The Cherry Mythos: JT LeRoy and the Music of Identity | Curation
@CoryTheCurator — The Curio | Snide Studios
Today we curate the “Cherry Mythos” — tracing the strange little web of novels, songs, and subcultures orbiting the phantom writer JT LeRoy.
Cor the Curator dives into the early-2000s world where fiction and identity collided — from Laura Albert’s literary masquerade to the ripple it caused across the alt-rock and synth scenes. Garbage, Chromatics, Magnetic Fields, Bat for Lashes… all orbit the same wounded star.
This episode explores how myth mutates through pop culture — how trauma becomes iconography, how a lie becomes a legend, and how a single character can echo through decades of music and media.
Soundtrack:
Sources and Referenced Works:
Sarah — A Novel by JT LeRoy
The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things — A Novel by JT LeRoy
The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things (2004) – Directed by Asia Argento; stars Argento, Marilyn Manson, and the Sprouse twins. Adapted from LeRoy’s short-story collection. A bleak, fever-dream interpretation of trauma and identity.
JT LeRoy (2018) – Directed by Justin Kelly; stars Kristen Stewart and Laura Dern. Depicts the true story of the LeRoy hoax and the public persona’s collapse.
Author: The JT LeRoy Story (2016) – Documentary by Jeff Feuerzeig. Laura Albert’s own confession and defense of her artifice.
(Related Influences and Echoes) — Asia Argento’s filmography of the same period (Scarlet Diva, 2000) and music videos by Garbage and Chromatics extend the myth visually and thematically.
Themes:
Postmodern mythology in pop music
Authorship, deception, and cultural identity
Trauma-as-aesthetic in 1990s–2000s alternative media
How art sustains its own legends
Hosted By:
Cornelius “Cory” Edward Snider — writer, curator, and cultural archaeologist of the strange.
#JTLeRoy #Music #Subculture #Mythology #Garbage #Chromatics #TheCurio #SnideStudios
