geoffrard:
Why did we stop talking about the manson girl outfit? The manson girl outfit made so many of the other outfits make sense to me. I wanna talk about the manson girl outfit.
Let’s talk about more than that, though. Let’s talk about the textually feminine costumes—by which I mean the costumes that clearly and explicitly invoke femininity—that Gerard has worn on stage. Let’s talk about how all of them have referenced traditional American archetypes of female cultural and social power.
I want to offer one way of reading these outfits. Not the only way, of course. Also, I don’t mean to reach any concrete conclusions about Gerard’s gender, though I don’t think that anything I’m saying here contradicts anyone’s attempt to do so in any direction. Often I see dissections of these outfits supporting the point of Gerard’s gender non-conformity without addressing how or why he chose a specific manner of playing with gender.
To me, it’s incredibly obvious how intentional and deliberate these choices are. And I think a failure to recognize these outfits as a specific artistic choice does Gerard a disservice. Exploring the layered motivations for a specific kind of gendered expression does not preclude these costumes from being an important, interesting, and personal manifestation of gender nonconformity. In fact, I’d say it supports that interpretation even more.
Okay, all that said! As I mentioned earlier, the Manson Girl costume triggered these thoughts. I saw very little discussion of the costume at all, which I think is a shame.
[source: Trish Badger]
I know why; people struggle to talk about cults and the people involved in them. Obviously, it’s a complex issue that requires nuance. Full disclosure, I am a cult survivor myself—and thus am uniquely acquainted with the complexity of victimhood and culpability for cult members from my own deconstruction journey.
But I think that Gerard intentionally chose to dress up as a female cultural symbol that embodies this uncomfortable gray area. Actually, I don’t think it’s the only one meant to evoke that frustrating moral ambiguity. The First Lady, The Nurse, The Teacher, The Cheerleader, The Devoted Follower—all of these important American archetypes symbolize feminine power, victimhood, and violence. When Gerard performs these identities on stage, he offers commentary on his own role in American society.
[sources from left to right: Laurie Fanelli; Steve Pedulla; Jess Williams; Scott Raymer]
Sophia @sendmyresignation pointed out to me that these are not just important figures within general Americana; they hold significance within rock music specifically. Rock relies on the convenient metaphor of these women at their worst. The cheerleader stands in for every girl who never saw successful men for their worth; the female teacher stands in for oppressive authority figures holding men back. The Manson Girls, too, have become a cultural icon for music to evoke. Their violent, mindless devotion to Charles Manson (and more overtly, their beliefs surrounding the Beatles and Helter-Skelter) is an obvious parallel to the crazed devotion of fans to celebrity musicians.
These representations of women are generally pretty misogynistic, as the songs that invoke them create distance between the successful male musician and the women who don’t understand them. But not here. Not right now.
Gerard, the rockstar, the cult leader, the most powerful person in the room when he’s on stage, takes these figures that are traditionally degraded by people in his position, and takes on their societal role. He’s not the president; he’s the president’s wife. He’s not the cult leader; he’s the cult leader’s devoted follower. He’s not the doctor you respect; he’s the nurse you trust. He’s not the man looking back with scorn at the popular girl who never noticed him in high school; he’s the cheerleader drowning in equal parts admiration and ire.
My Chemical Romance occupies a position within American society that allows them to wield substantial economic and social power. But every ounce of power they gain from their position in the industry further constricts them to specific roles, a specific life. And with more power comes the ability to cause real harm.
The female figures of Gerard’s costumes represent the only socially prescribed and socially approved avenues for women to obtain power. These women can’t be the politician, but they can exert influence over him as his wife. They can’t control the adult men in their lives, but they can teach children. They can’t go to medical school, but they can make many of the life-or-death decisions for their patients.
These positions—the First Lady; the Nurse; the Teacher; the Manson Girl; the rockstar—allow for violence, intentional or otherwise. In a horror context, these figures unsettle because of the blurred lines of culpability and victimhood they convey. This uncomfortable feminine danger is obvious with the Manson Girls, who committed brutal murders in the name of the abusive man who brainwashed them, but these other female archetypes exert power over others as a reaction to more abstract misogyny.
The nurse costume, for example, references in part the Nurse Ratched character, the heartless, sadistic caretaker of the all-male psychiatric care facility in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Even the adored Jackie Onassis, benevolent as her image is, represents a strata of American society akin to an untouchable nobility, an American aristocracy that only occasionally reached out to those below them.
Their violence cannot be separated from their victimhood. Their victimhood cannot be separated from their violence. The condition of their subjugation lends them the very power it limits.
Just as Conventional Weapons used military service as a metaphor for the predatory music industry, Gerard’s choice to wear these outfits can be read as specific commentary on his own institutional power, on his own ambivalence about his role as cultural nobility. He arguably occupies one of the highest positions in society one could achieve; yet as much as this empowers him, as much as this is the life he chose for himself, it also constricts him. It is uncontrollable. It can cause harm. Not so long ago, after all, the media demonized MCR as creating a subculture that glorified self-harm and suicide. Gerard wears the same dress and cardigan as members of a violent cult as someone who has been accused of starting a violent cult himself on multiple occasions and by no small number of people.
I think, too, that it shouldn’t be taken as a coincidence that he has chosen to perform as these specific women, these feminine figures who find power through their compliance in and performance of constrained, gendered roles. There’s something to be said about the stage, by nature a confined space, being a place where gender nonconformity can be expressed safely, where the costume can be put on and taken off, where it is expected to be put on and taken off.
It’s a distinctly feminine demonstration of horror; it’s a horror best expressed through the feminine.
