April 25, 1999
The Stresses of Youth, the Strains of Its Music
By ANN POWERS
The killing spree by two young fans of computerized gladiator matches and
gut-wrenching industrial rock last week in Littleton, Colo., was a calamity
measured in lives lost and damaged. But the tragedy at Columbine High
School
also marked yet another battle over the meanings and effects of youth
culture.
News analysts have dwelled on the ominous details of the leisure pursuits
of
the youths, Dylan Klebold, 17, and Eric Harris, 18. The boys had
obsessively
played cartoonishly bloody video games like Doom and Quake, worn the black
clothing long favored by hard-rock fans and listened to the operatically
gruesome music of Marilyn Manson and the German bands Rammstein and KMFDM.
They also appear to have idolized Adolf Hitler, which is not true of many
young people who share their tastes.
Early reports called the youths Goths, but practitioners of that lifestyle,
which favors more romantic music and androgynous fashions, quickly declared
that real Goths are not violent, racist or fans of Marilyn Manson. The
music
industry also distanced itself from the boys. Hilary Rosen, president of
the
Recording Industry Association of America, expressed sympathy for the
victims
but insisted that music "does not drive teen-agers to violent despair."
Sascha Konietzko of KMFDM, whose ferocious lyrics Harris had posted on his
Web site, released a statement saying his group steadfastly denounced "war,
oppression, fascism and violence against others." Marilyn Manson called the
killings "tragic and disgusting."
Meanwhile, psychiatrists and social workers offered the familiar argument
that popular images of carnage inevitably affect susceptible youths, while
editorial page writers wondered how two young men with such floridly grisly
tastes could proceed unnoticed by parents or peers. Yet the limited nature
of
the continuing debate about extreme popular culture points to how such an
oversight could happen.
Rarely do either the advocates or the enemies of popular culture approach
the
subject with clarity and close attention. KMFDM is a case in point. The
group, which recently disbanded, has long been an industrial-rock pioneer,
blending machine-generated dance beats with pop melodies and random
dissonance. Its lyrics are harsh, like its sound, sometimes expressing
destructive urges in blatant terms. One that Harris might have taken to
heart, from the song "Piggybank," reads, "If I had a shotgun, I'd blow
myself
to hell."
Such sentiments, enforced by the music's body-thumping rush, could be felt
by
a troubled listener as a prod toward destruction. But like Harris' other
favorites -- Rammstein and Marilyn Manson -- KMFDM links the tumult it
generates to a longing for inner peace. The group also has an absurdist
side,
obvious in performance, as the 7-foot-tall cross-dressing vocalist En Esch
vies for attention with Konietzko, who appears as a Mad Max-like antihero.
Humor is just one way these artists tell their fans that they do not mean
to
be taken literally.
Today's extreme rock music, like most popular culture, sends a swarm of
mixed
messages. Its makers can be calculatedly brutish, and often fail when they
try for subtlety. After all, they are operating in exile from adulthood,
expected to be immature. Yet even the rawest extreme music offers
adolescents
a symbolic language with which to express the confusion they already feel.
Communicating the anguish of victims and outcasts in a voice of vengeance
and
aggression, it theatricalizes rage.
Most fans simply leave their frenzy at the concert hall door. But organized
adult responses to this difficult music often fail to grasp the difference
between metaphor and reality.
The attempt to regulate popular culture is evident in the nationwide
phenomenon of gang- and cult-awareness seminars that associate an interest
in
extreme rock with mental illness, only confirms the fears, or fantasies, of
many fans that they are doing something terribly wrong.
Officer Steve Rickard of the Denver Police Department, who gave one such
seminar to students at Columbine High School only three weeks before the
shootings there, hopes parents will look harder at the culture their
children
consume -- if only to be better equipped to dissuade them. "Could you look
your mother in the eye and defend it?" he said in a telephone interview. "I
don't think so."
Rickard, who said he had deeply examined the materials he criticizes,
argued
against separating one's tastes from one's self. "I tell the kids they are
who their friends are, and that to a certain extent, you are what you
expose
your mind and body to," he said.
Many young people do feel essentially tied to artists they admire. Some
need
help to navigate their passions. Teachers have long showed students how to
grasp the nuances of literature and history. But instead of actually exploring
youth culture in the company of young people, many adults debate its
legality
among themselves. Critics quote lyrics out of context and misinterpret
jokes
as threats. Advocates -- often culture industry professionals -- stress the
First Amendment while expressing personal distaste for adolescent fare. The
artists themselves grow sullen and silent.
Popular art aimed at adolescents often trades in alienation. Adults who try
to comprehend it violate the generational boundary that is part of its
appeal. They risk looking foolish and being ignored. But it is impossible
to
understand young people apart from their interpretations -- and
misinterpretations -- of the fashions and fads they love, for they add to
the
sense of self that leads them to act.
In Littleton, the failure of anyone to gaze across this gap apparently
aided
disaster.
Copyright 1999 The New York Times Company
...go back to Guns and Their Boys Page.