Great Critics, Too

As I wrote in 2020, Cher escaped bad reviews from famously harsh reviewers Lester Bangs and John Mendelsohn (who some claimed would have given God a bad review).

Lester Bangs reviewing All I Ever Need Is You in 1972:

John & Yoko. Grace & Paul. Paul & Linda. Sonny & Cher had the formula down years before any of those melodious romances hit the stage and were a hell of a lot more appealing too., although that may not be particularly significant—the same thing could be said for Louis Prima and Keely Smith. And let us not forget Paul and Paula. The reason that Sonny & Cher are so much nicer to think about than the aforementioned crew of dilettantes, barterers and their wives is that Sonny & Cher don’t put on the same kind of airs.  How you feel about them at this point pretty much depends on how you feel about showbiz in general. If you think that Johnny Carson is a honk and the Copa just a hangout for alcoholics, if you cannot abide the sigh of black ties and/or tiaras between you and your artist-heroes, then you probably don’t like Sonny & Cher; I have seen reviews of their recent albums by earnest 17-year old rock critics lambasting the devoted duo entirely in terms of “us” versus “them.” And at the recent MCA convention in Burbank, when Sonny & Cher played a long, slick supperclub set climaxing with their eight-minute histrionic orgy on “Hey Jude,” I observed people all around me set their faces in that grimace they never pulled out for bluejeaned mediocrities. And those that thought themselves too hip for this schmaltz would make remarks later about the “tastelessness” of it. Why? Because Cher tells Sonny she’s not gonna ball him after the show, and drops innuendos about the size of his dong? Well, I’ll settle for Sonny & Cher being just blue enough for them poor old farts and fraus in the belly of the beast, because I like slick supperclub music, I like glittery Las Vegas-style entertainment without one iota of artistic aspiration. I’ll even put on a tie. Maybe I’m just getting old but I would rather see Sonny & Cher with a bourbon and water in front of me anytime than squat sweating in another concert hall while another rock group runs through amplified oatmeal highlights from the last big album it took them eight months of overdubs to produce.

John Mendelsohn reviewing Sonny & Cher Live in 1972:

Granted that they’ve gone through some heavy changes since they practically single-handedly insinuated folk-rock into the American musical consciousness, 

….what Sonny & Cher’s detractors always fail to mention is that the couple have matured into such sensitive interpreters that they can transform even the most over familiar material into searingly soulful expressions, as witness Cher’s fiery treatment of “Danny Boy.” Truly Cher has developed into one of our most inspiring ladies of song, capable of evoking emotions that not even a Nancy Sinatra or Marcia Strassman can deal with without some evidence of strain..

Grein lists some other great Cher reviews I had never seen before. like Rob Sheffield from Rolling Stone in 2019:

…there are no other careers remotely like hers, [particularly] in the history of pop music” and he referred to Cher as “the one-woman embodiment of the whole gaudy story of pop music.”

James Reed from The Boston Globe in 2014:

Along with David Bowie, she is one of the original chameleons in pop music, constantly in flux and challenging our perceptions of her.”

Joe Lynch in Billboard from 2017:

It seems odd to say anyone as famous as Cher is under-appreciated: the woman has five No. 1 singles on the Billboard Hot 100, an Oscar for best actress and has remained a household name for half a century. even so, Cher’s impact as a musical force is unfairly disregarded or minimized…Years before David Bowie toyed with gender-bending, Cher brought her deep contralto voice to the top of the Billboard Hot 100…

James Dunn in Rolling Stone in 1996:

Cher is the coolest woman who ever stood in shoes. Why? Because her motto is, ‘I don’t give a shit what you think, I’m going to wear this multicolored wig.”

Alec Mapa in The Advocate from 2003:

Cher embodies an unapologetic freedom and fearlessness that some of us can only aspire to.

It just occurred to me all of the above are men. Some of the womens in rock criticism need to say something methinks. Besides me.

As Grein points out, right now the HoF is 25% women. If there are only 25% of women in rock music right now, that would be a fair amount. How many women are there in rock music since the dawn of rock and roll? Someone else please do the math.

Yes, She Is An Innovator

Like or despise auto-tune, it had a huge impact on Rap music. She also innovated many rock and roll “looks” including popularizing bell bottoms, long straight hair (she had girls using irons on their hair!) and inspiring the term “Giving Cher” for innovating the biggest kind of iconic attitude.

In fact, in fashion Cher is both an influencer and an innovator. With Bob Mackie, she invented the scene-stealing red-carpet look. Grein says that her Met Gala dress from 1974 is still being imitated “40 years later.”

And Bonus Yes, She Loyally Supports the Cause

Grein also says she “brought a rock sensibility to prime-time” television all through the 1970s variety series solos numbers and guest spots. This, he feels, (as does Cher scholar Robrt Pela), was Cher’s “biggest hurdle to being taken seriously…the smash success” of those shows. The shows “gave airtime to a lot of rock artists.” He mentions this includes Linda Ronstadt, Ike & Tina Turner, David Bowie (in his U.S. television debut), The Jackson 5 and Patti Labelle (among many others: The Spinners, The Supremes, Fanny, early Rick Springfield and Elton John). The shows also showcased original rock and roll artists in tribute shows, including Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee Lewis,

And most of all, Cher has been loyal to Sonny, (even after he tricked her out of a decade of earnings). Years of fake-snipping aside, years of mutual-real-snipping aside. Cher time and time again has given Sonny his due (as well as fair criticism, most recently calling him truthfully, “a mixed bag.”) She has tried to support their legacy together, despite the lack of respect he continues to receive (disrespect even), and there is not a thing more rock and roll than that.

Cher Scholar Catches Up

I’m woefully behind. I feel like I’ve been through something in the past few months.

Here’s what we’ve missed in Cherlandia.

Cher TV

I’ve kept working despite a LOT of drama, including but not limited to, losing one of my two dogs and twice, almost losing my mother. As a coping activity, I spent a day or two adding information and links to the Cher TV page in the TV Appearances and Interviews section: https://www.cherscholar.com/tv/. I’m not finished. I keep finding more. So far we’re up to 332 TV appearances but I’m not trying to list every Entertainment Tonight appearance or local interview. Just indicative ones.

Cher Documentary

I came across a recent YouTube documentary, Cher, In Her Own Words. I think artist documentaries are sometimes great for fans but sometimes not great for the kind of fan who finds a lot of errors or don’t understand why certain things are covered and not other things. Or how they don’t get anywhere near the core of the person.

I’ve never seen a Cher documentary I’ve liked. Ever. And this is no exception. I’ve actually lost my notes about it in the mayhem that was my spring. But it has a cheesy voice over and all the same images in the wrong decade buckets. It’s filled with inane, unrelated footage to fill in the space.

But it was interesting in that it had footage from recent interviews where Cher did seem to focus more on her ideas about her own career. And there was new footage of stuff, like behind-the-scenes filming of Good Times I had never seen. I also noticed that some of the same interview footage was used for the Cher reel at the I Heart Music Awards in April. Here’s the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvBojJMeXdo

Deaths of Peripherals

The director of Moonstruck, Norman Jewison, died in January. She tweeted a nice message about it. I read in April that actor Ryan O’Neal also passed in December and I wondered how I missed it, maybe in all the Christmas album bruhaha. I was never a fan of Ryan O’Neal but he did star in the movie Faithful with Cher, probably a fan and critic least-favorite movie. Actually, one of the things I didn’t like most about it was Ryan O’Neal who played an all-too believable schmuck.

Court Cases

Two depressing court cases slogged involving discomforting personal family-drama stuff:

Cher’s attempt to prevent Mary Bono from terminating Cher’s Sonny & Cher royalties looks promising as the judge seemed to side with Cher. A friend of mine recently asked me, “doesn’t Cher already have enough money?” to which the logic seemed to be the richest party should always lose, acceptance of which would cause a legal run on the rich people. But in any case, I have to side with Cher on this one. She was already hornswaggled by Sonny for all their earnings. This was his mea culpa or at least a legal agreement to avoid spousal support. Mary Bono has two of Sonny’s children to think about but there are two other children of Sonny’s out there as well. Mary Bono also had her own congressional career and was not left high and dry when Sonny died.

And Cher’s bid for conservatorship over her son, Elijah Allman, continues (along with its unfortunate timing after the emancipation of Britney Spears). It seems Allman has reunited with his wife in the meantime and he appears to be back on the wagon. I do believe Cher is working out of motherly concern and not out of greed. It’s a tricky situation because Elijah is an adult. I’m not a mother so I’m not going to do any further speculating.

Dinner at Cher’s House

For months, Cher was promoting a charity event (which took place this weekend) in support of Free the Wild. Both the top bidder and a selected-fan would win a dinner party at Cher’s Malibu manse. I would love to hear more about the dinner. What food was served? Did the promised witty conversation occur? I wasn’t in any position to attend such a thing myself but I did want to donate to the good cause. If you are so inclined, you can too: https://www.freethewild.org/.

Cher Feting

Cher had a spring of accolades. She won the Equal Justice Icon Award on 29 March. She was given the Icon award at the I Heart Music Awards on 1 April with Meryl Streep doing the introduction and dueting with Jennifer Hudson. Cher’s speech was a bit of a ramble but that’s kind of her speech style. I love Meryl Streep but her speech was no great shakes either, especially compared to Beyonce’s great speech that night.

There was a bit of controversy about Hudson out-singing Cher during the duet but I think the bigger story is how much support from the black community Cher is receiving right now. It was evident in the night’s show and Hudson’s comments at the end of the duet. Cher will also be part of the Amfar Gala on 23 May.

And so now we proceed to the accolade that many fans have long been waiting for. That Hall of Fame.

Before we get into that I want to say a few things. I’ve been criticized off and on all my life for things I’ve liked. It hasn’t bothered me much. I have no guilty pleasures. We’re all on our own journey, after all. But last night I watched Who Done It, a fan documentary about the movie Clue.

Now I was there to see this movie in the theaters. I can’t remember who’s idea it was to go see it but my friends and I immediately became convinced this was an amazing movie: the level of talent, the perfect but also unusual casting, the tight comedic timing, the comedic range of the script, the creativity, writing, directing, all of it.

But the movie flopped when it opened. It was the Office Space of its decade (another movie I was on board with in theaters). Looking back, the movie was ill-timed amongst the suburban realism and super-gravitas of the 1980s. Compare the movie to Ghostbusters to see what I mean. This unpolished but competent documentary explained how Clue was an homage to not only a thread of camp in Agatha Christie (a writer who was also very uncool in the 1980s), but to the pacing of His Girl Friday (1940). This was a decade where camp was pretty much on the downlow from the mainstream (outside of John Waters movies). The 80s took themselves very seriously. Plus the movie had no megastar, the reviews were mixed and there was that confusing idea of multiple endings which were not packaged together in one viewing experience (until cable and home rental). The movie really was a gem under a cheesy pretense.

And many of these things were lost on my high-school self, to be fair. But my friends and I were obsessed with the movie in a way our other classmates were not. It was part of our oddball identity. We memorized the lines and watched it on cable and then as a VHS rental over and over again. We loved Tim Curry, not just for Rocky Horror but for Clue. We idolized him just as much for Clue. His work in the movie musical Annie was similarly overlooked, that being another movie that tanked with critics and moviegoers when it was in theaters but later found respect.

And until yesterday I thought Clue was just another odd-ball misfit that I loved and defended. But no. It has become a bonafide cult hit with younger generations. And as I was watching this documentary I was like yeah, another thing I was onboard with years before it was cool or understood.

I would say I have a taste for the underdog but I really don’t think that’s what it is. I like good things. Things I like are great. I mean not everything they do might be great. (I think we can all agree this is not great. But this is fucking great.)

Last night I felt something that was not quite smugness, but definitely a better assurance about my barometers. I don’t like bad things. I’m usually on to something.

And I have been proselytizing about Cher all my life. Like since I was five in whatever rudimentary way I could. And I’ve also been questioning what is it that gives something value, which includes challenging the status quo because when you start poking around, popularity is usually on shaky ground: is it record, concert and swag sales, is it criticism, is it influence on younger generations, is it breaking records, working with the best people (musicians and directors)?

Or is it a cabal deciding? Because that is the least rational of the things. Which is what bothers me about the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the trumped up scarcity (that is really ceaseless marketing) and its cabal of judges.

The RnR HoF takes itself very seriously. Which is why Spinal Tap is so great. It’s also why Clue is so great. And that very seriousness undercuts its own blind-spot valuations by over-valuating personal taste.

And yet, I also can’t pretend Cher’s 2024 induction is not significant in any way. The fans are very happy. This is a good thing. They have wanted this for a long time. She did very well in the pre-selection fan voting (as the top woman, if that’s the bar we must watch).

Cher was included in the final roster for induction in October in Cleveland, Ohio. I have been making the case for Cher’s credibility for so long, it does feel like a small vindication. Her rise to respect has been slow and ongoing. I track its origins to the 1990s when VH1 started airing old Cher show episodes on Tuesday nights and also when her Behind the Music episode ran for an hour and a half instead of the typically alloted hour.

Slowly since then a new generation of cultural critics and performers like Pink! and Perry Ferrell of Jane’s Addiction have been making the case as well. In the last five to ten years she’s been almost revered with an iconic status. This was not the reality for fans in the 1970s when she was a fashion joke akin to Paris Hilton. Or in the 1980s when she was given acting credibility but still withheld from any kind of music credibility, although her music output far outweighs her acting output.

Allegedly Cher wanted to be inducted as Sonny & Cher, which is another amazing facet of this story, how loyal Cher is to Sonny at the end of the day and after all these years and how she clearly and repeatedly states that her entire music career was Sonny’s dream. Which is why Cher’s induction is Sonny’s accolade as much as it is Cher’s. Sonny is vindicated here as much if not more than all the fans are. And Sonny deserves a great amount of credit. Cher was his discovery and his insistence. He is a crucial piece of Cher as she stands today.

But we also have to realize that it is Cher who has broken the big records. Her solo records, her longevity, her continued stance of rebellion, her own Cherness. So it seems fully logical that she would be the inductee. Sonny was like the rocket launcher. An impossibly strong and brilliant one. As Cher states in the aforementioned documentary, there was nothing about Cher early on that screamed movie star or rock star. But Sonny saw it.

I still feel the same way about the HofF, even now that Cher is “in.” But I do acknowledge the acknowledgement. The complaint that “Cher is not rock” can still be heard out there in the complainosphere? To which I would say exactly, she is much bigger. Rock and roll is nothing but all those many things that prop it up: blues, gospel, folk, punk, torch, country, showtunes, jazz, dance, rap, metal, the infinitely-alternative everything, the hairdos, clothes and mythology…it’s a posture more than a quantifiable genre.

Cher has recorded in many of those styles and her influence is proliferating as we speak. She is an entertainment Wonder Woman. An ongoing vaudevillian Viking.

Yes, I have been making the case for Cher, like I said, since I was in the single digits and I’m gonna keep doing it. Because I know I’m on to something. The HoF feels like a hard-won concession at this point.

But the things I like are much bigger than that.

 

Read More!

How Pink! exists as a singer because of Cher

How Perry Ferrell of Jane’s Addiction encouraged votes for Cher in the RnR HoF

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