Month: March 2014

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The Progressive Nature of Judas Priest

I'm terribly sorry that i'm breaking the law but I wasn't consulted when those laws were established

Contrary to popular belief (my parents), heavy metal and hard rock tend to be conservatively minded genres. No, Ted Nugent is not an outlier, he is the norm. A very outspoken norm granted, but the norm nonetheless. Look no further than Axl Rose’s distrust of immigrants, or Megadeth’s well known born again beliefs, and I’m still not totally sure if Ozzy’s “Thank God for the Bomb” is meant to be ironic or not. Iron Maiden glorifies war, at least the British ones, and even fall into the odd conservative belief that criminals have more rights than the innocent in modern society. These bands are rebellious for sure, but as the Tea Party has showed us (maybe?), conservatives can be rebels too. So then, why is the song “Breaking the Law” by Judas Priest so unique? At first listen, it simply sounds like an empty, clichéd anthem for teen angst and misguided rebellion. But if examined a bit more closely, you might find that it’s one of the most liberal-minded popular heavy metal songs out there.

There aren’t a ton of lyrics, two verses and a repeating one-line chorus, so this shouldn’t take too long.

“There I was completely wasting, out of work and down.
All inside, it’s so frustrating as I drift from town to town.”

Right away, the first thing you should notice is that these are grown up problems. Out of work? What skeezy metal kid gives a shit about being out of work? It’s kind of hard to be anti-establishment when you’re bagging groceries at the Safeway. No, these first two lines are establishing a certain desperation in our protagonist.

“Feel as though nobody cares if I live or die
So I might as well begin to put some action in my life.
Breaking the law, breaking the law.”

Okay, that first line is pretty angsty. But justifiably angsty. We’ve got an out of work drifter who’s got no prospects and nobody who cares about him. His reaction? Turn to crime. At least then there’s some action, and furthermore, there’s potentially food and shelter as well. Judas Priest is actually saying that poverty creates crime. Holy shit. What a radical notion.

The second verse delves deeper, though staying simplistic, into the band’s critique of a class-based society.

“So much for the golden future, I can’t even start.
I’ve had every promise broken, there’s anger in my heart.
You don’t know what it’s like, you don’t have a clue.
If you did you’d find yourself doing the same thing too.
Breaking the law, breaking the law.”

The “golden future” doesn’t exist for the poor, only the wealthy. The song is suggesting that people who criticize criminals don’t understand, because they’re fundamentally incapable of understanding. If you’ve never been poverty stricken, you’ve never been truly desperate, then how can you hope to relate to the mind of the criminal? “Breaking the Law’s” uniqueness stems from it’s recognition that not all criminals are crazy or psychopaths, but people who feel they have no other choice. What an incredibly civil minded notion from the same band that sang “Turbo Lover.”

Musically, this song has more in common with punk than metal. It’s closer to The Ramones than Dio. Note that there’s no guitar solo, only a police siren and breaking bottles playing over hanging power chords. “Breaking the Law” is stripped down, angry, and not interested in any fluff or frills. The only point is to get across just how angry they are about the class warfare they perceive being waged.

Why is Judas Priest more liberally minded then their contemporaries? It’s tough to say, though a lot of it might be that they’re not really the contemporaries of a lot of heavy metal bands. Priest and Black Sabbath, the more liberal of the genre come from the 1970’s, while heavy metal as a whole really reached it’s zenith in popularity in the 1980’s, when conservatism reigned supreme. (A brief side note, I know that Iron Maiden was formed in the 70’s as well, but for this purpose I’m referencing Bruce Dickinson era Maiden which started in the 80’s.) Another explanation, I suppose, could be that Rob Halford, Judas Priest’s singer, is the only openly gay singer from a mega successful heavy metal band. Though I hesitate to say that has anything to do with it because I’m hesitant to say that all gay people are liberals. I’m sure there are plenty that don’t give a shit about the unholy marriage of poverty and crime.

So then what is it? Me reading too much into this? Yeah, probably.

At any rate, the video certainly doesn’t help my argument.

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True Detective Summons an Old God, But Maybe Not the One You Think

true-detective-poster-636-380-01

This won’t be a long post, just two quick thoughts. I just finished the season finale of True Detective, season 1. I’m not going to offer up a full review because I’m late to the party and it’s already been done, and far more thoroughly than I could. Also, SPOILER ALERT.

First off, Rust Cohle (Matthew McConaughey) ends the season with this quote: “You’re looking at it wrong. Once there was only dark. If you ask me, the light’s winning.” I’ve seen this quote heralded as a generic good vs evil mantra as well as a more specific God vs Satan, but I see in this bit of dialogue a bit of Zoroastrianism. The idea of the light vs dark, good vs evil, and that good will, is destined to, win. Too universal? Okay, maybe you’re right. But in addition, Zoroastrianism teaches that the reason good will triumph over evil, and the good God is Ahura Mazda, is through the good works that we as people do. Tie this in with the fact that Rust and Marty just defeated a very evil man, though hardly evil itself, and it fits. Think about that for a second, True Detective does not want you to believe that everything is grand at the end, there is still a far bigger conspiracy in play than these two ordinary men will ever be able to tackle, but the world is a little better. That’s the only kind of victory that counts because eventually these little victories end in Ahura Mazda’s triumph and paradise on earth. Is this what Nic Pizzolatto was going for? Probably not, but it’s nice to use a random bit of knowledge I learned in college that will likely never come up again.

My second thought is something I believe is called The Inverse Allegory of the Cave. It’s a darker look on Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. If you’re not familiar with this and can’t be bothered to click the link I just provided, it’s basically this: Man is in a cave, the light he sees are really only reflections. If he becomes enlightened enough, he will emerge from the cave and see the true light. Now that’s a really complex philosophical idea condensed into a simple thought, but you get the idea. The Inverse Allegory of the Cave is basically the same thing except when the enlightened man emerges from the cave, he only finds a deeper darkness. Sound a bit like ol’ Rust Cohle? When he tells Marty of his near death, when he let himself go into a deep darkness where he could only feel his daughter’s love, this is that inversion. True Detective has the nerve to suggest that not only will the enlightened man emerge from the cave to see, not a light but a darkness, but that maybe that darkness isn’t such a terrible thing. Love can exist in the black as well.

I guess maybe these two ideas aren’t all that compatible, what with the light and dark imagery and all, but at least maybe it’s some food for thought.

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Planet of the Apes destroys the American Cynic

planet of the apes

What does it mean to be a cynic when there’s no world left to not believe in? This is the question at the core of 1968’s Planet of the Apes. This is by no means the only theme as racism, classism, ageism, and probably various other isms as well are abundant. Not to mention the timeless religion vs science argument combined with Cold War fear of nuclear annihilation. These are all important, but they’ve also been tackled elsewhere over the years as I’m four and a half decades late to this subject This film, in addition to all these other things, represents the end of both American idealism and the American cynic, and both of these are accomplished solely through the protagonist Taylor.

We all know the scene, right? A long shot of a single horse carrying two passengers trots along the coastline with waves crashing down and water running up towards its legs. The camera shifts slightly and suddenly obstructing our view is something eerily familiar, yet somehow we can’t quite place it, but it still fills us with a sense of dread. Finally, our hero Taylor (Charlton Heston) drops from the horse and stands before this rusted, seaweed covered object still kept in obscurity. First he stands in shock. “Oh my god, I’m back. I’m home.” Then he collapses and, in an overacting masterpiece that only Charlton Heston could pull off, shouts at his deceased ancestors: “You Maniacs! You blew it up! Damn you, God Damn you all to Hell!” The camera pans out and we see what he sees. It’s the Statue of Liberty. Holy shit. And scene.

Great twist ending, right? Not really, at least not if the twist is simply meant to shock and surprise. It’s not much of a gotcha, because I think, if we’re honest with ourselves, we all kind of saw that one coming. Maybe not the Statue of Liberty specifically but we at least suspected we were indeed on Earth all along. The real twist is in the fact that Taylor, who has already accepted that everyone he’s ever known and loved is gone, that his species, in all likelihood, time has past, is utterly destroyed by the reality of it all.

Let’s start with Taylor and who he is. He is disgusted with Earth and what humanity has become. His last words to the world he thinks he’s leaving behind are “Does man, that marvel of the universe, that glorious paradox who sent me to the stars, still make war against his brother? Keep his neighbor’s children starving?” This is a man who laughs maniacally when his companion plants an American flag in the soil of this new planet they’ve landed on. He mocks any idealism and anyone who dares to dream about Earth. He waxes philosophically with lines like “I’m a seeker too. But my dreams aren’t like yours. I can’t help thinking that somewhere in the universe there has to be something better than man. Has to be.” This is a man who has gleefully left his home world and cares nothing for those he left behind. He doesn’t identify himself as an American and only begrudgingly acknowledges his Earthling origins.

A shift, though, starts to happen in Taylor. When he’s forced to fight for his survival against the apes, he begins to sugarcoat humanity. He tells Dr Zaius, upon finding archaeological evidence of humans that predate apes, “He was a weak, fragile animal, but he was here before you were. And he was better than you are.” So why is he suddenly drinking the human Kool-aid? Because he’s now faced with the harsh reality that he’s a minority. He’s hated, and feared. His very existence is a threat to the establishment, to the culture. People like that can’t afford to be cynics. But look at his face when Dr Zaius tells him “You are right, I have always known about man. From the evidence, I believe his wisdom must walk hand and hand with his idiocy. His emotions must rule his brain. He must be a warlike creature who gives battle to everything around him, even himself.” He covers it up quickly, but there’s a flash of recognition, that Dr. Zaius is right. All the reasons Taylor left Earth come back to him, but he’s now too stubborn to admit it. Nothing in the Orangutan’s words are particularly new, we heard Taylor say similar things the entire first third of the film. Hell, Zaius practically tells him he’s on Earth but Taylor refuses to acknowledge it.

So then we get to the big scene. Taylor on his knees, cursing mankind, destroyed. The commentary on the dangers of nuclear warfare is not subtle, but the notion of national identity is. Taylor’s rejection of America is his identity, because he feels he’s better than his countrymen, that he’s evolved beyond them. But when faced with their demise, when it becomes irrefutable that we’ve destroyed ourselves, he hates them and weeps for them. He lost his world, his identity, and his humanity all in one instant.

Couldn’t find the video to embed, but for those of you would like to watch the ending, whether you have never seen it (shame on you) or just feel like watching it again, here it is.

https://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1064577264634