The We Are F***ing Twisted Sister movie is two-plus hours, Bob Lefsetz says in his latest letter. That’s a problem for a couple of reasons for the music biz guru, as he considers watching it. First, two hours is an eternity to commit in an age when so much clamors for our attention. Second, as Lefsetz admits, “I don’t care about Twisted Sister.” Yet he plugs in and can’t turn it off because the movie is what everyone wants — it’s the story of pure desire winning in the end. Of passion beating the odds. Of never quitting. It’s exactly what we hope will happen in all the stories we watch, because it’s what we hope will happen in our own story.
Lefsetz piles on the praise, saying “everyone interested in making it in music must watch this documentary. Because this is how it really is.” Lefsetz is fond of Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 hours theory (he returns to it again and again). Where Gladwell uses the Beatles’ hundreds of club dates in Hamburg as an example of the dues paying and practice necessary to succeed, Lefsetz finds corollaries everywhere, from Steve Jobs to — now — Twisted Sister. The Twisted Sister movie title, then, has two meanings. When it says We Are F***ing Twisted Sister that “We” is the guys in the band, sure. But it’s also you and me as we aim for our dreams, and fall down again and again. Keep practicing, this movie says. When they try to keep you down, respond “we’re not gonna take it.”
