Wednesday, September 28, 2005

Some Teenage Girls Killed Themselves! Let's Blame Music Again!

Blabbermouth.net recently posted the story of two, 14 year-old, French girls who committed suicide in Paris. They bound their wrists together and jumped out of a 17th- story window. Sounds like pretty normal behavior for overly-dramatic teenage girls looking for attention. They should’ve just written shitty poetry instead; at least then people wouldn’t be blaming the suicide on music again.

Of course certain groups are blaming the French black metal band Anorexia Nervosa and their “violent and death-obsessed lyrics that can tip the sensitive into self-destruction.” Am I ever sick of hearing this bullshit excuse. These girls were essentially depressed gothic chicks with low self-esteem who wanted more attention, most likely from their snotty French parents. So when acting out by wearing all black and listening to scary music didn’t make their parents pay more attention to them, they had a pity party and jumped out of a window. Incidentally, if they would have learned how to mime I’m sure their parents would have paid plenty of attention to them.


Now, as most other people on the planet, one of the girls had a weblog. Here are a few things she posted there. I’m not sure if they are Anorexia Nervosa lyrics or her own lyrics because the article on Blabbermouth.net didn’t do a great job making it very clear. I could have just looked up Anorexia Nervosa’s lyrics, but I have better things to do.

“I hate you. I vomit on your soul and your family. Death to your parents. Torture and rape to your children. I hate you to death." Scary. It’s nice to know that 14 year old French girls are infinitely more threatening than the entire French army.

"You are the whore of human weakness. Tepid and obscene. Blinded by the sweaty desire of vanity. Worthless." Translation: That bitch across the schoolyard looks so good in her skirt and I feel fat today. What a stupid stuck-up whore she must be. Damn, why did I wear JNCO’s today? They make my ass look so fat! I bet that stupid, vain whore can eat rich food all day and never gain weight, while I have to eat nothing but yogurt or I look like the Michelin Man. That Bitch!

"I can't take any more. I have had enough. I have burned my eyes and I am afraid." Translation: If I kill myself then they’ll miss me. Yeah, how would they feel if I was gone? I’ll show them!

Of course, if these are Anorexia Nervosa’s lyrics, you’d have to be a real drama-queen to take them seriously. Which is funny because the band is composed of a bunch of dudes…oh yeah, they’re French. Nevermind.

The fact is, music did not make these two teens kill themselves. If the lyrics could make people kill themselves there’d be a lot more dead Frogs about. If the lyrics can make people commit suicide, wouldn’t the members of the band have killed themselves by now? After all, they wrote the lyrics, and they must have meant what they wrote. Sorry, no. Their dark lyrics are purely theatrical and written to sell CDs and sound scary. Which reminds me, it's been a while since I beat up someone wearing a Cradle of Filth shirt.

Whenever someone who happens to listen to metal (and many times even pussy rock like Marilyn Manson) commits suicide, people are quick to blame music instead of parental neglect or abuse, psychological conditions, or just plain-old gothic-teen-girl attention-craving angst. Some people just want to die. Shit happens. But blaming music takes the blame away from the real issues, and generally pisses me off. Hell, some of the bands I listen to have burned down churches and murdered people. I’ve never done either of the two (By the way, I’ve never asked Satan to rain down fire on the Christians either, and I’m fairly sure you don’t even go to jail for that). Blaming music for suicide is like blaming aliens for crop circles. Either way you’re out in left field while the real culprits are skulking away just out of sight.

UPDATE: Today on Blabbermouth.net more information was posted about the teen girl suicide. It turns out, “Both girls — it transpired — were heavily influenced by the so-called goth movement. They wore black clothes and body studs.” I called it.

I also surmised they were both desperate for attention. The circumstances surrounding their suicide backs up this assumption:

Last Friday afternoon (Sept. 23) Marion and Virginie, both aged 14, visited a friend's apartment at the top of a tower-block in the middle-class suburb of Ivry-sur-Seine. After telling him to wait in an adjoining room and expect a "surprise", they bound their hands together. "Then they said, 'Come in.' And I saw them on the window-ledge. I couldn't do anything. They just jumped," the friend Benjamin later told the press.

They just had to get that last bit of attention didn’t they? Also:

“Jeff Veillet, of leading French rock magazine Rock One, agreed: ‘Yes, there is a provocative side to groups like ANOREXIA. But just because they talk about death in their songs, it does not mean they want people to commit suicide. It is an act — a way of getting through to adolescents. They are not aggressive people at all.’"

Shit, they’re French. Of course they’re not “aggressive.” This shit happens from time to time yet the first thing people blame is music when, as I as well as many others have said, music isn't what did it. I'm sure this isn't the last time this kind of thing will happen, which is too bad because I am rather sick of hearing about it.

9 comments:

drunkbh said...

It reminds me of when the two boys shot themselves. Their parents blamed Judas Priest. They went to court and obviously lost. People have to start taking responsibility for their own actions or in the parents case lack of.

I give a damn. Turn the page is an awesome song.

morbid misanthrope said...

willow - I've always been a proponent of legalizing vampire hunting. Especially the gay ones. There's just something abnormally vexing about a guy who hisses and lisps at the same time.

Metallica's version of "Turn the Page" was pretty cool

drunkbh - I'm just glad the Judas Priest case didn't go the other way. It could have set a dangerous precedent. If people would take responsibility for their own actions, the courts wouldn't be so full of dumb assholes and their fraudulent lawsuits.

badgerbob said...

An exceptionally good rant, and an intelliget One, I might add.
..." parental neglect or abuse, psychological conditions," ...
That's what immediately comes to my mind. Probably another case of a dysfunctional family. I must add, that I haven't seen too many normal ones lately.
People do the same thing with guns. Guns don't kill people, people kill people, with guns.

morbid misanthrope said...

badgerbob - Thanks. I agree with you about guns. While these girls were most likely mental unstable, I still hold to the fact that they were overly-dramatic, attention-craving, gothic girls. That's enough to make anyone want to commit suicide.

morbid misanthrope said...

viczilla - This may be one of the first times I agree with you.

armaedes - I'd have too agree with you as well. There are plenty of goths in the world. I don't think thinning out the herd is such a big deal.

morbid misanthrope said...

viczilla - I think you got it backwards.

Anonymous said...

I CULD NOT READ ANY FURTHER. IM SORRY. I AGREE THAT MUSIC IS FOREVER BEING BLAMED FOR THINGS THAT IT JUST SIMPLY SHOULDNT BE BUT WHY DO YOU GO JUMPING TO CONCLUTIONS BELEIVING THESE GIRLS DID IT FOR ATTENTION???
WHAT THE??
MAYBE THEY WERE GENUINLY UNHAPPY YOU NARROW MINDED HUMAN BEING. DEPRESSION IS REAL! IT HAPENS! WHY THE FLIP WOULD SOMEBODY -[KILL THEMSELVES]- FOR ATTENTION??? THATS A BIT EXTREAME SPECIALY WHEN THEY WONT EVEN BE AROUND TO SEE IT!
kj xox

morbid misanthrope said...

kj xox -- Did you even read the entire post, or were you so offended and indignant you had to criticize me before you got to the end?

Signs that you're a fucktard:

1. You write in all caps to show you're angry
2. You misspell lots of words
3. You unnecessarily use excessive punctuation
4. You, in complete seriousness, call someone "narrow minded" and think it's a cutting insult

Yes, depression is real; real funny and easy to take lightly. What are you, the ambassador of some depression organization? Perhaps you should stick to reading blogs written by sensitive people with no sense of humor, lest you read something upsetting and, in turn, surmise you're bipolar.

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