How MTV Saved My Life

We did not have cable television in 1981. That was the year Video Killed the Radio Star, and the way we heard the songs we loved changed forever. I did see that video at someone else’s house the day it happened; but in our house, it would be another two or three years before we had MTV. Still, that day was a harbinger of a future I could not imagine. At the time, I thought I was doomed to live the rest of my life in misery, fear, and pain.

I had been married to my first husband, aka my abuser, for about seven years when I finally began to see the light through the window of television. MTV revealed another world—one in which women made choices, where they called out the men who treated them badly, and where they dressed in whatever clothing they wanted. Years later I would realize that for many of those women in the videos, their agency was an act; but at the time I saw what they wanted me to see, and it began to set me free.

There were certain videos that empowered me more than others. My imagination and my sensuality were sparked by the androgynous men, like Stephen Pearcy (Ratt), Prince, and Boy George. I felt excitement at the fast guitars and hard rhythms of Van Halen and Mötley Crüe. More than anything, though, I felt the stirrings of my fear turning to anger turning to hope when I watched Amie Mann and Til Tuesday performing Voices Carry and Annie Lennox of the Eurythmics growling out “Would I lie to you?”

Seeing women like Martha Quinn and Nina Blackwood as VJs was just as empowering to me as the females in the music videos. I looked forward to seeing them whenever I had the chance. Many of those female musicians were people I’d loved since I was a teen or even before: Tina Turner, Ann and Nancy Wilson, Stevie Nicks, Joan Jett, Chrissie Hynde, Linda Ronstadt. Then there were the new ones; those I hadn’t heard before: Pat Benatar, Siouxsie Sioux. Annie Lennox, Amie Mann, Madonna, and Cyndi Lauper.

I began to see the possibility of a new life without the constant terror that I would say something to set him off; a life without the burden of keeping this one I was living secret from my family and my coworkers. I could only watch MTV when I was alone in the house, which was not that often, but when I did - I danced!

Here are a few of the videos that saved my life:

Would I Lie to You – The Eurythmics

Voices Carry – Til Tuesday

Get Into the Groove – Madonna

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun – Cyndi Lauper

Hit Me with Your Best Shot – Pat Benatar

Raspberry Beret – Prince

Lay It Down – Ratt

Looks That Kill -- Mötley Crüe

It’s Not Love – Dokken

Freeway of Love – Aretha Franklin

What’s Love Got to Do with It – Tina Turner

There are many, many more that pulled me through those last years and powered me up for the week I slipped a few items each day into a coworker’s little red corvette as we carpooled to work in the morning. I hid those things in the office until the end of the week, when I told my bosses that I was leaving, and why.

By then, I had called my grandma, and she bought me a one-way ticket from Hartford, Connecticut to Minneapolis, Minnesota. The ticket was waiting for me at the counter when Friday came and another coworker drove me to the airport. When I got on the airplane that day, I felt such relief. I felt free; but it was just the beginning…

The story first appeared in Bouncin and Behavin Blogs on Medium