You know the more I thought about it, why did Green Day have to insert politics into their performance of American Idiot? We’re trying to get away from that for a few hours.
Vas Drimalitis, @vasdrimalitis
“Why did Green day have to insert politics into their performance of American Idiot” is a truly incredible sentence to read.
Making fun of the people who didn’t like the political statement is fine, and there were plenty of high profile people to dunk on for that, but this is literally some rando this person searched up, the original tweet had basically no interactions. This could even be satire for all we know.
Effectively, if not possibly literally, nobody really said this.
The whole “the right is up in arms” is bullshit. I’m sure there are idiots who say some stupid things, but I have conservative relatives. I get (unwillingly) exposed to war room more than I care to say. The only place I’ve heard about it is in posts like this.
Anyone who wants to censor culture is a fascist at their core. In a liberal democracy you can say anything but you’re not immune from the consequences.
That being said these users look fake AF and we should stop pretending Twitter/x/whatever is anything but a dead forum
Unfortunately they’re not only NOT fake, but irl they’re just as disgruntled and morally ugly as their online persona. Me and a friend finally got ourselves blocked by one common mutual who was behaving like that even in public and we couldn’t help but either A) block his stupid “centrist” hypocrite ass and never go out with him again or B) mock him, call him out and make fun of him for every unhinged thing he would say. We chose B and we had some good laughs upon his stupidity
Guy who shocked by green day probably never existed back in 2004 or just want a piece of cake for attention. Green Day always has been political in some of their song release since Warning(?), even on The Network side project am I supposed to think The Network is Green Day? Am no American and enjoyed Green Day from Dookie to Revolution Radio (not really listened to them since FOaMF release).
Agreed. No matter which era you like whether 90s Green Day or Post-American Idiot album, Green Day still great band and great live performer, their live performance are treat especially when they were playing faster live. You can see them on youtubes, my favorite is live version of Paper Lantern (specifically Chicago 1994)
America is a nation of immigrants. So how on earth would an “American name” look like? They are literally the most american names possible without being indiginous.
You don’t get to get away from it. MAGA politics has made life a living hell for so many people that can’t get away from it, and the only thing anyone can do is confront you with it every waking moment of yours.
The joke is that the song is inherently political, even before the language change to be current, and even without that change the song is explicitly about those people anyway.
Removes the plausible deniability about who “redneck” was referring to. I wouldn’t be surprised if some thought it was a slur against natives. “MAGA” clearly says “you are in this picture and I don’t like you”. And some might even realize that they always were in that picture.
This is also why the Snyder Superman movies are bad.
Superman is an illegal alien who learned the value of kindness and hard work from his adopted parents, uses his powers to help people because it’s the right thing to do, and spends the time that he’s not being Superman to do investigative journalism that exposes corruption.
Snyder is an objectivist who understands precisely 0% of any of that, and that’s why his Superman movies completely fail to be about anything.
I dont see that as an issue so long as you aren’t gonna attempt shaming them. I have songs I just listen to but couldn’t tell you a single lyric or who it is.
They should have kept “hold office”. The rhyme works better, “works forces” isn’t a saying so it seems really forced, and apparently no one would have noticed anyway.
I guess this is the best place for this comment: about two years back my friend (who is a hardcore conservative, just not trump is God crazy and he doesn’t know about qanon), myself and two other guys (they’re all moderate or liberal) went to go see Rage Against The Machine for like the first time in 20 years. During one of the songs where he raps about humans living shitty lives because they can get ahead, there were posters all over saving things like "save the kids ". “feed the children”.
My conservative buddy looked at me during the time the posters were up and was he like "WTF is this shit?*
Don’t wanna be an American idiot
Don’t want a nation under the new media
And can you hear the sound of hysteria?
The subliminal mind fuck America
Welcome to a new kind of tension
All across the alienation
Where everything isn’t meant to be okay
Television dreams of tomorrow
We’re not the ones who’re meant to follow
For that’s enough to argue
Well maybe I’m the faggot America
I’m not a part of a redneck agenda
Now everybody do the propaganda
And sing along to the age of paranoia
Welcome to a new kind of tension
All across the alienation
Where everything isn’t meant to be okay
Television dreams of tomorrow
We’re not the ones who’re meant to follow
For that’s enough to argue
Don’t want to be an American idiot
One nation controlled by the media
Information age of hysteria
It’s calling out to idiot America
Welcome to a new kind of tension
All across the alienation
Where everything isn’t meant to be okay
Television dreams of tomorrow
We’re not the ones who’re meant to follow
For that’s enough to argue
Super tame.
In the New Year’s show, they changed “a redneck agenda” to “the MAGA agenda”. Okay, little bit more explicitly partisan, but basically the same thing.
Its usage in the song is not derogatory. It’s meant to highlight the offensiveness of it and to cast the speaker as one of the disenfranchised of America.
It’s controversial, I suppose, but it’s meant to make a point. Changing it would just diminish it.
As the other commenter said, it’s not derogatory. He’s taking a word that’s been used to belittle and dismiss him and people that share his views, owning it, and using it to fire back against those that would use it against him in that way.
Basically, “Call me gay* (ok, like that’s supposed to be a bad thing? Watch me call myself gay lol) but at least I’m not a dumb idiot follower of the redneck/MAGA agenda.”
To me, it’s like a more sophisticated “I know you are but what am I?”, if you will. He’s so unphased by the label that he uses it for himself with little hesitation, thus stripping its power as an insult against him. Hence why he fires back with a new, more critical put-down. It’s meant to hit them (someone that would call someone else gay or a faggot* as an insult) where it hurts, in the same way that person has meant to hurt others by using those terms derogatorily. He’s literally naming and shaming the bigotry of the time.
*And yes I know the term faggot has some nasty origins, but it was colloquially just a much more rude/derogatory way to say “gay person” when this song came out. I highly doubt the majority of people that used it were actually thinking that critically about it. The song itself at least very clearly does not mean it in the original sense.
I think part of the problem (aside from people that don’t ever listen to the words in songs) is less that the song/green day is apolitical in their interpretation, but more that for a lot of people the word “politics” means partisan politics. Being explicitly about a party or one of their core issues is what makes something 𝓅𝑜𝓁𝒾𝓉𝒾𝒸𝒶𝓁 to them.
What is and is not political is defined by oppressors. Their crosses, punisher skulls, and blue lives matter stickers are not political. The atheist symbol, antifa arrows, and black lives matter stickers are political. A keffiyeh is a political statement, but an IDF shirt isn’t. “Political” functionally means “talking about your oppression or the oppression of others.”
JSYK, using special characters to write “political” like that doesn’t work with screen readers. Best case scenario it skips the word entirely, worst case it reads out the name of each special character individually.
In my experience, rednecks (chavs and bogans too) are at worst just really callous, well intentioned and imo would rather consider their opinion on something and try to make conversation to understand than someone intentionally aligning themselves with people who’re literally using some Austrian with a shitty staches manual.
It’s funny - I agree with Green Day in most ways politically, but stopped listening after American Idiot because so much of their music was blatantly political. That’s what they were going for, it is CLEAR and OBVIOUS to anyone listening to their music, where they stand. I am all for it, I would just rather be escaping the world’s issues while listening to music :)
Baby Shark is about the increasing rise of extended families as a “nuclear family” is a thing of the past. “What Does the Fox Say?” is pretty clear on what the fox has to say about interest rates:
Baby shark is an anthem against marriage equality, it was clearly pushing for a man an a woman when calling out momma shark and daddy shark. It is clearly in the bands constitution, they stand for traditional family values and will never accept the idea of marriage not being between an man and a woman. That’s the way it was for Grandma shark, and the way it will be for baby shark.
Don’t even get me started on how the sound of the fox represents the invisible hand of the Fed choosing who gets rich.
Since no one really responded with a serious answer I’ll go ahead and chime in.
The art itself my not carry a poignant message about our political world, but it exists in a political world and thus is political in nature.
It could be argued that everyone has an obligation to honestly and intellectually engage with the political nature of our world. And by not doing this an artist is choosing to ingore the political nature of their own reality
Choosing to “not be political” is itself a political stance. Regardless of whether or not it was a conscious one
(And yes, I know sometimes people just want to have fun. I’m not condemning fun. Just giving a serious response to the silly extreme example)
(Also, also there’s a whole 'nother can of worms if you want to talk about art as commodity)
It’s funny to me…I didn’t say they were bad, I didn’t say I didn’t like them, I didn’t say anything except for that they clearly took their music in a more in your face, political direction. That’s fine, I support them making that choice. I get that punk is inherently political, and that most music has hints of it. When I started listening, when 1039 came out - I was too young to understand what the music was about. Then came kerplunk and dookie. Dookie has many songs that are just about boredom, wasting time, or girls. Same thing for Insomniac and Nimrod. You cannot argue that EVERY song on those albums was political, it’s just not true. They became a pop-punk alternative band. That’s great, they still make great music, I just choose other styles and genres. Downvotes aren’t hurting me, but it seems excessive for sharing my thoughts.
For the record, I was a ride or die fan in the 90’s. 5 shows, one of them I waited by the outdoor stage for 3 hours to get a good spot. I had my art featured on the earliest version of their website, back in the AOL days. I still love the music I grew up with. Bands style, peoples preferences change…I just don’t want to think about the broken world when I listen to music anymore.
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