59 pages • 1-hour read
Cher: The Memoir: Part One
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Themes
Resilience in the Face of Adversity
In Cher’s memoir, she details many instances of adversity in her life, explaining how she tried to be resilient in the face of these difficulties. Growing up in poverty was one of her most enduring challenges. Her single mother, Georgia, struggled to provide for her and her sister, causing Cher to feel “embarrassed and isolated” at school since she was usually “the poorest student in class” (71). She recalls that her childhood often felt “Dickensian,” writing,
There was a time that we were so broke that my saddle shoes were literally falling apart and had to be padded with cardboard to stuff up a hole and wrapped with rubber bands to keep the soles from flapping. It was so Dickensian. I begged Mom to let me stay home until she could afford new shoes (71).
Cher’s memories of feeling deprived show how her impoverished circumstances affected every part of her life and informed her vision for her future, too.
Since there was little Cher could do to improve her circumstances as a child, she imagined a different future in which she and her family were never in need. Cher remembers how she fantasized about becoming the provider for her family, writing, “Those are the times that being poor really got to me and I promised myself that one day I’d be rich and take care of us all” (73). With her success as a singer and TV host, Cher did indeed become the breadwinner for her family, supporting her mother and sister Gee with her income.
However, her financial troubles did not end there, as she later learned that the contract she had signed with Sonny Bono reduced her to an employee of a company he co-owned with his lawyer. Cher portrays this as a shocking betrayal since Sonny had been her partner in music and marriage for years. She explains, “I’d never for a second imagined that I needed to protect myself from Sonny, of all people, yet the contracts he’d had me sign were secretly designed to strip me of my income and my rights to my own career” (312). Overcoming this barrier was both logistically and emotionally challenging. Cher remembers realizing that she needed to assert herself or else Sonny would continue to exploit her. She writes, “I knew I had to fight for my rights. I had a daughter to raise and a sister and mother to worry about” (314). By ending her contract and leaving the show, Cher reclaimed autonomy in her career. Finally able to earn her own living on her own terms, Cher experienced the financial freedom she had dreamed about since childhood.
The Ever-Changing Landscape of Popular Culture
In her memoir, Cher reflects on experiencing cultural changes both as a fan and as an entertainer. By sharing her experiences as a consumer and creator of pop culture, Cher develops a theme on changes in culture and entertainment. As a child, Cher experienced significant cultural changes firsthand as a music fan. When Elvis exploded onto the music scene in the 1950s, a young Cher immediately loved him. With his fresh sound and style, Elvis’s “historic performance” on The Ed Sullivan Show captivated her. She writes that witnessing his performance “blew a hole in [her] understanding of the world and [she] was never, ever the same” (xiii). Thankfully, her mother felt the same way about the controversial singer. She explains, “Luckily for me, my thirty-one-year-old mother was as crazy about Elvis as I was, a fact that impressed my friends because their moms didn’t approve of his raw sexuality” (xiv). Cher’s memories of Elvis’s LA concert in 1957 reveal that she was one of many Americans who were ready to embrace more risqué and expressive musical acts.
The 1960s and 1970s were an era of cultural transformation, and Cher was no longer limited to the role of fan. As the host of The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour, Cher had the opportunity to work with “huge names” such as Elton John, Judy Garland, Tina Turner, and the Jackson 5 (259). As a major name in music, she had her own influence on the entertainment industry and, by extension, American culture. Cher admits that she was bewildered to come full circle and become an idol to millions of teen fans, just as Elvis had been an idol to her. Her memories of her early concerts show how passionately audiences embraced her and Sonny. She shares, “Of course we would end our set with ‘I Got You, Babe.’ I was loving playing concerts, but this closing number made me nervous because our fans would almost always rush the stage” (203-04). While Cher had always dreamed of being a singer, she was stunned to achieve that level of stardom. Her influence was not limited to her music, however, as her bold fashion sense also made an impression on her young fans, who began dressing like her. She remembers, “It was shocking to see the impact our music and style was starting to have. Girls were buying our clothes and wearing Cleopatra-style eyeliner. Some even started ironing their hair flat to look like mine […] I never imagined we’d wield that sort of influence” (204). Cher’s memories of being both fan and star provide the reader with a personal and engaging window into the changing culture and entertainment of 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s America.
The Long-Term Effects of Childhood Trauma
In Cher, the author reflects on how her upbringing and family relationships impacted her personal development. Her traumatic childhood experiences of separation from her parents led to separation anxiety and fear of abandonment that she struggled to overcome throughout her adult life.
As an infant, Cher was first abandoned by her father, Johnnie, who left his wife, Georgia, and infant daughter, Cher, in Scranton by themselves. While he promised to come back, Georgia did not hear from Johnnie again for years. Cher writes, “My deadbeat father never returned or even sent word. He simply vanished” (20). Cher describes her tragic separation from her mother, who was forced to leave her in the care of a Catholic childcare facility when Cher was an infant. Cher recalls her mother’s heartbreak at being separated from her daughter for months. She writes, “‘The sight of my little face through the viewing window broke her heart” (20). While her mother eventually took Cher back from the institution, she soon left her in the care of her grandmother’s friends, Mackie and Edith, for many months. Learning this information as an adult left Cher feeling “troubled” as she tried to put the “jigsaw pieces” of her early childhood together and understand these early instances of separation from her parents (24).
As a child, Cher felt an intense fear of being left behind by her parents, making their outings more difficult. She recalls “kicking, crying and screaming” and feeling “terrified when they left at nighttime” (31). Even though she logically knew that her mother and stepfather were just going out for dinner and would come back soon, she was easily set off by “that feeling of abandonment” (31).
Reflecting on these life events, Cher explicitly makes the connection between her experiences of being abandoned in early childhood and her approach to relationships as an adult. She shares, “[I]t was only once I was older that I fully understood why I’ve always hated being left. […] No wonder I felt so insecure and had separation anxiety throughout my life” (23-24). She hypothesizes that her fear of abandonment is why she has tended to leave relationships, writing, “Maybe that’s why I always left first. Given my history, it’s probably not surprising” (23). Throughout the memoir, Cher presents her childhood as a key to understanding her choices in adulthood, emphasizing that her family life shaped her.
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