Friday, August 1, 2014

The Girl in the Video 2: reactions

Thank you for spending some time reminiscing with the girls in the videos. And thank you to the following for such rewarding and humbling feedback. All of this goes to show how much fun you can have in your eighties (meaning, of course, your 1980s):

A.V. Club 7/10/14:


Nobleman’s efforts could easily turn cheap or exploitative, if he wasn’t so respectful of his subjects (a new profile of Vicky Granucci from John Cougar’s "Jack & Diane" barely mentions that she’s his ex-wife, for example) and such a thoughtful interviewer. This approach has led to some rather moving Q&As.

Pop Candy (USA Today) 7/14/14:

Last year...Marc Tyler Nobleman posted a fantastic feature in which he tracked down and interviewed 21 female music video stars from the '80s. This summer he's back with 30 more (holy moly!), and they make for some pretty compelling reading. … I hope this series never ends.
The Hairpin 7/11/14:

…Marc Tyler Nobleman’s super rad “The Girl in the Video” project, in which he tracks down and interviews the women…whose ‘80s hair and intense cosmetic contour only grows more powerful in retrospective. … Karen Morton’s…interview takes a surprising personal turn.

I love the labels for this post: 


OH GOD I LOVE THIS, THE GIRL IN THE VIDEO, MARC TYLER NOBLEMAN, JENNY I GOT YOUR NUMBER, GIRLS IN 80S MUSIC VIDEOS, WHAT HAPPENED TO ALL THOSE GIRLS

Yahoo! (homepage plus celebrity and music sections) 7/15/14:




Macha Bennet-Shephard (“Sister Christian” herself) 7/15/14:

It’s fascinating to read the stories of all these women; Marc is the kind of author whose sincerity and respect for his subject give an unusual depth to the interviews. We’re given a view into her world as she experienced it, and in her own words, making her most human and in that sense negating the very genre for which she became famous—the objectified, nameless “girl in the video.”


daughter (and only child) of Karen Morton:


friend: “I love your story of finding [“Sister Christian”], even if I never noticed and don’t remember the video.” Then on his Facebook page: “Im really taken by his perseverance. Also by his having kept track of his perseverance.

selected tweets from fans:






Round 2 in July 2014 received roughly 20,000 more page views than round 1 in July 2013.

4 comments:

"T.V. Barnum" said...

You really need to turn the series of interviews into a book/ebook.

You did your usual fantastic job with the research and interviews!

Don't know how you'll top this. :)

Marc Tyler Nobleman said...

Thank you, T.V. Barnum! Means a lot!

Anonymous said...

Great idea for a book. However you made a mistake. As someone who was old enough to remember, the brunette girl in the ZZ Top videos is Jeanna Tomasina, a former Playboy Playmate and B movie actress who starred in 10 To Midnight with Charles Bronson (1983) and the college sex comedy The Beach Girls (1982).

Marc Tyler Nobleman said...

Thanks Ann M. But no mistake; I didn't include Jeana [Ellen Keough, now Tomasino] because she's been back in the public eye in recent years on an edition of REAL HOUSEWIVES. She's mentioned in at least one of the other "Legs" girls' interviews. And I did not find the other brunette in "Gimme All Your Lovin'."