Tag Archives: Controversy

Controversial Artists: Loving Works by People You Hate

Within the past week, several serious allegations of abuse have come out surrounding the ever-so-popular artist your mom loves to hate, Marilyn Manson. Initially starting with Evan Rachel Wood, who came out stating that the shock-rock artist groomed her as a teenager and mentally abused her for years, more and more women who’ve had relationships with Brian Warner have piled on the allegations of sexual misconduct, abuse and misogyny. Within days, Marilyn Manson was dropped from his record label, his manager, and legions of fans, it seems, have overnight turned on him.

I’m not here to debate whether the allegations against the musician are true or not; it seems to be unlikely that so many people would care enough about ‘taking him down’ to falsify claims of misconduct and abuse. Like with Harvey Weinstein, it’s far more likely that one person with the courage to speak up emboldened other women – women who had felt pressure to remain silent for years – to finally tell their own truth. Perhaps Manson has been a terrible person for decades, and people willfully turned a blind eye; perhaps the power that comes with being a household name corrupted him to the point where he felt he could get away with whatever he wanted. Either way, it’s important that the victims of abuse – whether at the hands of powerful people or not – are able to come forward and voice their truths.

What’s fascinating to me about this most recent sensation is not that Marilyn Manson is capable of abusing women or power – I have no doubt he is – but how quickly the masses turned against him. In all the media frenzy I’ve seen regarding the situation, the closest to a counterargument I’ve seen was from Dita Von Teese, who simply said it didn’t align with her experience with Marilyn Manson, although she did eventually leave him because of his behavior and infidelity. Rather, everyone who had supported him throughout his career turned their backs on him in a heartbeat – faster, even, than if they had been completely ignorant of his abusive behavior. This, to me, is perhaps more telling than even the allegations themselves.

It reminds me of what happened with a slightly lesser-known band, Iced Earth, in the wake of the United States Capitol riots earlier this year. Photos of their guitarist, Jon Schaffer, actively involved in the violence surfaced only days after the riots took place, and within days, their label dropped them, the representation was lost, and Schaffer himself is, by all accounts, now arrested and awaiting trial. Although this is not related to sexual abuse as with Marilyn Manson – and there is less evidence that Schaffer was prone to violence prior to the riots themselves – the dropping of the artist like a hot potato is a theme that is starting to become a repeating pattern.

The question this poses for me is this: when an artist, band, producer, or celebrity of any kind ‘goes down’, and unsavory truths come to light about these people, where does that leave their legacy and their body of work? Can their music, their books, or their films still be enjoyed, despite what we now know about them as people? And while the answer might at first seem to be a simple ‘yes’, it doesn’t change the fact that new information can change our perception of old art.

For example, every time I watch The Lord of the Rings – often praised on this blog as one of the best series of films ever made – I’m reminded in the credits that Harvey Weinstein was their executive producer, and enormously influential in getting the films made. To an extent, I owe an abusive, manipulative sexual predator a debt of gratitude for helping bringing to life my favorite movies of all time. Does that somehow taint the enjoyment I get from simply watching the movies, removed from the fact that at the time, Weinstein’s behavior was either unknown, or at least a well-kept secret?

Moving forward, I really enjoy Marilyn Manson’s music. His album Mechanical Animals is a huge part of my youth, and his songs and lyrics spoke to me deeply as a troubled teen. When I listen to his music now, I can’t help but think that it was made by a sexually abusive creep. How can I still listen to his work, knowing now what I do about the man as a person?

Or what about Iced Earth – another band whose music I enjoy? Do I still listen to their releases, despite knowing that their main songwriter is in jail for inciting violence against the literal government of the United States? That he’s a right-wing nut job who would probably just as soon shoot me as look at me?

The paradox here is that art is created by humans – flawed, imperfect, and sometimes downright despicable – but the art itself, removed from the context of the artist, can often be enjoyed regardless of the creator’s original intentions, meanings, or personal beliefs and behaviors. After all, even Mozart has been thought to be a sexual predator and womanizer, but it doesn’t change the fact that, 200 years later, we still enjoy his music as some of the best to have ever been written.

Beyond that, what of financial support? With streaming platforms, every time I listen to one of Marilyn Manson’s songs, he gets money. Not much, but added up over all the fans he has around the world, and it still means that I’m providing a living to someone who I now know to be a fiend. It feels wrong to continue to support someone like that, but at the same time, it doesn’t change the fact that his music means something to me, both from a lyrical and nostalgic perspective. Do I simply cut off an entire part of my life, simply because I don’t agree with an artist’s behavior?

I don’t know if there’s an easy answer to be found here; from Marilyn Manson to Michael Jackson, Bill Clinton to Bill Cosby, there countless examples of celebrities who have done unspeakable, immoral, or even illegal things. I think that, in most cases, most of these people were not inherently bad people to begin with, but I recognize that power corrupts; and while this isn’t an excuse to their behavior, it at least brings into consideration that what these people created and did for the greater good should still be taken into consideration, despite their aberrant, destructive and manipulative behavior.

Marilyn Manson may never create another record after this. If he did, I don’t know if I would want to listen to it. How could I in good faith listen to the words and music of someone who can do such horrible things to other people? But at the same time, I don’t want to stop listening to his existing body of work, because before I knew about his abhorrent behavior, it meant something important to me, and I know it meant something important to millions of others, as well.

I’d be curious to know what you think about this. When unsavory information comes to light about someone you once revered, does it change your perspective on what they already did? Are you still able to enjoy their body of work? Does the new information taint how you perceive not just the artist, but their creations? What are your thoughts?

The Mind of Violence

I wish I could say this was a happy post. I wish I had good tidings to bear, or that perhaps I could recount the extensive traveling I’ve done in the past week, from Toronto to the Grand Canyon. I wish I could talk about anything other than what I’m going to.

But I can’t. This week there were three mass shootings in the United States: Gilroy, Dayton, and El Paso. Between them, at least thirty-two people were killed. Coincidentally, it marks the thirty-second shooting this year in which at least three people died. For all I know, by the time you read this there will have been another.

The worst part, though, is not the shootings. It’s not the deaths. The worst part – of which I’m guilty myself – is the crass, apathetic reaction of the country, the total lack of surprise, and the disaffection that accompanies these tragedies. Even as it crossed my newsfeed, I couldn’t stop my own thoughts: “Guess it happened again.”

I just kind of switched off. I didn’t want to, couldn’t, internalize yet another instance of senseless violence, of brutal slayings and now-childless parents. I couldn’t react in horror … because there was no horror left.

This kind of violence has become so frequent and commonplace that I’ve started to become completely desensitized to it. It’s just part of the background of living in the United States. Of course, many of us continue to go about our days, saying it could never happen to us, but the truth is that the odds are stacking against us, and one day it will be you under fire at a concert, or a Home Depot, or at your school.

But until that day comes, we all just continue to sit back, watch it happen, and condemn the shooters on one hand whilst continuing to silently approve the system that allows these things to happen at all.

By system, of course, I don’t only mean the ease-of-availability of firearms, or the payouts to the NRA, or the heavy-handed police brutality that leads to so many unnecessary deaths; it also includes the indoctrination that violence is a part of free speech; it includes the incessantly hypocritical reactions from politicians and leaders; it includes the simple fact that no other developed nation has anything close to the level of outright violence that has become second-nature to our country.

Violence has become something less than a tragedy; human life commoditized. It’s one thing to suggest that society is desensitized to violence through TV and popular media – realistically, I think most people are aware enough to know that TV violence is not a suggestion that such things are okay. It’s the frequency of real-world violence that desensitizes the masses to just how horrific such things actually are. And when we look at the culprits of the most recent mass shootings, none of them were ‘foreigners’, or ‘immigrants’ (I use these terms loosely, as we are all immigrants at some point or another) – there were young, disaffected white men who somehow came to believe that it was within their right to end the lives of other people.

It’s difficult to learn why these people do such things, as they are often killed themselves during their rampages. We talk to their families, interview their friends, and learn that they were ‘good people’, and that ‘no one suspected a thing’.

I call bullshit.

There are a lot of angry people in the world, and a lot of reasons to be angry. I get it. I’ve been filled with fury, with anger and with hate at times in my life. I’ve sought to place blame on everyone other than myself. I’ll readily admit that I’m far from a perfect member of society, even if I can’t imagine hating so much that I’d want to actually kill other people. The mind of violence is hard to understand.

But the biggest problem is that these people – disgruntled, prone-to-violence, hate-filled people – are allowed to purchase weapons whose sole purpose is to kill other humans. A lot of people argue that guns don’t kill people, people kill people – but people without guns kill far fewer people than those armed with them. Perhaps we can’t change how or why these people think the way they do, but there’s absolutely no reason we can’t stop them from accessing devices intended to end life.

Weapons of any kind are a holdover from a medieval culture where feudality and territorialism were the law; when if you didn’t have a sword or an axe, your neighbor might steal your sheep and murder your family.

Aren’t we past those days?

Aren’t we supposed to be living in an enlightened society, one where understanding and tolerance are meant to be the gold standard to which we aspire? If so, then what purpose do weapons serve at all? I can understand the desire to hunt, the desire to kill food for yourself – there’s a deep-rooted instinct in some of us to see and taste the blood of a fresh kill. But there is no reason in the world to need to kill another human being – even under threat, if that person has no weapon to threaten you with, you have no reason to kill them in self-defense.

The worst of it is the people marauding around proclaiming weapons as a part of free speech – that taking away their weapons takes away their freedom.

Again – I call bullshit.

We live in a society with tens of thousands of rules – laws, as they’re called – imposed upon us. These laws are entirely arbitrary, save for the concept that by enforcing these laws, we create for ourselves a safer, more tolerant and livable society. I’m not allowed to drive faster than 65mph on the highway – if I do, I get punished. I’m not allowed to steal from my neighbor’s house – again, I would be punished.

So then why do we continue to provide access to things that allow us to break the laws imposed upon us by our society? Why do we make cars that can drive at 130mph? Why do we sell lock-picking kits, when any conceivable use for them is illegal? And why on earth do we sell handguns and automatic rifles when anything you could do with them is against the law?

Free speech can only extend so far. It cannot be allowed to extend to hate speech; it cannot be allowed to extend to discrimination and bigotry. And it cannot be used as an excuse to provide access to dangerous, violent weapons. It isn’t a violation of your freedom to take away your guns; it’s a violation of our human rights to allow you to keep them.

Tell me I’m wrong.