The Problem is Us, Not Him

I have no idea if the allegations against Marilyn Manson are true. I won't say I don't care. The truth is that I kinda do care for a lot of reasons. And it wouldn't surprise me one bit if they were true.

But I will say this: The main problem isn't him, it's us. (My headline's a little misleading -- obviously folks who behave like this are a problem but the bigger problem is us.)

Think back to other music stars. Jimmy Page. Jerry Lee Lewis. Ted Nugent. Wolfgang Mozart. Niccolo Paganini. Nikki Sixx. All of them have been accused of something bad, and often things that are violent, abusive, manipulative, illegal or questionable at best, immoral by any standard, and so forth. A lot of the times they have not hidden it.

This kind of behavior is not just excused when it comes from talented people, it's sought after and encouraged. We want it. We want out talented people to be like this, so when we encounter talented people we look for it and encourage it.

The problem is that this is how we want it. The problem is that to us fans "milquetoast" is an insult and "dangerous" is a complement. 

One of Manson's biggest influences was Alice Cooper. I've met people who were upset when they realized that Alice Cooper's act was just that, that the behavior he portrayed on stage was intended to be a negative example, not something to emulate. That the traditional ending of his shows, the execution of the Alice Cooper character, was intended to be not just a thrill and a spectacle but the character actually paying for the sins we had witnessed.

If Marilyn Manson were the kind of person who performed this material and mostly left it there, he wouldn't have been as successful because he'd have been called a fraud. How many other artists of that type, I wonder, were less successful than they should have been because they were just acts?

We want it this way, then we get it, then we express shock and anger when the consequences come into view.

So yes, assuming even a third of the allegations are true, Manson is a problem, a big one. But the bigger problem is us.

Maybe it's time we started rewarding talent first and stopped begging for dangerous and edgy art to be reality. Who knows? Maybe without bad behavior being sought out and rewarded, David Warner would've learned to leave Marilyn Manson in the studio and on the stage, where he belongs.

If all we had was the music, I'd be happy. 'Cos "Long Hard Road Out of Hell" is an awesome song.