SEPARATING THE ARTIST FROM THE ART: MARILYN MANSON EDITION

Can we separate the artist from the art? The answer can’t be a blanket response because each case is individual- an artist cancelled after they were arrested for possession of weed is a lot different to one convicted of abuse. In this series, we ask on an individual basis: Can we separate the artist from the art?

At the beginning of my emo phase, I learned more about the new genres I was listening to from watching Kerrang! TV, seeing what was recommended from Youtube videos and this is where I found Marilyn Manson. 

Manson's Tainted Love, the 2001 cover of the Soft Cell original, was pure euphoria for rebelling teenage ears and so came a growing love of Marilyn Manson’s discography. Learning more about Manson, like him following the Church of Satan never bothered me, or the generally dark nature of his music. But after the 2021 claims made by his ex fiancee of sexual assault, and previous claims of him threating to rape women and then crush them under a car, my mind immediately went back to the video for Tainted Love. 

Set in a highschool party, a woman in a sexualised schoolgirl uniform within the first 30 seconds, followed by a crowd of women in bikinis, added to by a woman in a skimpy cheerleader outfit. 56 seconds in, a woman being groped. The storyline of the video seeming to be nothing more than a normal high school girl, going goth, now in a tiny, black leather outfit all to impress Manson (almost 34 at the time, so it gets creepier). All of a sudden they're in a hot tub and it's getting as overtly sexual as it probably could’ve, while being featured on TV. At this point you may be thinking it can't get worse, right? Wrong. Cue lingerie-clad women coming out of massive stuffed animal costumes and dancing around a nothing-but-robe-wearing Marilyn Manson, while still in the heads of these stuffed animals, on what is supposed to be the aforementioned teenage cheerleader's bed. Oh, and throw in a few stripper poles here and there because those are apparently most people's houses for when their teens throw a house party without their knowledge. 

After a career starting in the early to mid 90s, and this being one of his biggest hits from his career (coming out not long after his career started), it's clear that misogyny is so ingrained in Mansons ‘art’ that with the allegations against him being of a sexual nature, in this situation, separation of the artist from the art is acceptance of an abuser. It doesn't just normalise this kind of behaviour, but the support of it is what prevents survivors of the abuse he capitalises on, from coming forward and sharing their stories.

This was written to be assessed as part of my Journalism course. This was in Semester 2 of Level 6 and was for the Undergraduate Major Project, where I created a (primarily) music magazine, aimed at Gen Z. Below is the page design for this article, which was written as part of a series that would be in the magazine consistently.