Can Teenagers Survive Marilyn Manson?

I have never heard a song by this “Marilyn Manson” character. But I have read the horror stories about his “concerts” — about the salaciousness, homosexuality, and anti-Christian scatology that are central to his performances. His choice of a stage name that links the images of Marilyn Monroe and Charles Manson speaks volumes.

Many Christian parents are seeking some way to minimize his influence on their children, and I have no intention of calling for less vigilance. There is no place for this “music” in a Christian home. Do try to keep your kids away from it!

But what if you can’t? Certain children who want to listen, will. There are too many places — car stereos, portable cassette players, and the like — for them to gain access. It is not like the days when most homes had just one hi-fi in the family room.

What should parents do if they think their children have become part of the Marilyn Manson audience? How much of a family confrontation is in order? Are there cases when parents can ride through this phenomenon, look the other way and hope for the best?

If your kids are experimenting with behaviors advocated by this lowlife, then drastic, confrontational measures may be necessary. But if your kids are living what seem to be otherwise moral and balanced lives, there may be no reason to be terribly alarmed.

What if their grades are okay, they are working part-time jobs, and seem to be basically “good kids” who are not displaying any harmful effects? Actually, many “good kids” listen to shock rock. I submit that there is a certain type of teenager who yearns to be openly associated with music that outrages responsible adults. More to the point, I hold that many of these kids go on to become sensible and productive adults, even practicing Christians. Your children may be in that category.

I have some experience in this area. I have been teaching high school students, in Catholic and public high schools, for over 30 years now, and I have seen the Elvis and Beatle wannabes, the would-be hippies and greasers, the Deadheads and head-bangers, the heavy-metal aficionados and acid rock fans, and the partisans of grunge, gangsta rap, alternative rock — you name it. I have learned little about the music itself — I don’t listen to it — but I have learned about the kinds of kids who are drawn to it.

About 10 years ago a student of mine was going through a period when heavy-metal rock seemed to be the defining element of his life. He wore a “Metallica” T-shirt to my classes every day (it seemed) for the entire year. He even became involved in a minor confrontation with our pastor. He and his friends had formed a rock group and wanted to perform their heavy-metal songs at a dance in the church auditorium. The pastor, who knew nothing about the music, agreed — until a group of parents showed him the lyrics to some heavy-metal songs. No dance after all.

A series of letters to the editor in the local newspaper followed. Some parents complained that the parish gave much time and attention to teenage athletes and Irish step-dancers and participants in science fairs — the more mainstream kids — but was turning its back on the heavy-metal fans, who were, the parents insisted, just going through a harmless teenage enthusiasm. Others agreed with the pastor: that, whether the teenagers were decent kids or not, a church auditorium was no place for music associated with sinister hostility to Christian values.

I was on the pastor’s side. But that is neither here nor there. What is of interest is that the boy in question, now a man in his late 20s, can be found a few rows in front of me with his mother at Mass on many Sundays. With his neat hair and white shirt, he could be the salesman in a computer ad.

I have seen fans of the other rock groups that caused great anxiety to parents in the 1980s — Ozzy Osbourne, Motley Crüe, Black Sabbath — mature in a similar way. I see them in coat and tie driving to the commuter train, at work in neighborhood businesses and the trades, in the malls with their own kids in tow.

Was the “music” beneficial for them? It would be silly to say so. No doubt it would have been better for them and their families if they had never been in that orbit. Yet whatever spiritual damage they suffered does not seem to have been lasting, at least from my decidedly unscientific survey. These kids went on to become young adults not noticeably different from those who were listening to the more mainstream rock music of the time. (I know of some kids who were Billy Joel fans who ended up with lives in turmoil.)

I don’t know why teenagers need to profess a tribal identity of some sort. No doubt the psychologists have a name for the phenomenon. But young people do. They go through that stage when their hair, clothes, T-shirt slogans, the cars they prefer — and especially the rock groups they favor — are chosen as badges, uniforms, as a way of instantly proclaiming a persona that identifies them to every other teenager they pass. The establishment-oriented kids do it, too. They affect the preppy look. You can see it at every high school debate tournament — all those earnest young men in black overcoats and Hugh Grant batwing hairdos.

The kids who publicly affirm their interest in the shock groups like Marilyn Manson tend to fall into a definable category. They are not usually outstanding scholars, athletes, or leaders of the school government. They usually do not have enough money to own a hot car. They are seldom ladies’ men. Consequently, they are not on the receiving end of much adulation, either from other teenagers or from adults. Shock rock lends a certain cachet — in their eyes, at any rate — to this outsider status. They’re trying to be outlaws rather than nerds, rebels instead of nobodies.

I would go so far as to argue that associating themselves with Marilyn Manson can be comparable — in their minds — to what Tom Sawyer was doing when he smoked his pipe and waved a dead rat in front of Becky Thatcher. It establishes rank as one of the hard guys, as an “I don’t give a damn” type, a cynic who “takes no bull from the grownups,” who has “guts” (although they use another part of the anatomy to make that point these days), who is not a jerk, no matter what the honor roll students, the jocks, and the principal think.

This point was driven home to me as I was walking around the gym while proctoring the final exams at my school last June. A scattering of kids was wearing the popular Marilyn Manson shirt emblazoned with “We Love Hate; We Hate Love,” or some other Manson paraphernalia.

I couldn’t help but notice: These kids were not the kids who have been arrested for selling drugs in school. They were not the kids who cause confrontations in the classroom. I noticed no tattoos, and about the “normal” level of body-piercing. They were not gang members. Many of them were kids who were also into computer games, or members of the school orchestra. One had his skateboard next to his desk. I’m serious! And I don’t think my school is an anomaly.

Certainly, I wish they were not caught up in the Manson phenomenon. And I am not saying that what Manson advocates is in the same league as Tom Sawyer’s pranks. Manson’s act is vile. What is at issue, though, is not as much Manson as the students’ perception of him. I am arguing that their public association with him is meant to accomplish for them what Tom Sawyer’s bravado did for him. For the same reason, an adolescent boy will wave a frog or a snake in the playground, hang from the overpass to paint a graffito, throw snowballs at the principal’s car. It’s a form of derring-do which induces a frisson in the teeny-bopper girls — or so he hopes.

That’s why the T-shirts with slogans are so essential in this scenario. They are advertisements proclaiming a defiance of authority — by young people who have not succeeded in making that point about themselves in other ways. They are not necessarily bad kids. But they want to be at least a little bit bad in the eyes of their peers. Nothing admirable about that; nothing heroic; but nothing all that out of place for a teenager either.

There is nothing easy about raising a Christian kid these days. The entertainment industry is pounding away at everything we hold sacred. Dealing with this latest wave of shock rock will test the mettle of those parents who are confronted with it. It is an indecency that must be fought. But it must be fought with weapons appropriate to the kid and the situation, and with a sense of proportion, lest we do more harm than good. “Fathers, do not nag your children, lest they lose heart,” St. Paul advised the Colossians.

So be ready for the worst if you find your kids listening to Marilyn Manson, but don’t jump to conclusions. My experience leads me to believe that it might not be the beginning of a deterioration in their character that will end in depravity. By this time next year, that Manson creep could very well be a forgotten episode in their lives — and yours.