Lazy journalism - generally awful goth article

[mrph]

I was expecting better from the Grauniad, especially after the recent review of Paul Hodkinson's book. *sigh*

http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/features/story/0,11710,795915,00.html

Comments

[mr-tom.livejournal.com]

I'm looking really hard for gaps, but it seems quite fair comment to me... The only biggie being the Marylin Munchkin clanger, but then that's such a fine distinction most PIBs can't even agree on that...

Given that it's a mass of generalisations to beging with, they mostly seem quite accurate generalisations. (cat $article | sed s/all/most/g)

And it's almost like he's been earwigging on the "Bela Lugosi's Shed" meme... (Woodshed, woodshed, woodshed)

I'm going to have to find someone with BBC Choice to record that show - it looks fargin' hilarious. (In a SNL "Goth Talk" stylee) :-D

[mrph.livejournal.com]

Oh, c'mon! Goths take themselves sooo seriously? The music hasn't changed in 20 years? Dali and Anne Rice (ok, the Rice comment may have been halfway accurate about six or seven years ago, but...)?

How many goths bother with whiteface these days? How many of us never bothered with the black hair or gothic home improvement? And Charles Manson?

It wouldn't be so bad if the Guardian hadn't reviewed Paul Hodkinson's book on goth only a couple of weeks ago - that piece was far more accurate.

I'm hoping the comedy's a little better than the article, anyway.

[mr-tom.livejournal.com]

Oh, c'mon! Goths take themselves sooo seriously?

From recent reading of uk.p.g: far too seriously...

How many goths bother with whiteface these days? How many of us never bothered with the black hair or gothic home improvement? And Charles Manson?

The problem with cliches is that they're usually pretty accurate, applied across a wide enough sample. How many whiteface/bighair disasters happen at Whitby... And you've got to hand it to the ubergoth cliche - it's fargin' funny. (Witness popularity of "Gother than thou")

[zotz]

It's terribly researched. Really really abysmally. I read the Grauniad six days a week and I don't think they've published an article quite as underinformed in years. Let's see . . . he assumes that "goth" and "industrial" are synonymous (let's see him try to justify that one on r.m.i . . .). "Unlike heavy metal, from where it borrows its guitar solos"?! Errr . . . this is obviously a very different "goth" from the one I'm aware of (or a very different heavy metal). I'm not going to list the ludicrous mistakes in total, but a few won't hurt :

Manson - I've met non-goth rivetheads who were interested in Manson, but no goths.

"Punk rock eventually became grunge, mods turned into casuals and heavy metal turned into speed metal and skate punk" : No no no no no.

"Grishnack of Morgue (named apparently after an ork in Lord Of The Rings" - or alternatively after the singer in a Norwegian Black Metal band. I forget whether he's the one who's dead or in jail.

"In the straightness league, Craig could give Iain Duncan Smith a run for his money" - which is a good thing, whereas "as po-facedly conservative as any Daily Mail-reading denizen of Purley" is a bad thing. Actually, I'd say both of them were bad things, but I can't spot much difference. This is a shame, because I'd kept a sneaking respect for Mr Adams in spite of not liking the Mish or the Cult very much. When was he in the Cult, anyway? Shows how much I know . . .

Very sad. Very very sad.

[mina-laury.livejournal.com]

It's the week for it. A columnist in the Radio Times who was vaguely slagging science fiction off in a 'we all know it's the province of obsessed oddballs' way described Delenn as 'obviously a bloke with a bald head'.

Expect letters to the editor. :)

[inulro.livejournal.com]

Did you see the Grauniad's review of Road to Perdition? At the end he goes on about how it's a boys-own movie because it's based on a comic, and comix are the most male-only media form in the world.

I really wished I was more articulate, because I wanted to send them a very angry letter about that. Come to think of it, I find that far more offensive than the goths article. Except for the bit that says goths are thick, of course.

Jodi

[mrph.livejournal.com]

Yup. They said much the same on Newsnight Review last night, too - with the added insult that "From Hell" was another such case (have they read From Hell?! The movie dumbed it down so much...).

The one fair comment on Newsnight (can't remember if it's in the Guardian too) was that it's watered down because it's an adaptation of an adaptation - which I hadn't initially realised. It seems the comic was itself inspired by Lone Wolf and Cub (which makes me very curious about the ending, as the English translation of LW&C is still three months from its conclusion... :-)

Of course, they then followed that up with "and that's manga, so you can't expect much depth" and blew their credibility again. *sigh*

[lougarry.livejournal.com]

I thought I had a fairly good sense of humour, but this kinda took the biscuit. I could see fringes of humour, but over all I was fairly offended. I may not be in the 'scene' that much these days, but I am fairly intelligent (well, that can be debated;)), I do read and have a stack of books - excluding the star wars collection ;) and I can have an intelligent discussion about the differences between picasso and dali, as for Anne Rice - I find her books hard going and not that good (but since I havent read many, it's not that fair a comment) and I really dont see the point of hero worshipping people like Mass murders, rapists, etc etc, unlike some people (in general - both old and tinybopper)who think it is cool :/

I'm going outside to shoot myself in the foot (well, some one did that for me anyways yesterday - see updates later)