Was/Is Morrissey Racist?

Kris, I think you're entirely right -- particularly w/r/t fans and what Smiths fandom actually "meant" in the public sphere. I, anyway, was at no point bothered in any deep sense by listening to the Smiths / Morrissey, and never imagined that Morrissey's flirtations with near-racist symbols actually reflected near-racist ideology on his own part. It did, however, make me like him a lot less as time went on: it is one thing to traffic in such symbols in the process of making a relevant artistic statement, but to toy mutely with them for no massive purpose strikes me as dumb and glib and something of a mockery of how very real and threatening and Actually Quite Serious such symbols are. It made Morrissey look like a decent artist who really needed to stick with his own neuroses and keep his nose out of cultural politics for fear of hugely embarrassing himself.

I wrote in something a while ago that "conservatism" can be a very lovely thing in pop music, when it is only aesthetic and the actual workings of the world are not at stake -- thus Morrissey's paens to vanishing Anglicisms never struck me as actually reactionary. But as he toed lines between aesthetics and cold hard reality he raised the possibility that those paens weren't purely aesthetic or personal/emotional, and I think it made him look both silly and stupid, or in any case completely unaware that Symbols Mean Something beyond what they mean in the very scenic midscape of Stephen Patrick Morrissey.

I do agree that looking at lyrics is unhelpful. "National Front Disco" is loaded with sarcasm from the very title, and anyway assigns plenty of threat to the idea: where has our dear boy gone -- oh dear, he has gone bad, and by that time in the man's career you could tell that he recognized the badness but just had an idiosyncratic attraction to it. "Asian Rut" eulogizes the Asian boy, if patronizingly. "Bengali in Platforms" is basically the height of condescension and exhibits really iffy word choice with the "belong," but it seems less virulent than just sort of solipsistic and dumb, i.e. Morrissey is so blindly English that he never considers that life can be way harder elsewhere even if you do "belong" there, and basically just demonstrates his inability to think properly about anything that doesn't slot nicely into his very English little world.

I'm almost positive that is true, because I recall reading something very similar to this in the NME at the time....iirc Sutherland was editing the letters page and was speculating about it.

You may or may not have noticed that there is a diversity of thought and opinion on this thread.

although i had, until recently at least, been under the misapprehension that pseudo-intellectual meant someone who talked about 'intellectual' ideas which you didn't like, and the political- correctness was a label in use by right wingers to criticise language or actions they didn't like! but then, i'm daft like that!

Tell me about the new Rush album, justine (or anyone). Any good? Do the lyrics reflect any of Neil's recent tragic experiences?

Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha. I'm sorry. I'll stop crying in a second. Hold on. One more second. Hehe. Okay.

You're right. WE ARE ALL POORER. Do you think Morrissey might have been censoring himself ALL along and that he has some GOOD songs somewhere he's been HIDING from everyone?

"[Morrissey's] an intelligent person who will not allow his thoughts to be policed by pseudo-intellectual politically correct sheep and bullies."

"Morrissey is probably sub conciously censoring his own lyrics now."

?

Pseudo-intellectual: something people call others when they're unwilling or unable to form a proper rejoinder to a well-developed and perfectly coherent argument that they happen to disagree with.

Politically correct: term people use when invoking ridiculous belief that they're allowed to say anything they want and others aren't allowed to point out that what they've said may well be idiotic or despicable.

I mean, that's what, four posts on this thread, and you haven't actually addressed the question, which is what we can glean about Morrissey's actual beliefs on these issues. Your only argument thus far has been that people should have zippers over their mouths and brains and not be allowed to have opinions about anything anyone else has said.

a.) Moz talks about this stuff. b.) ILM: "That stuff seemed sort of racist. Do you think maybe Moz is sort of racist?" c.) ILM talks about this stuff. d.) Jack: "I have nothing to say about this stuff apart from noting that it's wrong of you to talk about this stuff."

Thus the only one I see "policing" discourse (as opposed to engaging in it) = Jack, no?

In this sense you're doing precisely what I noted about Moz, above (as Nitsuh): buying into this notion that because someone is an artist their discourse is mystic and above the comprehension, criticism, or discussion of the listeners. But signifiers signify actual things, and none of us is above being responsible for what we choose to signify. This is my complaint with Moz: not that he is a racist (I don't necessarily believe that he is) but that he's naive or solipsistic enough to toy with meaningful, significant words and imagery as if they mean nothing, as if they're meaningless aesthetic costumes to be donned and removed without responsibility. In this sense he's no better than those people who think it's funny to put swastikas on things to "stir people us" -- racist, maybe not, but ignorant and ahistorical enough to miss the fact that speech and symbols have meanings and effects, and that people get stirred up because they recognize those meanings and care about them. Even when it's just an innocent stumble -- I honestly don't think Rush, for example, had much of an idea of the intellectual baggage that comes with Rand -- it's there: whether you realize it or not, you're saying something that a lot of people disagree with, and I think it's not only valid but admirable for them to argue against it. If you're going to say things, you have to be prepared for people to say that you're saying stupid things: freedom of speech does not imply freedom from criticism.

i.) My reference to swastikas was not meant as a reference to that "controversial" art exhibit in New York: knowing little about the actual pieces included, I'm in no position to say whether they used the Nazi imagery in a meaningful or in a destructive manner. (It sounded from the press like it was used reasonably topically, but some of the artists overstretched their statements in the way one would expect: i.e., they cheapened the reality of Nazism in roughly the same way that calling anyone you don't like a Nazi cheapens the reality of Nazism.)

ii.) That argument wasn't intended to lay waste to postmodernism so much as a really awful bastardized thinking that might stem from complete misunderstandings of postmodernism. It's always possible to recontextualize reprehensible signifiers in ways that are aware of their original weight, ways that comment on that original weight, and ways that use that weight to noble purpose. What irks me is when artists think their mere appropriation of such symbols completely strips them of that weight, thereby relieving the artist of any duty to deal with it. Such people are like those kids who wave guns in their friends' faces and say "don't worry, it's unloaded" right before the shot fires.

It's got more people talking about/engaging with both the Simpsons and Moz than they have in donkey's years, so...

Who was last week's episode possibly for

Who is singing Moz in the "everything is horrid" song - Bret Mckenzie or Bene Cummerbund? It sounds more like Bret to me (and it has def FotC shades)

Cumberbatch, directed over video conference by McKenzie.

is that what Lisa looks like now or is it just this episode???

^ Comment of the day

Also, this:

“Neither do I have a determined business squad of legal practitioners ready to pounce. I think this is generally understood and is the reason why I am so carelessly and noisily attacked. You are especially despised if your music affects people in a strong and beautiful way, since music is no longer required to.”

1335 posts deep into the "Is Morrissey Racist?" thread, and we finally get some clarity on why people keep attacking him.

Who is this possibly for

It's for Morrissey dude.

Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat) at 4:41 20 Apr 21

I’m surprised that enough americans know who morrissey is to warrant a Simpsons parody but I then again I don’t know what young people are up to

He could sell out huge arenas in Los Angeles and maybe NYC in the early ‘90s, so a few oldsters remember him. And presumably, it’s the oldsters who are watching broadcast TV on Sunday nights.


yeah but he had the whole phenomenon of his big, young Latino fanbase in the mid oughts

So many conflicted feelings on this throwback...

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/mst3k/images/8/83/MST3k_City_Limits-_MN_as_Morrissey.jpg/revision/latest/top-crop/width/360/height/450?cb=20121026180430

so an old record store buddy of mine has a sense of humor.

...huh.

https://pitchfork.com/news/adollarap-rocky-says-morrissey-is-on-his-new-album-all-smiles/

lol @ the url, "ADOLLARAP" is a good rap name

“Anything you need him to do, he show up and do,” Rocky said of working with the Smiths co-founder.

I thought this thread had been shut down and moved to another with a better title

Morrissey is a racist