I've read the liner notes. You're saying you got to the "problematic songs involving creepy violent revenge fantasies against the singer's ex-girlfriend" conclusion prior to your cursory inspection?
We can keep digging into this pile, but my point is that if we get to the bottom of it and it turns out you're maybe kinda sorta not as famil…
I've read the liner notes. You're saying you got to the "problematic songs involving creepy violent revenge fantasies against the singer's ex-girlfriend" conclusion prior to your cursory inspection?
We can keep digging into this pile, but my point is that if we get to the bottom of it and it turns out you're maybe kinda sorta not as familiar with the music and your reasons for decrying it as "problematic" as you've implied, that implies you've got a bit of an axe to grind dontcha think?
I'm saying that if the singer explicitly states "many of our songs revolve around me murdering my ex-girlfriend" (and he does), I have no reason to doubt him. If the singer explicitly tells you, you don't actually NEED to be "familiar with the music" and go through the lyrics with a fine-toothed comb to get a sense of the songs are about: you can take him at his word. But even after a cursory look through the lyrics, they're hardly cryptic, the violence is pretty well spelled out.
I don't have any sort of "axe to grind": I've listened to a few My Chemical Romance songs and even learned to play one shortly after I got my first guitar. They're not exactly my cup of tea, but I don't hate them or think they're morally suspect. That's kind of my point: they're pretty much exactly as "problematic" or "misogynistic" or "toxic" as you'd expect from an emo/pop-punk band circa 2004; no more, no less (and I can think of plenty of bands in the same general scene with *far* more offensive lyrics and implied attitudes towards women). Hence why I find it laughable that this music critic is trying to pretend that they somehow transcended or subverted some of the offensive tropes the genre is known for when they fully embodied them - hell, even popularised them. The critic desperately wants for this My Chemical Romance album to have been socially progressive *by the standards of its era* in order to quell their cognitive dissonance, and is grasping at straws to prove as much. I find it rather telling that you, apparently a fan who is very well acquainted with their material, can no muster no better evidence for how socially progressive the band were by the standards of time than "well you know Gerard Way had long hair and wore eyeliner", which I already knew.
Okay now that I've teased all that out of you, explain how being "problematic" or "misogynistic" or "toxic" prevents you from being gender non-conforming?
It doesn't. In the most generous possible sense of the word I suppose Gerard Way engaged in gender non-conforming behaviour. I just don't think there's anything noteworthy about a singer in a rock band who has long hair and wears eyeliner. It seems so banal as to hardly be worth commenting upon.
If something that "seems so banal as to hardly be worth commenting upon" is interpreted as "straining with every fibre to find some angle by which the album REALLY advances a progressive worldview", maybe it's not so banal?
No, that's not how words work. Rock singers wearing eyeliner is banal and unremarkable. The fact that this critic (and you, apparently) is acting like this is some shocking subversive feat of gender nonconformity is grasping at straws.
Supposing I wanted to argue that Gerard Way was a fierce environmentalist, so I found a couple of photos in which he's wearing a green t-shirt. This would not be very strong evidence: wearing a green t-shirt is a banal ordinary thing to do which doesn't tell you anything about someone's political opinions. That's how I feel about the fact that he wore eyeliner and long hair.
We're regressing, I thought we had come to an agreement (in a generous sense of the word) that Gerard Way was gender non-conforming?
Perhaps a more pertinent analogy (oh boy here we go)*, is that if somebody wrote in a pitchfork article that Gerard Way had an environmentalist shirt on, and you say "that's bullshit that's just pushing the green agenda!", and then I show you a photo of him in a Greenpeace shirt, and then *you* say "well everybody is an environmentalist anyway". That might say a little more about you then pitchfork, no?
I mean, have you listened to the "they make me do pushups in drag" song, and that line in particular? It's a little camp! Tends to stick in your mind in a way that not all lyrics do!
*I will litigate this analogy for one (1) round, anything beyond that is a colossal waste of time.
Gerard Way may have been somewhat gender non-conforming, but no more so than is common among rock musicians, and dramatically less so than, for instance, David Bowie or Kurt Cobain. A male rock musician dying their hair or wearing eyeliner and nail polish is not nearly as rare and subversive as you seem to think it is, nor was it in 2004. I'm very sorry that someone called you a faggot in 2004 and I'm sure it was upsetting for you, but that was twenty YEARS ago and it's time to get over it. Please leave me alone.
Sorry I slighted your favourite band, but it was really just the first example of the phenomenon I was describing that popped into my head and I didn't expect anyone to get so defensive about a pop-punk album that came out twenty years ago.
I've read the liner notes. You're saying you got to the "problematic songs involving creepy violent revenge fantasies against the singer's ex-girlfriend" conclusion prior to your cursory inspection?
We can keep digging into this pile, but my point is that if we get to the bottom of it and it turns out you're maybe kinda sorta not as familiar with the music and your reasons for decrying it as "problematic" as you've implied, that implies you've got a bit of an axe to grind dontcha think?
I'm saying that if the singer explicitly states "many of our songs revolve around me murdering my ex-girlfriend" (and he does), I have no reason to doubt him. If the singer explicitly tells you, you don't actually NEED to be "familiar with the music" and go through the lyrics with a fine-toothed comb to get a sense of the songs are about: you can take him at his word. But even after a cursory look through the lyrics, they're hardly cryptic, the violence is pretty well spelled out.
I don't have any sort of "axe to grind": I've listened to a few My Chemical Romance songs and even learned to play one shortly after I got my first guitar. They're not exactly my cup of tea, but I don't hate them or think they're morally suspect. That's kind of my point: they're pretty much exactly as "problematic" or "misogynistic" or "toxic" as you'd expect from an emo/pop-punk band circa 2004; no more, no less (and I can think of plenty of bands in the same general scene with *far* more offensive lyrics and implied attitudes towards women). Hence why I find it laughable that this music critic is trying to pretend that they somehow transcended or subverted some of the offensive tropes the genre is known for when they fully embodied them - hell, even popularised them. The critic desperately wants for this My Chemical Romance album to have been socially progressive *by the standards of its era* in order to quell their cognitive dissonance, and is grasping at straws to prove as much. I find it rather telling that you, apparently a fan who is very well acquainted with their material, can no muster no better evidence for how socially progressive the band were by the standards of time than "well you know Gerard Way had long hair and wore eyeliner", which I already knew.
Okay now that I've teased all that out of you, explain how being "problematic" or "misogynistic" or "toxic" prevents you from being gender non-conforming?
It doesn't. In the most generous possible sense of the word I suppose Gerard Way engaged in gender non-conforming behaviour. I just don't think there's anything noteworthy about a singer in a rock band who has long hair and wears eyeliner. It seems so banal as to hardly be worth commenting upon.
If something that "seems so banal as to hardly be worth commenting upon" is interpreted as "straining with every fibre to find some angle by which the album REALLY advances a progressive worldview", maybe it's not so banal?
Who's really straining for the angle here?
No, that's not how words work. Rock singers wearing eyeliner is banal and unremarkable. The fact that this critic (and you, apparently) is acting like this is some shocking subversive feat of gender nonconformity is grasping at straws.
Supposing I wanted to argue that Gerard Way was a fierce environmentalist, so I found a couple of photos in which he's wearing a green t-shirt. This would not be very strong evidence: wearing a green t-shirt is a banal ordinary thing to do which doesn't tell you anything about someone's political opinions. That's how I feel about the fact that he wore eyeliner and long hair.
We're regressing, I thought we had come to an agreement (in a generous sense of the word) that Gerard Way was gender non-conforming?
Perhaps a more pertinent analogy (oh boy here we go)*, is that if somebody wrote in a pitchfork article that Gerard Way had an environmentalist shirt on, and you say "that's bullshit that's just pushing the green agenda!", and then I show you a photo of him in a Greenpeace shirt, and then *you* say "well everybody is an environmentalist anyway". That might say a little more about you then pitchfork, no?
I mean, have you listened to the "they make me do pushups in drag" song, and that line in particular? It's a little camp! Tends to stick in your mind in a way that not all lyrics do!
*I will litigate this analogy for one (1) round, anything beyond that is a colossal waste of time.
**And dyed hair. Dyed hair, not long hair.
Gerard Way may have been somewhat gender non-conforming, but no more so than is common among rock musicians, and dramatically less so than, for instance, David Bowie or Kurt Cobain. A male rock musician dying their hair or wearing eyeliner and nail polish is not nearly as rare and subversive as you seem to think it is, nor was it in 2004. I'm very sorry that someone called you a faggot in 2004 and I'm sure it was upsetting for you, but that was twenty YEARS ago and it's time to get over it. Please leave me alone.
Then we are in agreement. No retroactive mental gymnastics required.
Sorry I slighted your favourite band, but it was really just the first example of the phenomenon I was describing that popped into my head and I didn't expect anyone to get so defensive about a pop-punk album that came out twenty years ago.
"I didn't expect anyone to get so defensive"
That's when you know there's blood in the water.
If the first example of a phenomenon to pop into your head is DFW, maybe it's time to update your priors eh chief?