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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To wonder why this song is still ok to play on the radio

463 replies

CoedynSbageti · 14/01/2018 12:57

Jealous Guy

Written and performed by a man who admitted he was violent towards women.

Just that really.

OP posts:
IMightMentionGriddlebone · 15/01/2018 00:32

I thought Lolita exposed how easily the reader will take the side of a personable narrator telling their own version of events. It's almost grooming.

I think of it when reading AIBU threads sometimes

Amoregentlemanlikemanner · 15/01/2018 08:35

"I thought Lolita exposed how easily the reader will take the side of a personable narrator telling their own version of events. It's almost grooming."

That's a great way of describing it!

LadyinCement · 15/01/2018 09:40

What can be seen from this thread is that there are differing opinions on lyrics. There are clearly some obviously dubious lyrics around, but I should think most sail over most people's heads... if they can even decipher them. Some people on this thead have objected to songs like, "Wake up little Susie." Two teenagers who've stayed out too late and are scared of her parents! Surely those are good lyrics! Confused

The OP speaks of songs being "not ok" to play on the radio. That begs the question of who will take decisions to declare certain songs (or artists) not for airplay. You can imagine that the sort of people wanting to be on such a committee would be the Twitter Mob, eager to ban everything.

Regarding "motherhood" lyrics, frankly I'm sure the average person would rather be hopping round the dance floor to C'Mon Eileen or Don't You Want Me Baby than a song espousing the joys of breastfeeding. (Actually, such a song would be fine if it had a "party banger" melody.)

LittleLionMansMummy · 15/01/2018 09:41

Because people are still allowed to enjoy someone's work while feeling conflicted (at best) about the person

See, this is exactly how I now feel about Kevin Spacey.

Stan by Eminem is another. But I think it also depends whether the singer is a story teller or autobiographical about their songs (with Eminem it's a bit of both). Incidentally, I had absolutely no idea that John Lennon had been violent towards women. You live and learn!

LadyinCement · 15/01/2018 09:49

www.feministcurrent.com/2016/01/13/here-is-a-list-of-men-who-made-great-but-music-were-not-always-great-people/

A lot of people on here who are generally approved of but would have to suffer an airplay ban.

TinklyLittleLaugh · 15/01/2018 09:59

But in Stan, Stan is the crazy fan. The Eminem character is Slim Shady who basically tells his crazy fan to get some help and treat his girlfriend better.

IMightMentionGriddlebone · 15/01/2018 11:21

amoregentlemanlikemanner

The late great Christopher Hitchens wrote an amazing essay about Lolita. I cannot recommend reading it enough.

Lolita is horrifically and intentionally revealing about how deep the human urge to avoid confrontation goes. We laugh at teenagers unthinkingly bending to peer pressure and trying to fit in with their friends, but it's not a problem unique to teenagers after all.

LittleLionMansMummy · 15/01/2018 11:28

Yes Tinkly in Stan's case it's predominantly a fine piece of story telling. Misogynistic and homophobic lyrics have landed Eminem in hot water a number of times though. He's made a career out of taking on different personas and I don't think that is any different to a novelist or producer taking on a storyline or depicting challenging characters. It's art. But there are songs in existence that are clearly more autobiographical than that. Eminem is actually one of those who glides easily between these types and is often painfully autobiographical - as the lawsuits prove!

lynmilne65 · 15/01/2018 11:32

Get a life ffs

lynmilne65 · 15/01/2018 11:37

O I love that drove all night! Wish it was me !

IMightMentionGriddlebone · 15/01/2018 11:38

Christopher Hitchens on Lolita

CaptainKirkssparetupee · 15/01/2018 11:39

The song is about Paul isn't it?
The video ends with him apologising to Paul and calling him a cool cat?

lynmilne65 · 15/01/2018 11:40

And as for the Tooth Fairy reaching under your precious childs pillow!!!

bfgdreamtree · 15/01/2018 11:43

God its depressing. Fucking snowflakes hate everything that doesn't fit their stupid extreme rules of what is allowable.

Saw them wittering about Friends today and how completely unacceptable every single joke in it is nowadays. What a load of navel gazing self indulgent wankers.

MuseumOfCurry · 15/01/2018 11:47

Saw them wittering about Friends today and how completely unacceptable every single joke in it is nowadays. What a load of navel gazing self indulgent wankers.

Yes.

bfgdreamtree · 15/01/2018 12:03

www.pinknews.co.uk/2018/01/12/friends-came-to-netflix-and-everyone-is-shocked-at-the-homophobia-transphobia-and-misogyny/

Fucking dimwits even got the details wrong of what they were mad about¬!

mrsharrison · 15/01/2018 12:06

Lennon changed his misoginist ways due to yoko's influence. She was a very educated feminist and confronted him on his views.
He eventually considered himself a feminist, took her surname and became a house husband.
I dont like his brutality but i like his honesty and remorse.

TheGoldenBowl · 15/01/2018 12:32

Why so angry bfgdreamtree ?

What are these 'extreme rules' of which you speak? Rules that dictate, maybe, that women shouldn't be routinely controlled and abused by men? Or that people shouldn't be mocked and bullied for their sexuality? Is that the sort of thing?

Yeah. Fucking snowflakes.

bfgdreamtree · 15/01/2018 12:51

No, not those. cop yourself on. Hmm

if you're not angry you should be. If you're not angry you don't understand what is going on.

TheGoldenBowl · 15/01/2018 12:58

Ha ha! Good one!Grin

I'm very angry actually. But about inequality, sexism, bigotry and racism. Not about people showing a little critical thinking by analysing the values inherent in our popular culture.

bfgdreamtree · 15/01/2018 13:02

Did you write the Friends article? Hmm

lynmilne65 · 15/01/2018 13:04

Sheesh some truly vile mnetters 🙁

ArcheryAnnie · 15/01/2018 13:15

I consume all kinds of media produced by arseholes, sometimes knowingly, sometimes not - but yes, I can be put off music/art/films/whatever if the creator of that music/art/films/whatever is revealed to be a creep.

It helps if the creep is dead, and won't enjoy royalties or acclaim as a result of me consuming their work. I love Moxy Fruvous' music, for example, but haven't listened to it since Jian Ghomeshi was exposed as a creep. But I'm OK with using the Gill Sans typeface, despite Eric Gill being an abuser, because Gill is long dead.

Am I consistent? No. Is it often a gut feeling of revulsion that puts me off? Absolutely, and that's fine.

Eltonjohnssyrup · 15/01/2018 13:19

What are these 'extreme rules' of which you speak? Rules that dictate, maybe, that women shouldn't be routinely controlled and abused by men? Or that people shouldn't be mocked and bullied for their sexuality? Is that the sort of thing?

You do realise people are capable of interpreting things and forming their own thoughts?

Just as an example, Shylock in the Merchant Venice. Shylock was not written as a sympathetic character by Shakespeare. It was a racist, antsemetic portrayal of a mercenary Jew who peddled usury and was ruthless in collecting debts.

Nowadays, Shylock is interpreted as a seminal character in antiracism, particulars the speech on Jews:

Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed.

I listen to Jealous Guy and I think it's rather a pathetic man trying to weedle back in by making excuses.

You obviously listen and take away anger because of what he's saying.

Yet for some reason you've decided that all the other brainless little people out there aren't capable of making their own decisions and should be protected from anything you object to. Why? Why are they different from you? Why do you think you have some sort of superiority which makes your understanding so much better than the masses of people?

It's censorious elitist nonsense. Roll on the 2020s, hopefully a new decade will see the back of this rubbish.

Amoregentlemanlikemanner · 15/01/2018 13:34

Christopher Hitchens on Lolita....

Ooooooh, I really really really want to guess whether he's in the fawning Martin Amis Nabokov-the-god camp or whether he thinks Nabokov is a bubble that needs bursting.

I am going to be so fucking disappointed if he just does a Martin Amis.

You know who'd have been good at debunking Nabokov? George Orwell.