Fans lined up around the block at Tower Records in downtown Manhattan on a Saturday morning last month to buy tickets to Ozzfest ’97, a hard-rock extravaganza at Giants Stadium featuring a reunion of Black Sabbath and performances by Marilyn Manson and Type O Negative.

But at 9 a.m. they were told to leave. Tickets would not be going on sale. The New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority had decided that as long as Marilyn Manson—the pancake-makeup-wearing, apocalypse-preaching, macabre-acting industrial rock group—was on the bill, there would be no Ozzfest at the stadium.

In response, Ozzy Osbourne, the headliner of the festival, sued the state. He won, and tickets are to go on sale again.

This is by no means an isolated incident. Concerts by Marilyn Manson in South Carolina and Utah have been canceled after legislators introduced resolutions banning the group from performing on state property. Other states have not been much more eager to welcome Marilyn Manson. Mayor Larry E. Chavis of Richmond, Va., offered the band money to stay away from his city, and state Sen. Mark McDaniel protested outside the band’s concert in Greensboro, N.C.

Meanwhile, bomb threats have become a problem at the concerts, a school in Florida threatened to expel any student caught at a recent show and protesters outside arenas have been praying for the souls of those inside.

Why is everybody so scared of Marilyn Manson?

Not since the furor over the Ice-T song “Cop Killer” five years ago has an act been targeted like this. Then the uproar was over a particular lyric. This time it’s about everything that a band represents. It’s about a band that is seen as “the sickest group ever promoted by a mainstream record company,” to use the words of U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn. The group records for Interscope.

Here, in the eyes of protesters, are the strikes against Marilyn Manson, the Ohio native who leads the band of the same name: he takes his last name from a cult leader, Charles Manson; he is a member of the Church of Satan and tears up bibles on stage; he sings about rape, murder, blasphemy and suicide, and he has been known to expose and mutilate himself during concerts.

As one might expect, hyperbole builds from here. In their literature some religious and conservative watchdog groups say Marilyn Manson kills animals, rapes people and uses drugs on stage.

His supporters note that he doesn’t really worship the devil (though he doesn’t mind the association), and even his most obscene lyrics are cryptic and metaphorical, much less explicit than many recent hardcore rap and rock albums.

In short, protesters say the band is corrupting society. The band says it is the product of a corrupted society.

Everything Marilyn Manson is doing has been done before, much of it better. But just as the entertainment industry likes to jump on bandwagons, so do city councils, parent’s groups and church organizations. And Marilyn Manson happens to be the bandwagon of the moment.

In the past it’s been risque rhythm-and-blues songs like “Work With Me Annie,” Elvis’ pelvis, heavy metal lyrics played backwards and 2 Live Crew. Now it’s a 27-year-old who thinks of himself as an Antichrist. In actuality, he is a bogeyman who works in reverse. Children use him to scare their parents. Then their parents use him to scare other parents. And it seems to be working.

Under the recent court decision, Marilyn Manson will have its day at Giants Stadium on June 15. But this is a battle with no victor. Forty years ago, the magazine Music Journal editorialized that rock-and-roll music stirred teens “to orgies of sex and violence.”

Today, Pat Robertson is saying that Marilyn Manson “incites people to murder, to rape.” The argument remains the same. Only the bands change.

 

This article was provided to us by WORLDWIDE CHURCH OF GOD, Office of Ralph K. Helge, 440 West Green Street, Pasadena CA 91105

For more information on Marilyn Manson, visit Rock Out Censorship at www.theroc.org and the Massachusetts Music Industry Coalition at www.massmic.com