Songs of my Youth: Love is a Battlefield

Teenagers running away was a huge social topic in the 1980's.  I know this because I had to do a report on the subject in junior high English class, a speech on it in high school, there were countless teen magazine articles, a zillion after-school specials and one "very special" episode of The Facts of Life on the subject.

From the above cumulative gathering we learned that if you run away from home you will be forced to drink alcohol and use drugs on the streets.  You will be paying for those drugs with pre-marital sex, which will also become your means of employment.  Nope, there are no fast food chains in the big city to work at, teenagers.  The only financial means for an underage girl will be prostitution.  (A couple of made-for-tv movies might have also offered stripping as a second viable option.)

In 1983, joining the parade to scare kids off the streets was Pat Benatar and her Love is a Battlefield video.  Oh-woo-oh-woo-oh-woo-oooooooooh!

Watching the video as a fourth grader, the moral of the story was instantly instilled in me.  The lesson I took from this was that biggest deterrent to running away was making your little brother sad.  (Proving that the boy playing Pat's brother was the best actor in the video.)  Pimps didn't seem too scary.  Battlefield taught me that they're small of stature and can be easily scared off by mass shoulder shaking.

I've always wished for some sort of back story, though, to understand why Pat so urgently needed to flee her cushy suburban home.  In the after-school specials, it was never the parents' fault.  They were always just overly loving and never anything close to abusive.  According to these flicks, it was usually a disapproved of boyfriend, a new bad influence of a friend, or that dreaded first sip of beer that sent these rebellious teens packing.  The only clue to Pat's story was that maybe she felt her dad's job as an egg salesman wasn't providing for her mall habit well enough.  (I know she had a mall habit because of the massive amount of neon wardrobe and headbands she managed to stuff into that one duffel bag.)

I'm also curious as to what she wrote home to her brother about.  It must have been a letter full of lies from the way he was laughing through it.  I can't imagine she honestly told him what she had to do to earn a sweaty five dollar bill as he chuckles it off, "Oh Patty! She's always good for a laugh!"

The end of her video differs greatly from the made-for-tv movies of the time.  On tv, the teenager always eventually finds her way back home. Her mother will nervously wait next to the pastel colored wall phone for months on end.  Daughter may call a few times and hang up at the last second. But, mother always recognizes that one breath she lets out before hanging up and will continue to keep vigil.  Daughter will learn her lesson the hard way and come crawling back home.  Parents will greet her in embrace at the door step.  Sad brother will be in the background offering a nod her way, pretending that he doesn't need a hug too.

But, Pat is too rock and roll to choose this ending.  When she arrives on the streets, a mere bump on the bus station platform is enough to throw her into a panic.  But, she soon gets her street bearings.  She marches past a pizza parlor (because they're obviously not hiring) and heads straight toward the "Girls Girls Girls" neon.  "I'm a girl, " she figures and draws herself to the signs like a moth to a flame. 

Men don't scare her anymore in the bordello.  She's become a pro.  She also becomes ringleader when a weaker member of the fleet gets her elbow touched too aggressively by the aforementioned pimp-meister.  She rounds up the girls to shake their unsupported chests at him (this proves they are not going to be treated like sex objects anymore.)  He backs down, gets tough again, then backs for good when he hears the battle cry "WE ARE YOUNG!!!"  "Oh no.  Not 'young'! The youth are my weakness!" his gold tooth sneers and he's off easier than that ill-fitted vest he's wearing.

The girls march independently out into the street, exchanging hugs and peace signs as they take off in separate directions.  Where are they all going?  The message is never clear.  Pat could be going home.  But, with the knowledge she has recently acquired, she may very well be off to start out on her next endeavor. She's figured she can turn a better profit margin with a madam-run agency of her own. "Oh girls!  Be sure to leave phone numbers!" 

The end of the 80's eventually wrapped up the majority of the teen runaway scare.  But, don't worry.  The gaping hole left in the cautiouary story-telling world was soon filled by  the next social topic du jour: "Teenage suicide. Don't do it."