Metal: Music for Jerks?

Part of Stephen King's It (the book) stayed with me almost as much as the image of the clown pulling the small child down into the gutter. The image of the violent, hot-headed school-dropouts who throw a gay guy off of a bridge stayed in my brain because the assailants were described as typical uneducated, homophobic, small-town troublemakers, and they listened to Judas Priest, Twisted Sister, and some made up band called Dead Bugs (is that really a metal name? Sounds more pop-punk, but I digress).



The image of the bullying, senselessly violent jerk has been linked to metal in movies and lit for too long. It's pretty easy for most people to think of some cackling nitwit blaring Pantera as he dissects a live animal, or some kids blowing up a school with Slayer on their headphones. The antagonist of Toy Story has a poster on his wall that says Megadork, and while that's not the name of a real band, it's unlikely that the Pixar writers ever thought of using the name Dork 182 instead.

So why is bullying affiliated with metal? In general, metalheads are by far the nicest music fans that I know--they start up friendly conversations with total strangers at shows, have no pretenses about who's more metal than who, and never pretend that they're not having a good time or that they're too cool to headbang or flash horns. Anyone who gets knocked down in a mosh pit is immediately picked up by his peers, as is anyone who falls from crowd surfing. Anyone who gets too violent is escorted to the door. Most people who I thought were jerks in high school listened to emo. So where did the stereotype that metal is the soundtrack to the lives of assholes stem from?



I don't think people are impressionable enough to believe the bad name that the media gives metal. It's all but ignored in mainstream music publications, and most news coverage metal gets is from Tipper Gore-esque dimwits clamoring for censorship, Geraldo-esque attention -seekers investigating "Kids who Kill" (4 out of every 5 listen to Venom), or some distraught parents claiming that their daughter was killed by some guy in a C.O.C. shirt, so now they're suing Pepper Keenan. Most people would tell you (incorrectly) that Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris were metalheads, and I'm guessing that many people would consider the hardcore bands that dominate skinhead rallies to be as metal as Iron Maiden. Maybe I'm overestimating the public's BS detector, but we use terms like "Religious Right" because we can tell that both religious people and right-wingers are not all completely kooky--just people like Pat Robertson who the media can't tear themselves away from. Metalheads and metal bands should get the same benefit of the doubt that Christians and Republicans get.

Another possibility as to why metalheads are stigmatized is that people don't like the music and affiliate it with people they don't like. Along with rap, metal is the most polarizing music in the world. It's hard to think of another kind of music that's so deeply and widely reviled, and this may have something to do with why it's affiliated with jerks. I mentioned earlier that I disliked the emo kids that I knew while growing up. Emo music itself absolutely makes my skin crawl. I don't detest emo because I don't like the fans--there are plenty of nice kids with bad taste in music. But it's not hard to affiliate what's annoying about emo with its fans. The same goes for people who find metal music scary, ugly, and cacophonous. They probably view the fans the same way.

I'm not saying that Stephen King thinks that metal is scary, ugly, and cacophonous--in fact, I've heard that he enjoys Rob Zombie. But he does have a great sense of what scares the public, and I'm sure he knows that (sadly) most people view metal fans as behaving the way they do in his book. But can't someone write a book where the bad guys listen to Bryan Adams?