Well, "The Rose" starring Bette Midler was supposed to be loosely based on her life.
Her complexity, in my opinion, stemmed from several things:
1. Her relationship with her mother. Seth Joplin was a pretty good dad, but Dorothy sucked as a mom. She was judgmental, uptight, and totally disgusted with her oldest child. Even after Janis's death, Mrs. Joplin made derogatory and shameful statements about her. Mom's disapproval haunted Janis until the day she died.
2. Her looks. She could be made up to look very sexy and attractive, and certainly, her enormous capacity to belt out a tune was alluring, but she came of age in a time when females in America were supposed to have cute button noses, long blonde hair, and perfect bodies (actually, that is still the case, but there is more support for those that don't fit the "ideal.")
Feminism may have taken root in big cities, (and even then, it was mostly undergrond) but in a little nothing-town like Port Arthur, Texas, Janis was regarded as the creature from the black lagoon. In her freshman year of college she was voted "ugliest MAN on campus." Imagine how devastating that would have been to an 18 year old girl. No wonder she drank.
3. I think Janis was molested as a child. I don't know by whom, but the conflicting agony of her sexuality tells the tale. She had affairs with men, but she had more with women. She was also ashamed of her attraction to females...what a horrible combination. To not even respect ones own tastes or desires.
4. The times? Perhaps. She never identified as a hippie, in fact she denigrated them as lazy and phony. (Janis preferred "beatnik."
All of these facts (and I recognize that #4. is totally my own speculation; no evidence to support it...yet.) conspired to make one very complex, very conflicted young woman.
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