Lawmaker Says Marilyn Manson Puts Fans Under Spell
Fresh from shock rocker's concert, Michigan state senator warns that performance could emotionally scar youth.
Staff Writer Chris Nelson reports:
Marilyn Manson had fans as young as 12 "under his control" in a Michigan
arena Wednesday, according to a state legislator who went to the show to
research the shock rocker.
State Sen. Dale Shugars said he was surrounded by "very normal kids" who
may still be feeling the effects of the show and not even know it. "I think
there's something going on that you can't see from the outside," he said.
The concert at the 12,000-seat Van Andel Arena in Grand Rapids, Mich., took
place in the wake of a horrific school shooting Tuesday in Littleton,
Colo., that left 15 people dead, including the two teenagers whom
authorities say were the shooters. Numerous press accounts of the massacre
have suggested the two suspects' fondness for gothic rock acts, including
Manson (born Brian Warner) and industrial group KMFDM, had some effect on
their actions.
Shugars, a Republican from Kalamazoo, Mich., bought tickets to the show as
part of the research behind a bill that would require parental-warning
notices on some concert tickets and advertising. But afterward, he added
his voice to those who have sought to make a connection between certain
rock 'n' rollers and the shootings that happened in Colorado on Tuesday.
"We're having an alarming rate of killings in schools, and youth violence
and an increase in drugs," Shugars, the 46-year-old parent of one daughter,
said Thursday (April 22). "I would say that though they're not all to be
blamed on a shock entertainer like Marilyn Manson, I think he promotes it
and can be part of the blame."
A Manson spokesperson said the rocker could not be reached for comment. But
in a written statement issued earlier Thursday, Manson called the shootings
"tragic and disgusting" and offered condolences to students and their
families.
Wednesday's concert was Shugars' first Manson show, and likely his last.
"This whole thing is part of a drug-cultural type of thing, with a
subculture of violence and killing and hatred, and anti-family values,
anti-traditional values, anti-authority," he said.
His bill would require parental warnings on concert tickets and advertising
for any performer who has released an album with a warning sticker within
the previous five years.
He said Wednesday's show only underscored his commitment to making the bill
law.
During the concert he saw, Shugars said, Manson had fans under his control
as he acted out a sequence that the senator said glorified the killing of a
police officer.
One free-speech activist said the devotion of Manson's fans is not a matter
of being controlled by the singer.
"All that says is that he has a loyal fanbase," said Kenny Moore, vice
president of Rock Out Censorship. "They're really into the music."
Moore decried attempts to link Manson to the Colorado slaying as
opportunistic. "Bodies hadn't been pulled out of the school and people were
saying, 'Music did it, music did it,' " he said.
Like many concert-goers, Shugars arrived for the Manson show with a group
of friends, with tickets he'd paid for. His cadre, however, comprised not
fans but policy advisers, a local police officer and the state senate's
sergeant-at-arms.
Seated in the back of the arena, earplugs in place, the group watched as
Manson and his namesake band played such songs as "The Beautiful People"
(RealAudio excerpt) from Antichrist Superstar (1996) and cuts from last
year's Mechanical Animals.
The show began with Manson wearing what the senator called "satanic wings"
as the singer leapt from a cross that was eventually set on fire.
Later, Shugars said, Manson recounted a dream sequence in which sex acts
were performed on him by police officers before Jesus Christ descended out
of a sky made of LSD and told him the real name of God is "Drugs." Manson
then launched into "I Don't Like the Drugs (But the Drugs Like Me)"
(RealAudio excerpt).
The fans around him "were very normal kids for the most part," Shugars
said. "There was a percentage that dressed very differently from the way
you and I would dress, but most of the kids acted very politely."
After the concert, they filed out of the hall in an orderly fashion, the
senator said. But he questioned whether the show was actually over after
Manson stopped playing. He said at least some of the kids could be affected
emotionally by what they saw and heard long after their ears have stopped
ringing.
And that, in his view, is something parents need to be warned about.
"Minimally, we should at least put a notice to parents who are responsible
for young people to know that there's harmful types of lyrics that are being addressed at these types of concerts," he said.
Shugars said he hopes his bill will be passed by the State Senate's
Committee on Local, Urban and State Affairs and put before the full Senate
before summer. On Thursday he addressed his colleagues in the Senate's
chambers about what he'd seen at the concert, hoping to draw support for
the measure.
But such efforts only provoke performers such as Manson, who are promoting
not violence but rebellion, Moore said.
"They see the reaction they get from conservative groups and they're coming
up with things to spark controversy," he said. "The more people push for
censorship, the more bands say, 'Let's just see about that,' and they do
more just to spite."
if you
want to write this guy, you can do so at the following address:
Sen. Dale Shugars
P.O. Box 30036
Lansing, MI 48909-7536
e-mail:
SenDShugars@senate.state.mi.us
I know I needn't remind anyone who actually writes to be calm, rational, and polite.
...go back to Guns and Their Boys Page.