This Suicide Scapegoat Wears Only the Blackest of Shades
Remedial Band is Mandatory in (at?) the Black Parade
Journalists struggling for a story aren’t first-time visitors in the wacky world of Imaginationland. There is no greater evidence supporting this than that of the suicide-scapegoat. A teenager kills herself, whose to blame? Judas Priest…are they even relevant anymore? Black Sabbath…nah. The Marilyn Manson card has been played to death since Columbine so now it seems a UK “journalist” has decided to make My Chemical Romance the scapegoat.
What I’m referring to is the suicide (by hanging) of a 13 year old English teen. The girl, a reported “emo”, came home one day and told her parents, well…you read it:
The teenager, who left a suicide note and used the nickname “Living Disaster”, committed suicide after flippantly telling her parents, “I want to kill myself”, when she returned late from a friend’s house.
They dismissed the comment and said “don’t be silly” but an hour later found her suspended an inch from the floor.
It gets worse.
She had secretly chatted to “emo” followers online all over the world, talking about death and the glamorisation of hanging and speaking about “the black parade” – a place where “emos” believe they go after they die.
Okay. So journalists being out of touch with popular culture isn’t anything new (but it’s still a little unacceptable). But this is absolutely absurd.
I’m not going to snob out rant about how My Chemical Romance are a pop-punk band and not an emo band, but I will point out that the Black Parade wasn’t about suicide. As far as I know, the album’s concept is based around the life and death of a cancer patient. Beyond that, My Chemical Romance have been outspoken against teenage suicide, so to blame them is an absolute cop-out.
So then why is a half-developed concept album being blamed for the suicide of a misguided young girl who told her parents she wanted to kill herself. I’m not saying they should have believed her, but maybe they should have feigned concern. I guess that’s too much to ask.
Why is this trash being published? The material is offensive to both the family and the daughter and appalling to anyone into music. I myself am a fan of My Chemical Romance. Do I love them? Hardly. But I enjoy their music, to a point, and I’m certainly not of the camp who have an inexplicably passionate hatred for them.
You’d think we were past the days of playing our LPs backwards, searching for hidden messages. I am a student journalist and I am ashamed that the field I am planning to work in is being tainted by such half-hearted, imaginative and flat out pathetic reporting.
In a tribute book dedicated to Hannah at her school, one of her friends wrote, “I hope you enjoy the black parade”, and it emerged another “emo” girl at Hannah’s school, Mascalls Secondary School in Paddock Wood, Kent, had tried to kill herself a year ago.
Take this for example. It’s offensive and unnecessary. I can’t be sure whether or not Hannah or her friends truly believed in “the black parade”, but I find it highly unlikely. Where’s the guidance? I’m rambling because I’m really at a loss for words. This is a tragic situation and one girl’s suicide is being used to vilify a culture that’s mostly harmless.
February 7, 2009 at 10:21 pm |
I agree with you wholeheartedly in denouncing this idiot journalist, but I have one problem with a single sentence in your article;
“You’d think we were past the days of playing our LPs backwards, searching for hidden messages. ”
Of course those days are past! When was the last time you SAW a LP, let alone played one.
April 2, 2009 at 1:01 am |
verry-verry good