There are some words, expressions and images we find offensive in our collective memory, but I have the feeling this is gonna disappear with the next generation. Young people use these words and imagery that we judge obscene all the time, and they have no problem with it. Their original historic message has simply disappeared in the next generation’s world, even young people who should be offended aren’t, and this is happening mostly through art and music.
The most obvious example comes from rap: if people have been offended by Dr Dre or Eminem’s homophobic and misogynistic lyrics, Tyler the creator and his Odd Future clique are kind of getting away with the same stuff (or worst). Beside Tegan and Sara, who has ever complained about his 200 times use of the word ‘faggot’ in his Goblin album? The truth is that Tyler said he has gay friends and they don’t care, as he explained: ‘Well I have gay fans and they don't really take it offensive, so I don't know. If it offends you, it offends you…’
‘I’m not homophobic. I just think 'faggot' hits and hurts people. It hits. And 'gay' just means you’re stupid. I don't know, we don’t think about it, we're just kids. We don’t think about that shit. But I don't hate gay people. I don't want anyone to think I’m homophobic.’
And he doesn’t even care to be called a ‘nigger’. The next generation has removed any bad feeling from these words, they ignore the suffering associated with them, they ‘don’t think about it’, and they have a blast by overusing them!
Words are very powerful, but imagery is too, what about these Iceage kids I have just seen at the Echoplex, who not only embrace violence (they are far from being the only ones on that one) but also have a sort of fascination for the Nazi imagery? I couldn’t tell when I saw them, but when I read about them, I got the chills! These guys have openly used a fascist imagery including guys wearing Klansman hoods in the video for ‘New Brigade’ over the lyrics ‘Alliance is our home/We’ll stay together/In Brotherhood it shows’, and have posted the same sort of doodles on their blog (pictured above). Plus, fans were seen giving Nazi salutes at their shows, the guitarist wears a tattoo of the logo of Death in June, a band really into hate speech and white nationalism, and their band logo bears a strange resemblance with the German symbol called algiz rune, which was widely used within the Nazi Party and Nazi Germany.
In interviews, the Iceage guys say they aren’t racist or fascist:
‘I’ve been asked this question a lot of times. It’s not political in any way. Of course we have our political standpoints, but it has nothing to do with the nazis at all. We just do what we feel like, and it’s not like we’re trying to be part of a scene. We’re just doing what we want to do and it wasn’t the intention to have any, any you know offensive [effect]. We didn’t try to be offensive in any way. I don’t really see why people got offended by what we’ve done. We just, I mean, if you think about [it]… Elias [Rønnenfelt, singer] [doing] the Dogmeat magazine had nothing to do with Iceage. I’m sure Elias didn’t mean to, you know, he didn’t try to show any fascist side of himself in any way, because he is not a fascist. And the hoods and stuff was just like, a good friend of ours… we just used them for fun. Didn’t have anything to do with fascism.’
They are young but still, how can they ignore history like this? Really, the hoods have nothing to do with fascism? Really, they didn’t try to be offensive? Their drummer is Jewish so they estimate they are safe, whereas they are playing with fire, just like in their video. They would not be the first ones flirting with these dangerous images, it has been done so many times before, Motorhead, the Sex Pistols, Marilyn Manson and David Bowie come to mind but there are so many others.
Now, I am totally against any form of censorship in art, and these kids are certainly not fascist, just like Tyler isn’t homophobic. But they use offensive language and imagery and don’t even seem to be interested by the past, the baggage attached to the offensive material, they make it theirs and don’t care about the rest or the consequences, and this may well be this future generation's general attitude.