Like a lot of 90s kids who got in to got into Nirvana a bit late then had to practically go through the death of Cobain twice and have by now donated the most intensively Goth section of our wardrobes to the next generation as we’ve stopped going to metal clubs and in betrayal to our younger selves, no longer see ‘Wednesday’ as sufficient reason to just wear a corset… I’ve been feeling pretty let down by these recent allegations about Marilyn Manson. And I need to talk about it. I need to reach out to people who were/are fans and try and work out where we are now and where we can go from this.
I think I’m most upset because I didn’t see it coming, but I when I heard, I felt I really should have. This is conflicting. I’ve read his autobiography, I’ve listened to all his early albums cross legged on my bed, following along with the sleeve lyrics (old school be cool), I read interviews in Kerrang! and other music magazines. I knew all about what he thought, how he treated people, his weird sexual deviances influenced by his very creepy sounding (probably in need of help?) grandfather and his attitude to rebellion. And I lapped it up. All that stuff I’m wincing at now, I thought was amazing at the time. Was I totally taken in?
My saving grace is a vague sense that as a teenager (despite being appalled after my mum read his book and handed it back with a glazed smile saying ‘prick’), I’m sure I had the sense that, like, ‘hur hur, he’s amazing and crazy, but I wouldn’t wanna go out with him!!’ I used to fantasise about being Reznor’s girlfriend, and, yes, saving him, -_- but I don’t think I fancied Manson in the same way. I hope. And after all, a crazy rock star turning out to be a bit of a knob to go out with is nothing staggeringly unexpected. But he was appealing; dangerous, sexy, articulate, and intelligent. As a goth being different from the mainstream, to all of us that didn’t want to follow the bubblegum blandness of boy bands and unstimulating manufactured muzak, he was a saviour. For those of us that wanted to look different from the massive, hooped earrings, too much makeup and tracksuits girls, he showed us we could be brave enough. For our generation (and ours is not special, every generation looks to rebel against something in the one before), he showed us the emptiness of consumerism, the folly of shallow celebrity created by an obsessive media and the hypocrisies and lies in authorities that want us to shut up, be the same and not question. He showed us an intensity of feeling that 5ive just couldn’t match, he had a message, he was anti the church, and as a Catholic schoolgirl asking why my teachers stopped talking when we asked certain questions, I was all over that. Now in Australia, I can sit at a table of eight peers and seven of them who went to religious schools (and they seem to be The Thing in Australia) will have heard at least one rumour about all the typical Catholic shit going down in their own school. And Manson called that out. He was a Fuck You and a deeper thinker and a snappy dresser. Of course we adored him.
And part of that, I stand by. I’ve been pissed off hearing comments like ‘I always knew,’ or ‘I never trusted him,’ or ‘yeah, he looked like a weirdo,’ because unless they were fans, they have no right. I don’t wanna go all ‘Nam, but ‘you don’t know, man, you weren’t there.’ Yeah, the dude looked weird, no denying it, but that was the whole point; he challenged convention and was against judging by appearance, which is all those comments reveal, and is an insult to the adult generation of mourning Manson fans. Because not all assholes helpfully give you prior warning by looking crazy. Grame Tame’s abuser just looked like the secondary teacher he was. (Northern Hemisphere-ers, have a quick google of this Australian of the Year.)
So how many other old Manson fans my age are looking at this crap, remembering the interviews, the book, the lyrics, the drama, and are thinking…shoulda seen this coming? Because, looking back, while I personally found some songs a bit stupid (never a huge fan of Dope Show), many were great, but I am forced to admit that while he challenged society, he wasn’t offering a solid alternative. I can’t say he was some peace preaching hippy calling for power redistribution and the protection of minority groups; that was never the jam. And though I found ‘Last Day On Earth’ romantic and beautiful, Manson didn’t always write beautiful things. For all the charm and articulate arguments that follow like insidious intent, there was always a huge lack of empathy in how he treated fans. The people he didn’t need anything from. That was all there in front of us, in his interviews and books and we accepted it. And that’s scary. My first thoughts were shame; what the hell else would I accept and permit from someone that I admired; that stood for something I believed in? Reading about his fantasies of violence against women, his actual attack on his own mother and a whole bunch of stuff that was clearly consensually dubious, why did I overlook it or accept it? Why did I permit it, or even sometimes think, ‘well, we know what Manson’s like, don’t get drunk with him!’ All for a person who is charming, articulate, powerful and exciting – am I describing a textbook psychopath now?
So how do we get taken in? Where’s the line between being a psychopath and just being a bit of a dick to go out with? Are we more permissive when we’re young? Is that natural or inexcusable? When I was in my early twenties, I had a deep and intense relationship with a guy that I thought was the most important thing in the world. He’d been making his case for two years and I’d never felt so necessary and wonderful. Maybe we need to go through shit like that before we can really understand that it’s not healthy. Then when I moved to abroad for six months, as discussed and planned for the whole previous year (while living with him, I moved in to save up for the trip), the chap was pretty horrible. Every phone call was about how selfish and cruel I was, how naïve and ignorant to let these people exploit me, how I needed to give up on what I was doing (learning a language for a fixed period of time which was important to me and had been my plan for years before I knew him) and come home and be with him. Now look, I’ve never thought I was in an abusive relationship or experiencing coercive control. I think the guy was just a bit of a selfish dick at the time. He needed to do some growing and learning about how to love just as much as I did. And I’m sure he has grown and moved on from that sort of thing. But the line there is thin. I was resilient enough to feel that he couldn’t be right, but when he made his arguments, they were logical, and I did agree although my heart didn’t. Young people want to feel loved and important and intensity and drama in relationships at that age, with your Manson soundtracks crooning ‘I’m so empty here without you, I crack my xerox hands’ seem so deep and profound. But we all look back and realise it’s not. Because, hey kids, if you’re in it to ‘save him’ it’s never gonna work.
So it’s scary that I lapped up Manson’s crap and it’s borderline scary I accepted a relationship that for six months made me feel like shit, but perhaps we can be forgiven for some of those things. Because I was young, I had stuff to learn, and I learned it. It’s all not as scary as the permissiveness in the culture. How years ago, we learned Twiggy Ramirez abused and raped his girlfriend Jessika Addams of Jack Off Jill, that James Maynard Keenan would enjoy his teenage fans and even Trent Reznor is implicated. I can’t quite let go of him, but even though he insists he did nothing abusive, being off your tits on coke while horrible shit’s going down next to you doesn’t exactly leave you blameless. Why did no one challenge these things? Why did journalists giggle along instead of call the police? Why did none of the maaaaaaany people my ex spent many a night convincing I was Europe’s biggest bitch not delicately suggest he should take a deep breath, stop giving me hell and maybe taking a little trip abroad to visit me might make us both feel better?
I know the ultra-liberals, like the academics before will tell me to appreciate the music and condemn the man; separate the art from the artist. I have never been able to suck this up. Can we afford to? Can we say of racist Conrad that his book is just ‘of its time’ as if that condones it? And we are back to permitting. I suppose I need to have a word with myself about Shelley, then. Full blown nutter – turned up at sixteen-year-old (don’t forget that, everyone, sixteen) Mary’s house in the middle of the night with a gun, saying he would shoot himself unless she ran away with him then and there. Carried on with her stepsister for a couple of years, told them both they were in a loving relationship of three. Bullshit was a seventeen-year-old down with that; she was impressed by the mad and intense attentions of a handsome, intelligent, and passionate poet and got talked into it. Groomed. But Shelley’s work really was beautiful. And there was empathy and there were calls for social justice, not just rebellion for its own sake. Madness yes, perhaps not psychopathy.
Ultimately, after the guilt and the disappointment, I feel betrayed. Because, Manson, you sang out against shallow society, against hypocritical power structures, against shallow media frenzies and you stood for the outsider. Us misfits who tried to think, not just consume, and you gave us something to think about. I never thought you were God, or the Answer, but you were a way to think differently, and take the bits you agreed with. Then you let us all down by being the one after all who was a hypocrite, a sleaze. In your ‘rape rooms,’ your after parties and your relationships, you made outsiders and you did all the things we screamed against. You betrayed what you stood for in favour of mad power, and you betrayed us. Fuck you, man.
So for me, it’s time to give Mechanical Animals one last hurrah, hen sadly shake my head and turn away. I’m gonna stick to Rage Against the Machine. Clearer message, better empathy. And more catchy.
Great piece.