“I rescue dogs; my mom rescues kids.” — Anna Fox
Penelope Spheeris says: “Somebody told me one time years ago in film school what makes a good movie is if you can bring a new experience to the viewer that they were entirely unfamiliar with. And so I think that was my goal with all three films.”
Mission accomplished.
While Spheeris has been involved in some of the film and television industry’s biggest hits, from being the director for movies such as Wayne’s World to producing shows such as Saturday Night Live to writing for shows such as Roseanne, she is perhaps most known, and definitely most proud, of her role as the director of the three Decline of Western Civilization movies.
In these three documentary films, Spheeris chronicled for the first time the Los Angeles hardcore punk, heavy metal, and gutter-punk scenes, respectively. The Decline movies are revered precisely because they gave the viewer an original and new experience. We saw the raw, unbridled and raging creativity of the hardcore punk scene, the decadence of the glam heavy-metal scene, and the desperation of the gutter-punk scene — all essentially new to popular media at the time of release. And in doing so, Spheeris contributed to the cultural landscape by inviting us to look where most of us had not and would not.
And now for the first time, with the help of her daughter, Anna Fox, these movies are available as a box set on Blu-ray beginning June 30. Through the process of bringing these movies together, Penelope and Anna were able to reflect on how their personal struggles influenced, and were affected by, the movies.
And they came to a simple conclusion that is something of a family motto: Do not ignore the problems in yourself or the world. Look the problems in the eye, take that energy and do something good with it.
Prior to filming the first Decline movie, Spheeris was a punk-rock kid, and decided that the film would chronicle the Los Angeles hardcore punk scene. It’s hard to overstate the influence of the hardcore punk-rock scene on the last 30 years of rock, punk and metal music.
Many of those genre’s biggest stars, such as Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Dave Grohl of Nirvana and Foo Fighters, and the Beastie Boys got their start in hardcore punk. It is equally hard to overstate how provocative it was for Spheeris to document some of hardcore’s biggest stars, such as Gregg Ginn, Keith Morris and the late Darby Crash, living their lives, in some cases in poverty, previously unknown to the world. In this first movie, Spheeris introduced the world to these kids who felt alienated and were in some cases literally removed from mainstream society, and created a truly alternative universe.
To get a sense of how dangerous and incendiary the first Decline movie was, Spheeris needed to acknowledge what for many would be the shocking nature of the movie, particularly the seemingly violent slam dancing that was new to the world. “When we did the trailer for the first Decline,” she explained. “I wrote the text for it and the narration. And I was trying to be funny, and at the end of it, I said: ‘Come see it in the theatre where you can’t get hurt.’”
“The fact is, when I made the first movie, it was very, very untraveled territory. People were very unfamiliar with it because it was a closed-off niche scene here in Los Angeles. And when I got in there and did the movie and showed it to people, a lot of people were really upset by it, shocked by it, didn’t understand it. And I think that’s was one reason by the way that it was called ‘The Most Written About Film of 1980,’ just a little documentary,” she says.
Spheeris recognized that for the most part, the world ignored the early ’80s hardcore punk scene. And for Spheeris, this ignorance was deliberate — as was her motivation to not let that world be overlooked. “People like to ignore it and overlook it and don’t acknowledge it. I’ve often thought I’d rather have somebody say ‘F- you’ than ignore me. To be ignored is the biggest insult there is,” she explained. “I think these kids were ignored, the ones in the first film. They were probably ignored a lot by their families. Not so much as in the third. And I think the kids in the second film were probably as well. Because I think you don’t decorate yourself and try to stand out in a crowd unless you need that attention.”
For Spheeris, her connection to the content of the first movie and to its real-life characters was based on her own experience seeking refuge in the punk-rock scene. And she understood why seeking attention made sense in the context of a neglectful family environment. Research shows that neglectful family environments often have damaging mental and physical effects on kids.
“I came to learn that over the years because I used to do that. I used to dress up so that someone would notice me, because I spent my early years in my family situation where my mother didn’t even know where I was most of the time and didn’t care,” she said. “And I would do things like put blue makeup on my arm to make it look like I got hurt so that my mother would pay attention to me. So I think it has a lot to do with those kids trying to be seen.”
“I had a real love-hate relationship with my mother. And it was that she was incredibly charismatic. And now that I understand the term, I think she was a bit of a narcissist in that she felt the whole world revolved around her. She was incredibly generous. And people loved her. I think she was bipolar, basically, now that I understand what that is. We didn’t know back then. She would flip on a dime, you know. And as a child growing up, having somebody do that is so confusing and so disorienting. And so I would be having fun with my friend, walking along the street, and my mom would be in front of us and she would just turn around for no reason and slap me across the face. So it would be hurtful, and then it would make me angry. So I had a real love-hate — well, love-dislike, let’s put it that way,” she said.
For Spheeris, her issues at home involved more than just dealing with her mother. Spheeris had several stepfathers. Some studies suggest that rates of child abuse are higher among children with stepfathers living at home than among children living with their biological father. Spheeris describes living that experience: “And we had a violent household as well. I had seven stepfathers. My father was murdered when I was almost 7 years old. It was tumultuous, to say the least.”
Research suggests that having a parent with mental illness, such as bipolar disorder, and physical abuse can have damaging psychological effects. For example, one study of 2,800 middle-aged men and women found that individuals who experienced physical abuse as a child were more likely to report depression and anxiety as well as poorer physical health.
Many people found the perceived violence of the hardcore punk scene to be jarring. But taken out of context, it was difficult for many to see that the aggression displayed was actually comforting to many of the people involved. Legendary music journalist Lester Bangs famously said that “hardcore is the womb” because of the sense of safety that could be felt from the intensity of the music and the swirling of the bodies during slam dancing. And research supports Bangs’ assessment: Contrary to expectation, one study shows that listening to intense music when angry can actually improve one’s mood, rather than make someone more violent.
Spheeris reflects on her experience: “So when I saw the punk scene happening, I totally related to it, because a lot of these kids came from the same kind of family situation. That was for me almost a comfort zone. People were, ‘Oh, weren’t you afraid to go into that?’ I’m like, ‘No, I already lived it.’ You know, I would see my mother bloody on the floor with a guy’s army boot on her face. These are visuals from my childhood, you know? So punk rock to me was not scary at all.”
Furthermore, for Spheeris, it was not only because she related to the chaos of the hardcore scene, but also because she found likeminded people; namely, survivors. “I think it’s because I survived. And when someone survives something, that means in their subconscious they will continue to survive. So if I’m in a state of chaos, I know I’m going to survive,” she explained. “I think on a really basic, animal level, that’s why it’s OK. And I’m uncomfortable when everything’s going too smoothly. I feel like something’s gonna mess up any minute. It’s like the shit’s gonna hit the fan here any minute, so we don’t like this. So I think Lester’s brilliant in making that reference. For me, that’s why I was undaunted when I was making these movies, because I was comfortable with them.”
Spheeris felt that she was faced with a choice on what to do with all of the negative experiences she’d had. “I think what happens when you experience something that is hurtful or traumatic. You either use the emotion that you get in a creative way, or you use it in a destructive way. And what I think happens all too often is that people use that hurt in a destructive way against others. What I notice in Part 3 was that the kids use it against themselves. And they hurt themselves instead of other people. But I think it’s almost like an energy flow. You can turn it into something positive, or you can turn it into something negative. I didn’t consciously turn it into something positive. I think that’s some of the good stuff I learned from my mom. She was kind of a philosopher — suburban philosopher that tried to turn everything into something positive. So I did get that from her.”
“But, I mean, I’ve often said I should either have been dead or in jail. Not a film director that is somewhat well-known and done some notable work. I don’t know.
I clubbed a stepfather over the head with a very large ceramic lamp one time, and I could have killed the guy. I must have been 16 years, 17 years old. And he had hurt me physically. And he had passed out drunk. And so I picked up a lamp next to where he was passed out and just clubbed him over the head with it while he was passed out. I could have been in jail for that,” she said.
Yet Spheeris decided to seek therapy and told her therapist exactly what she needed. “I went to the same shrink for 30 years. She saved my life. When I went to her, I said, ‘I’ve got to do two things. I’ve got to stop using cocaine. And I’ve got to make some money, because I’m totally fucking broke. And she got me through both of them. It saved my life, so I’m all down with it,” she says.
Spheeris saw the trauma and hopelessness that can lead to despair, particularly in the third movie, which examined the hopelessness associated with homeless “gutter-punk” kids. “So I think that what happens with the kids in Part 3, for example, is that they’ve been through extreme trauma. And by the way, having done that movie, I realized they went through so much more than I did. And I went through a lot. And so in a way, they just kind of give up, and they don’t express the hopelessness verbally, but I think it’s obvious. And they don’t have any dreams of making it. Some of them are creative, obviously, because we have the bands, and I love some of the music they did,” she said.
When Spheeris directed the first Decline movie, she already had daughter Fox. And therefore, Fox did get a taste of the punk-rock world. “When I did the first Decline, Anna was 9 years old. And I didn’t take her to the shows I was filming at, because I wasn’t able to watch and keep track of her in those, let’s say, dubious situations. But I did take her to shows where I wasn’t filming. So she was raised on punk rock and heavy metal, actually,” she said..
Yet contrary to what many might expect from a punk-rock mom, Spheeris felt that her experience influenced her parenting in a counterintuitive way — she was strict. Fox recalls: “Here’s the deal with my mom. She was very strict. I was the kid with the strict mom. And I’ve always believed it’s because my mother had the perspective of what actually goes on in the places that the kids like to go and hang out. She knew the reality of it, whereas other parents they didn’t know the reality. So I always believed that’s why she imposed the more strict boundaries for me.”
Spheeris explained why: “It was all in combination with the fact that my mother never cared where I was. She never asked and didn’t know where we were, didn’t really have that kind of thing going on. So it was a combination of just trying not to be like my mom. Haven’t you noticed that each generation does the opposite of the other?”
In fact, Fox’s foray into the punk-rock music world was met with what would be considered standard suburban-parent behavior. “And then, actually I love karma, because it really does come back at you,” Spheeris explained. “My daughter became a hardcore rock ‘n’ roller.” But that didn’t stop Spheeris from being strict. Fox describes her first experience trying to be in a band with a punk-rock mom. Fox said, “I was in an all-girl band called ‘Feline’ for a while.” Spheeris interjects: “And they were going to go on tour in a big van, and I wouldn’t let them. I wouldn’t let her go without me, so I went on the tour with them, to watch them.”
But in retrospect, Spheeris wishes she had been even more restrictive at times.
“I think if I have any regret as a parent, it is that I left her alone when I went to work and when I went out to go to these clubs. Not all the time. I mean, I brought her with me a lot of the time. But I left her alone more than I should have,” she said. “That for me is a heavy guilt thing; Because she’s an only child. Anna’s got three children. They have each other if she leaves them. But I left her alone. I mean, it wasn’t every night, obviously. But back in those days, it wasn’t illegal. At least you didn’t get busted for it, let’s put it that way. So I had a lot of guilt about that.”
Eventually, just as Spheeris struggled with issues of substance abuse, Fox struggled with addiction. Spheeris explained: “Five years ago, Anna, it was revealed — because she’s very secretive about it — that she had a drug problem. She crashed her car with one of her kids in it. And then at that point, me and her husband (musician Damon Fox) figured it out, she was hiding it, what do you call it, pharmaceutical drugs. So it was a year recovery time she went to rehab. She did her job, AA, she cleaned it all up. G-d bless you, thank you, Anna. But I will say this, it wasn’t 1000 percent her fault, because her father died from a drug overdose when she was four. He died from heroin overdose. She had some bad genes there. But she came out of it.”
In fact, Spheeris decided to bring Fox into the family business in part as a way of keeping an eye on Fox. “She’s held strong, and after she was thinking straight again, that’s when I said, yeah, you have to come to work for me. Because I was going to watch her everyday that I could get her into the office, into the editing room, I was going to watch her. She wasn’t going to be able to be secretive anymore. And so that’s the reason the Decline movies came out. And I always said you never know if something’s bad or good until some time has passed because for me that was the most devastating time of my life,” Spheeris explained.
As time went on, the world’s affection for the Decline movies grew. Spheeris has been given partial credit for helping not only bring hardcore punk to the world’s attention and thus elevating that art form, but also bringing the decadence of the glam-metal scene to the world. And in the third movie, Spheeris brought to the world’s attention the issue of child homelessness.
But as the respect for those movies grew, Spheeris’ own feelings about the films became more complicated. “We had three editors, one for each movie. And I hadn’t watched the movies in 18 years; almost 20 years, I hadn’t watched the movies. Didn’t have any interest in watching them or dealing with them. It’s multilayered. I think at the core is that it was so difficult to get all three of them seen in decent distribution. Some of them got more than the other two; the third one got none. And that’s my favorite movie I’ve ever done. Part 3 is. Well, there was the hurt there from not being able to get the film seen. And then there were all of the various memories there of people who had criticized them. Actually, some people still are doing that with interviews. Some of them have been published. So far, little criticisms popping up here and there. I’m terrible: I focus on the bad stuff, not the good stuff. But there were a lot of reasons I couldn’t handle looking at them.”
And perhaps ironically, as Spheeris had brought Fox into the film industry to address some of Fox’s issues, Fox then helped her mother re-examine the Decline films to help Spheeris overcome her issues. But it was Fox who helped her mother address the films. “Four years ago, I came to Anna and said, ‘I need help.’ Because I do lots of things. I don’t just make movies. I buy houses, and I fix them, and I rent them, and I’ve got a complicated life. And I’ve got script-writing, and I’ve got various things going on. I asked her for help. And she said, ‘Well, I will help you, but only on one condition. And that is if the first thing that we do are the Decline DVDs. “
Fox recalled: “She was dreading it. She was dreading doing it and put it off.”
Spheeris concurred: “I was never going to do it.”
Fox continued: “No, she wasn’t. And I knew that she needed help from somebody who understood why she didn’t want to do it and the sensitive points that needed to be handled differently than someone who didn’t know her as well as I do.”
Spheeris said: “And I needed somebody I trusted. So she said to me, I dreaded doing it, didn’t want to do it because for me it was looking back over my life. A normal session with your psychiatrist is one hour, or fifty minutes. I was at the shrink for a year and a half, no break. [Because] I had to look back on my life and analyze what I had done and make sense of it, And face it. And hopefully put it in a box and let it go.
“At one point, Anna said, ‘Mom, sit down and watch the whole damn movie.’ I’m like ‘Oh, my G-d.’”
Fox feels as though it has brought her and Spheeris closer together. “But we’ve both had the most growth since then. And what was a very strained mother-and-daughter relationship is now an incredible relationship. We got really good communication skills, really good understanding of each other. We know how to set boundaries,” she said. “The resentments have been dealt with for the most part. And I feel like we made a DVD box set, but we also made an amazing relationship that we had never had before.”
And as they began working on the Decline box set together, Spheeris began re-examining her connection to her own life and the lives of the kids portrayed in the movies, and it reaffirmed her sense of purpose to look at difficult issues and try to help. Both having a sense of purpose and helping others have independently been associated with positive mental and physical health benefits. Evidence even suggests that those with a higher sense of purpose live longer.
”But, if we’re talking about having some heart and having love towards the world, they do have it. And those kids in Decline 3 changed my life,” Spheeris said. “They made me turn my back on Hollywood. Like I don’t care about Hollywood anymore. I mean I don’t want to hate Hollywood because it was very good to me when it was good to me. But I have no interest in fame and glory and glamour and all that crap. It means nothing to me. Nothing. It made me realize the things in life that are so much more important are things that I should be focusing on.”
Fox also feels that service is critical to her, particularly to her ongoing recovery. In addition to her commitment to her marriage and raising three kids, she has found a passion for rescuing dogs. “I learned that in AA. I’m coming on five years sober and being of service is such a huge part of that. So that’s how I ended up in dog rescue, is that I was trying to be of service, and I got sick of dealing with crazy alcoholics,” she said. “So I decided to put my energy towards dogs and being of service in that way, because the days I feel the best, the days I have the most energy — I am certain it sets off endorphins in my head, I am certain that there is a level of addiction for me, which is rescuing animals. Because I can tell by the way I feel when I do it that, it’s an addiction in its own. It’s a positive direction to put that in.”
“I rescue dogs for free. I work mostly with the St. Bernard Rescue. Sometimes, people prefer not to see things, to ignore it. And I feel like with situations like dog rescue, people like to ignore it, but in my opinion, then you’re part of the problem. If you’re not part of the solution in some way, in some regard, then you are therefore part of the problem. Everybody has a little bit of time or a little bit of cash to put out to help somebody or something,” Fox explained.
For Spheeris, that purpose gets enacted with her commitment to foster children. “But it’s a good addiction. You do feel a special love when you do something for someone else. Or for a dog, whatever — just do something good in the world. And that’s why I got my foster care license. That’s why I’ve had five foster children. And that’s probably why I’ll get another one pretty soon. It’s those things in life that are far more important than making it in Hollywood. I look at TV and see kids with their TV and their bling, their silly self-attention, all that stuff. It’s ridiculous. It is so ridiculous and counterproductive and ultimately going to lead them to total disappointment in life,” she said.
And some of the kids in Spheeris’ movies are following her and Fox’s example. For example, Kirsten Patches, lead singer of Naked Aggression, became a special-education specialist and works in South Central Los Angeles.
Sheeris continues to reflect on and learn from her experience making the Decline movies. She says: “I know for a fact that if you feel depressed or sad about things, the only way to come out of it is to go and help somebody else or do something good. But I think, on a broader scope, it worked in making more people aware that we have to take care of our children. That’s my big message anyway.”
“This is my life. I don’t want to be remembered for Wayne’s World and The Little Rascals [her 1994 film remake of the classic comedy shorts] and blah, blah.”
“For me, The Decline of Western Civilization is why I was put on the face of the earth.”
