| October the 27th, 2001. The band I have chosen to represent significance in my life is the band Marilyn Manson. I am going to argue about why they are talented/different from everybody else and have something that is important enough to make a change in the way that I think and do many things. Firstly I would like to point out the name. If you divide it up into two half you get Marilyn and Manson. The Marilyn part represents the model Marilyn Monroe and the Manson part from the serial killer Charles Manson. On the whole, it represents the goodness and the evilness of the world. Many people take the whole concept of the Manson part being vile and evil and never even considering looking into the rest of the name, or the name as a whole, and therefore discriminate the whole band as being evil. Another severe discrimination about the band is the way that they like to dress. People also seem to think that if a single person, or a group of people dress out of the ordinary or abnormally, then they deserve to be punished, verbally or physically. This does not help the bands reputation, as they like to dress in a way many people would find abnormal. I find this personally stupid as well because I also get some hassle for liking the bands that I do, as because of how they dress they are associated with evil and devils and satanism in general. As for the music itself, it is the main reason I am attracted to this band. The music itself is written and recorded by the whole band in general and not written by a manager or supervisor. Every word that is in the music has been thought about, re-thought about and changed. In this way the music feel as if it has come straight from the bands minds, or even hearts. Also, the message that the music puts across is very good in its own way. To me, it is different from most bands because where most bands talk about how lovely the world is and how everything is perfect, the lyrics are putting across that the only person who can change the world around you is yourself. I personally think that idea is very, very true. And by listening to this music it also says to me that nothing or nobody is perfect and you just have to listen to others around you to gather what is wrong with them. Another thing I like about this band is the way that they put themselves forward. They are trying to say, if you like us then listen to us, but if you don't like us, there is no need to start rumours or discriminate us, just don't listen to us. They portray this message with album covers and album art, most albums have had some eye catching front cover that some would find mildly offensive, but if those people would care to look further into the meaning of that picture they would see that it wasn't there for plain shock value, it is there to get a message across, in which the people that found it offensive in the first place would probably agree with the whole concept. The stage acts are also another big point that Marilyn Manson boasts to have attention for. Many people seem to have heard rumours that are just fascist, spoon-fed rubbish. The live shows, which are meant to be full of violence, sex and drugs, are in fact full of many individual people wanting to experience the music first hand. Another big thing that I find very individual about this band is the fact that they are not saying, wear this, listen to this, as a lot of bands these days are saying. Many bands are directly saying, because we wear this, you should wear it too, which I disagree with greatly. I believe that any person whom wishes to dress in a certain way should do so, regardless of what people say or think. If more people did this is would slowly wipe out a lot of stereotyping and discrimination in the world. One of his most recognised points is in the videos for their songs. When he makes a video for a song, he will always make it symbolic in some way. One of his videos was re-enacting the JFK shooting and the song is about people dying and becoming martyrs and although many people took the video as an offence, the message he was getting across was that everybody has/had a messiah, being it Christ or JFK or whoever. My overall evaluation of what Marilyn Manson has done for me is they have made me feel more of an individual, opened my eyes as what they world really is like, and have made me see what people could achieve if they really wanted to. |
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