#beatles discussion/discourse

[mclennonlgbt]

I hardly disagree with this.

I suspect which ULM author post you're talking about. Is this this one? IMHO the author of this post is NOT suggesting that John's romantic feelings for Paul were one-sided. Rather, they are talking about a specific time in Lennon/McCartney history: 1970-1971. They claim John was trying to get a satisfactory response from Paul (perhaps proposing a romantic relationship to John? perhaps something different?), but Paul was already at a different stage. He wanted to live with Linda and the kids, and treat John as a friend, not a life partner. I think the thesis of this post is NOT "Paul didn't reciprocate gay feelings." Rather, the thesis is "Paul may have reciprocated gay feelings, but at that point in his life he preferred to be with Linda. That was his choice."

I also don't think the author of ULM believes Philip Norman. They quoted him, but that doesn't mean they take him at face value. There are various quotes in the series, including absurd ones, but their presentation is simply intended to show different opinions from the Beatles and author circles, not to convince the viewer.

I've watched ULM 2137 times and IMO the author is claiming that there were romantic feelings between John and Paul, mutual. This is evident in many examples:

the entire montage of the Let it be (Get back) sessions

the suggestion that "Tug of war" refers to Paul's gay feelings for John (the lyrics of the song are illustrated with footage of a homophobic street attack)

"Yvonne's the One" moment

"However Absurd" moment

...and so on....

Wow. I can’t believe the ULM author actually believed the Phillip Norman quote about John wanting Paul, and Paul being an ‘immovable heterosexual’ - and wrote a long post where they extrapolate their entire JP thesis from that crappy quote! I really struggle to believe that ANYONE can take that quote seriously, for the very basic reasons;

- Norman has ZERO concept of queer or gay feelings and believes that no gay man would be attracted to Paul because Paul is beautiful and that is not what gay men like. The man is an idiot, so whatever he is choosing to take from Yoko’s quote should not be treated with any validity.

- Yoko is full of shit and she lies, most usually to keep the JohnandYoko brand alive. No way is she going to allow Paul to be one half of the greatest love story ever told. Why anyone would take her at her word is beyond me.

- that whole stupid quote is only believable if a person has no understanding of actual human behaviour. Namely; if your platonic bestie has an unrequited love for you, and you love them, but not ‘like that’ - you don’t spend the 60s and 70s flirting with them as much as they flirt with you. Has this person actually spent a moment studying Paul? He has it as bad for John as John does for him.

Disappointing all round. If that link really is from the ULM creator, (and it reads like it) then I’m not watching any more of their output.

it’s a bit jarring that my only critique was that the documentary was boring for my adhd brain and my anons are tearing apart of the narrative that ulm pushes. i hope this discussion makes people view the documentary with a more critical eye and not push it as a holy grail that every mclennon should watch

[depressedraisin]

notes on "mr. snarl"

hello, hello, hello welcome to the mr. snarl is high camp discourse. i've been readin' and thinkin' and drivin' myself nuts over this, so i'll be blabberin' on for a good minute. bear with me.

before we dive into any discussion of camp, we ofcourse need to understand what camp is in the first place. camp as an idea is nearly impossible to neatly put down in a few words or a sentence. it has no definition as of such. camp is loud. camp is ostentatious. camp is exaggerated. camp is 'too much'. camp is gay. camp is ironic. camp is cheeky. drag is camp. marlene dietrich is camp. baroque art is camp. cher is camp. mommie dearest (1981) is camp. the rocky horror picture show (1975) is camp. dostoevsky is camp.

the girlies who get camp get it, those who don't, don't.

however we do have susan sontag's 1964 seminal essay 'notes on "camp"' from where most of our contemporary ideas and understanding of 'camp' comes from. in her essay, sontag noted 58 points on what camp is or might be. for our purposes in this post, we'll go by those. because it is the camp bible of course. and i am a pretentious bitch.

now before we get to the meat of the matter, a quick detour to discuss the many faces of alex turner.

alex's personas have now come to as closely associated to his image as an artist and public figure as blonde wigs are with dolly parton, i suppose. it even has its own section in alex's wiki page. he is one those performers to whom the "eras" concept can truly and perfectly apply. he is a different man on stage with every new album, each 'era' is unique from the other and distinctly defined. a new 'era' for alex is not only a change of a haircut or a new pallette, it is a total revamping of his mannerisms and performance style and public image. be it mr. schwarz (the car era), mark (tbhc era) or oliver tate sr. (early sias era), each one of his personas is another way in which he represents the themes of that album. understanding a persona is integral to understanding the album.

and alex admits to as such. each Performer is a fractured reflection of his own self, and of the album.

but. but. i do not think that he has always made use of the Performer, or atleast, tried to make perceivable distinctions between them. in the first three-four years of his career- during WPSIATWIN and FWN, he presented as just Some Guy. just another normal bloke from sheffield. which, you could argue, was the persona that fit the context of those albums, but i would say that he was probably not putting that much thought into it at the time. it isn't until TAOTU that we see alex using his on-stage fashion to project a certain kind of image that ties in with the music he's playing. (do i think it's miles' handiwork? yes.). the lil suits and ties and beatles-mop cuts, y'know.

the first distinct Performer appears during the Humbug era. the soft-spoken, brooding, fawn-mannered poet who is probably hiding a bagful of secrets and hang-ups behind those layers of brown curls- let's call her him aly. then we have the bright-eyed, puppy-smiled, deep-voiced loverboy of the early SIAS era. i propose to call him oliver tate sr. (after the guy from submarine (2010) obviously). then mr. snarl- we'll get to him later. the loud and theatrical and slutty and deliciously gay EYCTE era persona. then the melancholic space poet mark of TBH&C and finally the suave auteur of The Car- mr. schwarz.

mr. snarl is the one who has garnered the most fascination and endured the most in popular imagination. dare i say, AM-era alex turner is a lowkey late 2010s pop culture icon. it is very easy to understand why- the quiff, the leather jackets, the perpetual sunglasses, the biker boots, the LA drawl tinging his sheffield accent, the devil-may-care wantoness. the girlies on tiktok and pinterest aren't obsessed with him for nothing.

so, what makes mr. snarl camp? what am i yapping on about?

let's get back to sontag.

camp is artificial. camp is ironic. mr. snarl is too. he is a character. he is a mask. *cue the bourne identity and body paint*. 'artificial' does not imply fake or dishonest. we should be careful not to be quick in putting any value judgement onto this artificiality- the aritifice is a quality of camp. you can't appreciate camp, if you snigger at the artificial.

2. camp is character. mr. snarl is a character if there ever was one. extremely defined, visually and behaviourally- you see a performance and can immediately recognise the moment mr. snarl is peeking through. he is also very intensely one thing- very intensely masculine, very intensely rockabilly, very intensely rock god. he is 'instant character' as sontag puts it, which is why perhaps he so immediately and so firmly gripped our collective imagination.

3. camp is exaggerated. camp is style. do i even need to elaborate on this? Ben Beaumont-Thomas of The Guardian said it much better than i could- alex ironically "played with the role" of being a rockstar but simultaneously "can't help but be a real rock star." so, to put it in sontagian terms, he is not a rockstar but a "rock star"

the 2014 brit awards speech is the peak of this ironic, exaggerated performance i think. (i'm still waiting for someone to do a drag performance based on it).

4. but to me, what makes mr. snarl camp is his performance of gender. now let's get one thing clear- camp is not effeminate or queer behaviour. it is the "spirit of extravagance", so any kind of extravagant and ironic presentation of gender can be under the purview of camp.

this performance of gender is not the david bowie or marc bolan or brian molko kind, no. this performance of gender is much subtle, much more nuanced- he wasn't playing around with rigid definitions of gender or crossing gender lines. he wasn't trying to say something with it necessarily. i doubt even, if it was a purposeful thing that he was thinking of back then.

but mr. snarl is a performance of gender. it is a performance of masculinity. and the thing that makes it so very interesting is that it was a cis, straight man doing it.

[if y'all are interested, another interesting example is dolly parton + her persona + her performance of exaggerated femininity. for more on that i'll point you towards be kind rewind's video essay on her.]

mr. snarl was an image of a very certain kind of masculinity. 1950s, elvis presley, rockabilly, greasers, james dean- these are some of the pop culture touchstones that come to mind when we think of mr. snarl. he is also decidedly american. a "fictional character from america" as alex later put it. was this whole persona thing an effort to conquer america then? perhaps...but eh. there is no way i can conclusively say that. it certainly helped that cause. AM the album was very us-american in essence-- it drew from hiphop and r&b after all. the soundscape of the arctic monkeys was very much rooted in its northern british indie roots, and AM was the first one that was clearly not. and mr. snarl was just a visual reflection of that. [for more on how the arctic monkeys conquered the us]

mr. snarl was a certain kind of masculine in a way alex turner personas haven't been previously or since. he has always presented as conventionally masculine. even the humbug persona- him being my girlfriend notwithstanding- is not much different from the aesthetics of say, ray davies or mick jagger or george harrison back in the 60s and 70s. the slightly effeminate dramaticism of eycte is not exactly gender-bending as such.

but mr. snarl was hypermasculine. masculinity has had an interesting place in his lyrics up until they- they are both critical ('brianstorm' 'a certain romance') and fascinated ('jeweller's hand' 'catapult') of more aggressive masculine characteristics. (he does use a lot of very sexual but not necessarily erotic language to describe said masculinity- but that's another can of worms.) mr. snarl was in a way, alex being those characters from those songs he was writing about. mr. snarl also very aggressively straight. straight with a capital s. his songs in AM still had the self-abasing and submissive undertones to the narrator that love songs from humbug and sias, but much toned down. he was out there shouting out his girlfriend on stage. and who can forget the "ladiessssssss!" moment. he had models hanging off him in photoshoots.

you probably saw these photos and thought- "what the fuck?!" with a cackle. that is exactly what makes mr. snarl camp. the irony, the ridiculousness of it all.

5. i don't think alex was trying to be or do camp. camp is best when it is not intentional. i can even confidently wager alex would not take it as a compliment if i showed him this essay. a lot of very "serious" people look down upon camp as something lowbrow and tacky and unserious. but it isn't. i would go ahead and classify mr. snarl under naive camp- he is trying to be straightlaced and serious, but failing grandly, which makes it deliciously camp.

so. mr. snarl was an exaggerated representation of masculinity. in a sense, mr. snarl was basically drag. alex turner being "Alex Turner".

[scapegoated-if]

How did the band come up with the name “Voyeurs” and why did they choose it? Would the name itself have been controversial in-game at that time, due to the sexual connotation?

This also comes up in the story but I will spoil it because it’s not majorly significant in the grand scheme of things. There will be a scene that explains all of this again, so read at your own discretion.

In the group, their initial idea as a band was ‘The Spectators’, which I got from a 1970 Jim Morrison interview where he said something along the lines of ‘a spectator is the most dangerous thing you can be’—I will reblog this with the specific quote and interview when I get home later (I have spare time on my hands so I’m replying to this at work).

Léon, however, suggests the name ‘The Spectators’ in reference to Oscar Wilde’s Preface from The Picture of Dorian Gray:

‘All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril. Those who read the symbol do so at their peril. It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors. Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and vital.’

Léon also sees “spectating” as the act of baring witness to the world around him at the time and writing what he’s baring witness to, more so than having anything to openly say about it. He doesn’t see himself as a writer but a vessel.

I imagine Vince thinks it’s too pretentious and, although Léon doesn’t agree with this sentiment, he does agree that the name in particular isn’t right for the band because it’s too on the nose.

Shiloh then suggests ‘The Voyeurs’ as a synonym, without knowing that the actual sadistic meaning refers to sexual voyeurism as well as in a sense enjoying pain inflicted upon others.

Vince would shut it down, interpreting the former. Leon would be open to it in the context of the latter—he would elaborate that he is specifically referring to watching those who suffer at the hands of progression and transgression from capitalism and the discriminatory systems currently in place at the time.

Eventually MC would decide to remove ‘The’ altogether from the name because there are many examples already of groups that have ‘The’ in their names: The Beatles; The Rolling Stones; The Velvet Underground; The Lovin’ Spoonful; The Byrds; The Who; The Doors; and etc, but I could go on.

I have the scene written down for the sake of myself contextually (it was one of the first pieces of writing I did for Scapegoated to grasp a sense of the dynamic between the band), but I’ll share it with you guys at a later time because I want to include space for coding so your MC can decide where she stands in this discussion.

The name is received negatively for a while by others and has a lot of discourse around it. Many record labels receive it negatively in the fear of a lack of marketability. But your label is open to it and loves it for the discourse it can create and the image of your band as very much so a product of your “angry” and “subversive” generation. At the time your band takes this well, especially because it’s a very famous and successful label (evidently), but bad publicity isn’t always good publicity…

I offered a different name to my best friend when I was planning Scapegoated: ‘Pitstop’. It would have been a literal reference to the QE2 and the fact you met Léon on a pit stop along the ship’s schedule. But I didn’t feel that it had the same impact if the MC was from France because you would both be getting on the QE2 at the same time, rather than experiencing the journey without Leon for a day, and then picking him up at the South of France terminal where it massively turns around what the trip is like for you. On the other hand, metaphorically it was meant to be allusive to the fact your group are passing by—you’re dropping an album and then disappearing, which felt too on the nose on my part in terms of the hiatus. The band wouldn’t know they’re going on hiatus when they start it, otherwise it’s like what’s the point in the first place?

Also, I associated the name ‘Pitstop’ as less ‘70s and more ‘00s heavy metal for some reason—maybe I’m subconsciously rhyming it with ‘Slipknot’ or something.

Sorry for how long this has become! A lot to unpack!

Stay groovy!

[anotherkindofmindpod]

Hi there, hugee long time fan of the podcast here! I was wondering if you’d ever interview Ian Leslie regarding his new book? I do believe that most of his “fresh” takes and theories have for the most part been discussed at large on this website and on your show for years now, but I would love to hear y’all discuss the new direction Beatles discourse seems to be taking in the mainstream… Keep up the amazing work! 💪

Thank you, Anon! :) We greatly appreciate those kind words. We have no plans to interview Leslie. We answered a similar ask HERE. Thanks for listening and Stay tuned! xoxox AKOM

[idontwanttospoiltheparty]

I have ventured into the fandom side of the Beatles relatively recently (late 2023) so these are just my inferences, please take them with a grain of salt- Many of the older posts I read on here and some on lj which discussed the possibility of John's feelings for Paul being romantic were often implicitly or not responding to a decades long narrative that John was too good for Paul and had outgrown him/the Beatles creatively. So, once John found Yoko he never looked back while Paul, creatively stagnant without John, forever kept on chasing the high of what he had with him. So, the posts not only try to refute this narrative but present a counter-narrative in turn that not only is John's 70's virtriol towards Paul not a sign of his apathy but is actually indicative of deeper emotions. So, the game became one of looking for signs that John always loved Paul, while the existence of Paul's attachment to John was taken for granted because it was about proving that Lennon-Mccartney was a mutual partnership and not a lopsided dynamic between the Real Genius and the two-faced phony as has been promoted by the press. By the time the present batch of beatles fans joined the fandom, the general narrative has shifted and Paul's talents or the friendship and affection that existed between him and John have more or less become common knowledge. So, to newer fans, those older posts about establishing John's feelings appear a bit redundant because they seem to be meticulously proving something that was never in question. And to them, it might feel like a lot of attention is being given to John's feelings for Paul and none to Paul's which could be equated to a denial that any such feelings exist on Paul's part.

you know what? this is very illuminating and makes a lot of sense to me. I feel like I joined right on the tail-end of this era (mid-2021) so I both feel like I know what came before and also like all that discourse is long behind us. thank you so much!!!

[finitevariety]

watched A Hard Day's Night for the first time yesterday and had some feelings about it that I want to share beyond my letterboxd, sorry!! In a world where they didn't go on to have acrimony and stabbing and shooting, this would still have been a fun film, but it wouldn't have made me this insane:

I feel the same way watching early footage of The Beatles as I do seeing photos of tourists posing in front of the Twin Towers pre-9/11. They don't know! 

It's as though I'm watching a pantomime but the performers can't hear the audience participation. Instead, they're just ambling around, clueless, all 'I Sure Hope The Villains Aren't Here'. I can yell 'THEY'RE BEHIND YOU all I like but it won't do shit! The train is on its tracks, inexorable. 

Very quickly, as the train chuffs along through our first few scenes, I start thinking about how stupid I was when I was 21, 22, 23, as the Beatles were here. Had I been in their position, with fame and adoring fans, I would have been giddy with my own stupidity.

Give us a kiss, John tells the old curmudgeon on the train.

It's interesting to see fans portrayed here like a natural force: they're a tsunami of shrieks, a roll of shaking thunder. People love you just, it seems, for being you—indeed, the reason this movie is good is because it's quick and deft and silly, like The Beatles so clearly were themselves. Simultaneously it operates slightly to the left of reality, a premise that was immediately capitalised upon by The Monkees, and which the late 90s/early 00s pop machine tried and largely failed to emulate with Spice World and the S Club TV franchise (is it just me that remembers watching that as a child?). 

So, fictionalisation. We might love them just, it seems, for being them—but we don't know them. We know a version Igored together from real and contrived moments. We sew one once-lived scene haphazardly to another and pronounce the dead alive. It's nonsense, of course, but not unique: every relationship is necessarily a terrifying exercise in best-guess. In this case, though, the fiction is so large that it metastasised far beyond a few silly movies. There is so much accumulated and discussed lore about the Beatles that no two fans, over decades of passionate discourse, will have invented the same people.

PAUL: No, actually, we're just good friends.

If we don't know someone, then we can't love them—and in this case, where the fiction is so large, and the reality so unique, how can a Beatle find themselves loved? Even in this film, at the height of giddiness and mania, there's an awareness of isolation captured in scenes of flight from, and simultaneous failure to connect with, the people around them.

Script detail: Every time one of the BOYS attempts to get a sandwich or a drink, it is either too late, the plate is empty, or they are intercepted. The single and constant thing we see in the scene is the pushing and pulling, heavy impersonal handling. The boys are just things to be placed like still life in one advantageous position after another.

In the eye of the storm, all they have are their fellow victims of circumstance.

[tedwardremus]

22, 24, 25 if you're still doing the choose violence ask game

Your favorite part of canon that everyone ignores

(This is turning out to be the most popular question to send me. I might be running out of answers)

I think it’s a shame how often fan interpretations default to having characters—especially pureblood characters—consume Muggle books or music. In canon, the wizarding world has its own rich culture. There are wizarding singers, bands, and even comic books, as we see with The Adventures of Martin Miggs, the Mad Muggle. It feels like a missed opportunity not to explore and expand on this.

Instead of always having characters listen to The Beatles or read Pride and Prejudice, why not embrace the creativity of world-building and invent more wizarding media for them to enjoy? What about wizarding literature, poetry, or plays that reflect their unique perspective on magic? Or magical genres of music with enchanted instruments and lyrics inspired by the wizarding experience? Creating media that feels authentically wizarding would add so much depth to fan works and help the characters stay rooted in their own world.

Topic that brings up the most rancid discourse

Whenever people alter a character’s sexuality, gender, ethnicity, or other aspects of their identity to claim moral superiority or assert that they are more progressive than other fans, it inevitably sparks conflict. Then, others join in, insisting that those changes are being done “wrong” and that they are the ones holding the moral high ground. The result? Everyone ends up missing the point because there’s no winning in a race to prove moral superiority.

These arguments are exhausting, often spiraling into one big, indistinguishable mess where it’s impossible to tell who stands where. Everyone seems to parrot the same surface-level online social justice discourse without understanding or engaging with its deeper context or meaning. It’s performative, unproductive, and ultimately detracts from meaningful discussions about representation and storytelling.

Common fandom complaint that you are sick of hearing

I’m honestly tired of hearing complaints about Harry becoming an Auror.

First off, Harry’s desire to become an Auror was established when he was fourteen. It was literally his dream career—Professor McGonagall even fought Umbridge to help him pursue it. Why is this surprising to anyone?

Second, Aurors are not cops. They don’t deal with everyday law enforcement or community policing. Aurors specifically combat Dark wizards, magical terrorism, and large-scale threats to the wizarding world. They’re more like an elite anti-terrorism unit or magical special forces than regular police. Their job is to keep the wizarding community safe from existential threats, not to enforce laws or hand out parking tickets or patrol streets.

Choose Violence Ask Game

[zot3-flopped]

I think one of the most frustrating things about Taylor Swift discourse to me is trying to have meaningful conversations with some of the more rabid Swifties. They hype her up as some groundbreaking artist, and it’s often hard to offer any constructive criticism without being smeared as a “hater” or “misogynist”.

On the popheads subreddit, Swifties will often post ridiculous takes or ask ridiculous questions. There was a post just recently asking if Taylor has received more criticism in her career than Madonna. This was very quickly pointed out as ridiculous, as the Catholic Church tried to cancel Madonna for being blasphemous, and Madonna also broke boundaries by loudly advocating for AIDS patients in the 80s. Taylor’s attempts at advocacy have been very tame (“You Need to Calm Down” was quite pathetic IMO), and there was also a vocal alt-right section of her fandom that worshiped her for years. She took ages to condemn them. Not to mention that she loves portraying herself as a victim. Whilst I don’t deny she’s had hardships as a woman in the music industry, she has also benefited from much privilege (She’s a white, blond-haired, blue-eyed attractive woman who came from a well-off family and her dad was able to purchase a significant stake in a record company to help get her career off the ground).

Then, I’ve seen such preposterous statements from Swifties such as Prince being overrated because he only made 4-5 good albums and Taylor Swift popularizing the concept of cohesive albums. This to me just shows their lack of popular music knowledge. Prince may not be everyone’s cup of tea, and he did need someone to hold him back from dumping as much product out as he did in the late 90s-early 00s, but albums like “Dirty Mind” and “Sign ‘o’ the Times” were ambitious pieces of work that showed Prince was not afraid of taking huge risks. Taylor has made some excellent albums and songs, but she plays it very safe, and IMO seeks too much validation from places like the Grammys. If she threw caution to the wind occasionally, we’d probably get a more exciting song or album from her. I can’t ever see her making a song like Prince’s “Head” or “If I Was Your Girlfriend”.

And the statement about Taylor popularizing cohesive albums is just stupid as hell. Frank Sinatra had one of the earliest concept albums in 1955 with “In the Wee Small Hours”, and there was an entire era of popular music called “the album era” from mid-1960s to the mid-2000s where the album was the main way of consuming and discussing music. This era began in earnest in 1965 with such albums as Bob Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited, The Beach Boys’ Today! album, and especially The Beatles’ Rubber Soul. I was very happy to see that user on r/popheads being mocked for suggesting Taylor Swift’s Red popularized cohesive albums (especially since that album isn’t even particularly cohesive).

Agree that she's given far too much credit for innovation and is actually quite mediocre.

[slimetutorialanalysis]

5. Musical Theatre and Stigmatization

Musical theatre, as a genre, is subject to stigmatization on multiple fronts. Firstly, there is the association with "popular" theatre, leading it to be seen as "low brow" compared to more prestigious theatre. Additionally, musical theatre demographics tend to lean young and feminine, both of which, especially when intersecting, face a lot of dismissal for their taste in art and culture.

Scholar Matt Hills discusses these phenomena in his articles “Implicit Fandom in the Fields of Theatre, Art, and Literature: Studying “Fans” Beyond Fan Discourses,” and “Popular Theatre and Its ›Invisible‹ Fans: Fandom as External/Internal to the Theatrical Field,” respectively, and the following analysis is based on those texts.

5.1 Musical Theatre as Low-Brow

Hills explains how, "in Mike Savage’s Social Class in the 21st Century[,] 'there are two modes of cultural capital, one which we term 'highbrow' and the other 'emerging''" Also sometimes referred to as "autonomous-autonomous" and "heteronomous-autonomous" modes, the distinction between them is that the former is universally seen as timeless and respectable (think Shakespeare), and while the latter is recognized for its cultural significance and impact, it is ultimately dismissed for being too commercialized.

"According to Savage’s data, 'highbrow' cultural capital is historically established and sanctioned in the education system, but 'it is also an ageing [sic] mode of cultural capital' which can be contrasted with 'emerging' cultural capital displayed by younger people and legitimated through their social media usage rather than through the educational system" (Hills).

Musical theatre falls under the "emerging" category of theatre despite being a long-established art form. This is mainly due to the commercial aspect of it and the seemingly endless rotation of new shows, especially those which handle topics more appealing to younger audiences (such as high school, the internet, and LGBTQ+ issues) and whose composition borrows from pop and R&B styles as opposed to the traditional Sondheim sound.

Therefore, it is no surprise that musical theatre has taken to fandom spaces, largely occupied by enjoyers of other "heteronomous-autonomous" media such as television. With its market appeal to a younger audience and its exclusion from "high-brow" theatre, fan culture develops in online niches.

5.2 Anti-Fandom Sentiment

"[Joli] Jensen (1992) also argued that modes of engagement have been assumed to distinguish 'fans' and 'aficionados': where fandom involves 'an ascription of excess, and emotional display,' the affinity of an arts patron 'is deemed to involve rational evaluation, and is displayed in more measured ways,' such as applause after a play. These cultural assumptions 'are based in status (and thus class) distinctions'" (Hills).

It is telling that the assumptions are classist (and by proxy, ageist), especially considering the soaring price of theatre tickets, even for musical theatre. Anti-fandom sentiment, however, is also rooted in sexism. Hills writes: "This 'theatre snobbery' is at least partly gendered and directed against allegedly excessively emotional fangirls (Garside 2015)." Women, especially young women, face immense scrutiny when they engage with theatre or film due to their cultural perception as "shallow" and "emotional." Their cultural interests are often ridiculed or dismissed until someone with more social capital co-signs the media's merit. Compare, for instance, the perception of The Beatles in the 1960s and present-day, and you may find that what is now The Greatest Rock Group in History was once just a group of mop-headed teen heartthrobs.

Featured in Hills' article “Popular Theatre and Its ›Invisible‹ Fans: Fandom as External/Internal to the Theatrical Field” is an excerpt from Stacy Wolf's exploration of the sexist treatment of Wicked and its female fans by critics. She wrote:

"When Wicked opened in October 2003, critics who did not like the show used girls’ fandom to justify their own negative appraisal, arguing that girls, who could not distinguish between good and bad theatre, were the obvious intended audience for the silly show. [...] [I]n 2006, with the musical’s popularity [...] growing, [...] critics, who then claimed to appreciate the show, [...] stressed the musical’s 'universal appeal' and disavowed any notable relevance to girls’ lives."

This is just one of many examples of the constant dismissal faced by fans of musical theatre. Accusations that these shows are purely commercially-driven spectacles, or that they have minimal literary value, miss out on all the details which attract fandom, and those most often missing details are those who are the least likely to find themselves or their interests addressed in musical theatre. It is, ultimately, an art form for the underdog and the outcast, be it due to gender, race, sexuality, class, or age. It is incredibly ironic that it is those demographics who are the least likely to have the means to attend a show in person. The stigmatization of musical theatre is a reflection of a larger systemic issue: one which disenfranchises the fans who care the most about shows and ultimately results in online fandom being the only safe space for fans, new and old, to interact with each other and share a connection through their favourite media (most often not experienced live, but rather via a bootleg recording).

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[thegreatimpersonator]

So I personally don’t listen to a lot of new modern singers or music, just because I’m more of a 70s and 80s girl but also because whenever I try and listen to a new artist I generally just don’t like them. like the last new artists I listened to and liked was Lana del Rey and Lorde back in 2012-2013ish to that put it in perspective lol

Anyway I was listening to my 70s/80s songs today and it dawned on me that fans back then probably didn’t have parasocial relationships with the artists during those eras. maybe if the artist was really well known for some relationship drama or something, they’d speculate about the song or who it was written for, but i feel like when a song/album was released, they listened to it, they liked or disliked it, maybe they discussed the lyrics/instruments/melody of song etc with people and that was it. like they continued to listen to the album or any new stuff the artist put out but they weren’t hung up on the artist themself, going “omg this was totally about x and these lyrics refer to how y did during his relationship with x”. idk it just seems like it was a lot more fun back then when the artist dropped a song or album and everyone was excited to hear the album for *the songs themselves* and not for what/who the songs were gonna be about.

anyway aside from me just liking older songs better, I wonder if I subconsciously stay away from newer music because of all the discourse around it that’s everywhere on social media. sorry this is kinda long but I wanted to get this out somewhere lol

wow i've never thought of this actually but that makes total sense.

Obviously parasocial relationships existed back then, the Beatles being a perfect example, but it's at an entirely new level these days. Back then artists kept things private and if they didnt, it was easy to avoid or be ignorant with the lack of media like the internet or news networks focusing on celebrity gossip. Now we have all of that, plus artists often intertwine their personal lives with public persona/brand (whether it's their choice or just kind of happens). It's so hard to avoid nowadays.

Outside of their personal lives, I think artists are just way too public nowadays. Artists (not necessarily small ones, i'm talking about bigger ones or ones on the rise) don't really get to make a first impression anymore, even before we hear a song, we might already have an idea of who they are. It's really hard to go in completely blind with big artists because you're force-fed so much unimportant lore that sours the music. It's just really not about the music anymore at all, which is sad because at the end of the day, that's the most important.

[therecordconnection]

I hope you don't mind me adding my two cents onto your post, but I'm just glad to find a post like this that proves I'm not insane and just being a jerk.

Blogs like 70s-music-tourney suck because there's just ZERO thought put into how songs are matched up and placed into polls. A blog like that has a golden opportunity to inspire some really heated discussion, great tag discourse, and humorous anger like "ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?" or "Who in their right mind would think ____ is the right choice?" or "People who voted for this I am kissing you with tongue." Instead, it's just... two random songs from the song decade being pitted against each other. For example, what the fuck is this???

These two things have absolutely NOTHING in common other than they're well known songs from the seventies. One's a country-folk classic and the other is a very well known disco song. Dolly Parton and Chic have two completely different stories and inhabit completely different musical worlds. I also imagine that more Tumblr users are familiar with "Jolene" and the memes and legendary posts associated with the song, so that poll has an obvious winner before it's even posted. Why fucking bother?

It's basically just a "pick your favorite" poll when the whole point of a tournament is to decide which is the BETTER song, not which one I like more. That's not how a tournament works. For another example, look at this one:

Like... is this a fucking joke??? What do these two things have in common with each other? They're not lyrically similar, they certainly have no sonic similarities to them ("Roxanne" is a white reggae going up against Fleetwood fucking Mac), and there's no way to talk about these two songs together in a meaningful way. Again, two different musical worlds and both have different kinds of cultural impact.

There's no creativity AT ALL to any of this and I hate it. No reasoning as to why two specific songs were pitted against each other. The blog runner of 70s-music-tourney just had people suggest songs and just ran with it. This was the post that made me realize that blog is complete bullshit:

No. You can't. Again, a blog like this has a golden opportunity to inspire some really heated discussion and great discourse that everybody can have fun with, but since there's no rhyme or reason for any of this, that can't happen.

Because I can't shill Todd in the Shadows' work any more than I usually do, I really have to advertise that people listen to his Song Vs. Song podcast that he does. He and his co-host Lina do SUCH a wonderful job pitting two songs together and inspiring really great discussion about them. Todd always finds a way to pit two songs against each other in a really fascinating way, whether it based on the fact that two songs were really big around the same time, they're both about the same thing (The Cars' "My Best Friend's Girl" vs. Rick Springfield's "Jessie's Girl" is a great one!!), or they're from rival bands (they've done a Beatles vs. Stones episode, Smiths vs. The Cure, etc.) You can find the show anywhere you get your podcasts. I can't recommend it enough if you're looking for something meaningful that actually wants to make interesting match-ups and inspire great discussion about really great songs (and songs that aren't so great...)

Blogs like this could be really great if they just decided to take the time and really great creative with the way they match up songs together instead of just slapdash pairing two songs in a nonsensical way. Tumblr is a great place to talk about music, but not like this. I can't do anything with this.

TL;DR: @70s-music-tourney your blog (and others like yours) really sucks. Way to take a great idea and do nothing of value with it.

70s-music-tourney more like wrongest opinions on the wrong opinion webbed cite send tweet

[johns-prince]

Maybe this is just me but I literally do not trust Disney and Apple Corps with this Beatles documentary. Or any Beatles documentary, to start.

Call me a Debbie Down or a Pessimist Pattie but as much as I enjoy these cute and lovely moments shown between the boys and oooh look how silly the boys could be oh so fun! There's literally a reason the Let It Be Album period (along with the White Album period) is my least favorite out of them all, because it's a fact that's when: everything was going down hill and they could hardly stand each other, and John and Paul were essentially becoming estranged and would fight, and Paul felt like he couldn't just talk to John anymore (everyone there felt like they couldn't really approach John anymore) or connect to him because of the substances he was on made him testy and unapproachable and Yoko was there almost all the goddamn time and would speak for John and speak as if she was a Beatle, and Paul was depressed and drinking (also abusing drugs to an extent) and John was escaping into an unbelievably unhealthy relationship and abusing drugs+alcohol like no other already and George was so ornery and temperamental towards them both.

Like this was the end for The Beatles. This was the beginning of the end for John and Paul. Sure, there were good, somewhat sweet and endearing moments during the Let It Be Album period, but it was mostly painful, and sad.

Not to mention the fact Paul (and probably Ringo, to an extent) is very protective over the Beatles legacy, and I'm sure Yoko (or at least her legal team and son Sean) have definitely supervised over it too, so the John&Yoko fairytale will definitely be protected.

I expect a whitewashed version of what went down during their last album as The Beatles ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Nothing is real, and nothing to get on about...

But maybe I'll be wrong. Maybe I'm just being too critical and negative, and I ought to feel grateful that we're getting something new and we'll get new, beautiful footage of the boys together working in the studio...

But I'm mostly dreading it.

[long-after-love]

GEOFF EMERICK'S ACCOUNT OF THE JOHN-ON-ROOFTOP LSD INCIDENT

That same evening, I was witness to a bizarre scenario that seemed quite funny at the time, but could have ended tragically. For some reason, Ringo wasn’t at that particular session, though Beatles biographer Hunter Davies was there, sitting unobtrusively in the back with Neil and Mal, quietly observing. John was dressed outlandishly as usual, in a festive striped blazer, but I thought he seemed unusually quiet when he first arrived. Soon afterward, he, Paul, and George Harrison were gathered around a microphone singing backing vocals when Lennon suddenly announced that he wasn’t feeling well. George Martin got on the talkback. “What’s the matter, John? Is it something you ate?”

The others sniggered but John remained perfectly solemn. “No, it’s not that,” he replied. “I’m just having trouble focusing.”

Up in the control room, Richard and I exchanged glances. Uh-huh, we thought. That would be the drugs kicking in. But George Martin didn’t seem to have an inkling of what was going on. “Do you want to be driven home?” he asked.

“No,” Lennon said in a tiny, faraway voice.

“Well then, perhaps you’d like to get a little fresh air?” George suggested helpfully.

“Okay,” came the meek reply.

It seemed to take John a long time to get up the stairs; he was moving as if he were in slow motion. When he finally walked through the doorway into the control room, I noticed that he had a strange, glazed look on his face. Gazing vacantly around the room, Lennon completely ignored the three of us. He appeared to be searching for something, but didn’t seem to know what it was. Suddenly he threw his head back and began staring intently at the ceiling, awestruck. With some degree of difficulty, he finally got a few not especially profound words out: “Wow, look at that.” Our necks craned upward, but all we saw was…a ceiling.

“Come on, John, I know a way up the back stairs,” George Martin said soothingly, leading the befuddled Beatle out of the room.

Richard and I didn’t know quite what to say. We’d seen Lennon out of it before, but never to this extent—and certainly never to the point where he was unable to function at a session. Down in the studio, Paul and George Harrison were clowning around, singing one of their old stage numbers in silly voices. A buzz crept into the microphone and I spent a few distracted minutes trying to track it down; finally I dispatched Richard to the studio to change the cable. As he headed down the steps, George Martin returned to the control room, alone.

Richard’s presence in their midst seemed to remind Paul and George Harrison, who were still mucking about, that their bandmate was missing in action. “Where’s John?” Paul asked.

Before Richard could answer him, George Martin turned on the talkback mic. “I left him up on the roof, looking at the stars.”

“Ah, you mean like Vince Hill?” Paul joked. Vince Hill was a schmaltzy singer who was currently topping the charts with a sappy version of the song “Edelweiss” (from The Sound of Music), which Paul and George Harrison immediately began singing boisterously.

A second or two later, it dawned on them: John was tripping on LSD and George Martin has left him up on the roof alone! As if they were actors in an old-fashioned silent movie, the two Beatles executed a perfectly timed double take and then bolted up the stairs together, full speed, in a frantic dash to retrieve their compatriot. They knew all too well that the rooftop had only a narrow parapet and that, in his lysergically altered state, John could easily step over the edge and plummet thirty feet to the pavement below.

Mal and Neil followed closely behind, and a few tense minutes later, everyone reappeared in the control room…thankfully with a bewildered Lennon in tow, still in one piece. Nobody castigated George Martin for his poor decision, born, to be fair, out of naivete, but arrangements were quickly made for John to be driven home and the session ended soon afterward.

- Geoff Emerick and Howard Massey, Here, There and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of the Beatles (2006)

[idontwanttospoiltheparty]

Hot take : this fandom is extremely fixated on Paul and not just in the fannish adulation sense. Certain George and even John fans have this extreme negative fixation on Paul to the extent that they seemingly cannot appreciate their fave without tearing Paul down. To a certain extent, I can understand George fans' protectiveness on behalf of George but it's a bit weird that Paul is always the sole subject of mockery and derision for overlooking George when John was claiming in interviews that George and Ringo could have never made it without him and Paul even in the 1980s. Also, since prev anon mentioned the nme hug discourse, I've got this sense that certain parts of the j/p fandom consider it Paul's responsibility to 'fix' John mainly through whatever level of commitment John may or may not have asked/expected of him and so it's Paul's fault for pushing away John. Lastly, I'm kind of bored of every word in Paul interviews being picked apart to establish him as Uniquely Weird or something. At the risk of looking at things through a nostalgic lens, I feel like we used to have more interesting and engaging discussions about aspects of beatles history that have simply died down.

I agree with a lot of this so hard lmao 🫣🫣🫣🫣🫣🫣🫣🫣

Paul kind of lives in people's minds rent-free, whether you love him or hate him (yet ANOTHER Taylor parallel lmaooooo)

Also, I'll say it is less conflicting to direct anger at someone who's alive rather than someone who's dead, so I both get George's post-1980 attitude, and fans who focus more on Paul (partially because of George's attitude, which was very much informed by Paul being alive while John was not)

Re: Paul's responsibility: the thing is, I feel like the presupposition of all of that rhetoric is that obviously Paul wanted the same thing John wanted, so it's fine to expect Paul to fight for what he wants. This is where I feel people sort of treat real people like fiction, because being "disappointed" in Paul as a character makes more sense than being disappointed in him as a real human being.

But. Your last point…………… you're so right, there's so many much better conversations to be had than "look at this thing Paul said that is INSANE if you take it out of context, pretend to be surprised he words things awkwardly, and forget the time period this quote is from"… Half the time I find what he's actually expressing in those quotes a lot more interesting than the way they come across when approached incuriously. And it's fine to laugh at the wording sometimes! But yeah, it just kinda gets old when that's all there is.

[klapollo]

im serious btw mendes has the chance to do something VERY interesting with this weird proposal by pulling from their own words/interviews/whatever presenting four very unique perspectives on the same events and leaving no suggestion as to which is true. like the idea of a beatles bipoic on its face is a snoozefest but if you can turn it into a fucking borderline mystery that raises discussions about subjectivity of recall etc MANNNNNN you'd have some fun discourse

four different beatle biopics by sam mendes (one for each member) sounds ridiculous but the stipulation that they'll each be the same story of their fame from that member's pov and potentially create a beatles rashomon movie series FASCINATES ME

[johns-prince]

Not to name names but some y'all get so goddamn pissed and peeved over seeing Paul drawn pretty and even somewhat effeminate, or even described so in fanfiction, even though it's just, visible, objective fact Paul is a very, very pretty boy (John did say Paul's the prettiest so yeah it's fact sorry 💋) and he's just naturally effeminate in his body language and mannerisms (which last time I checked in this day and age, there's nothing wrong with effeminate men, pretty men, because at the end of the day they're unquestionably still men)

That or y'all just a bunch of jealous biddies over other artist's creations and work, use all that as an excuse to shit on and scold/lecture and even ridicule them (and anyone else who loves the fact Paul is simply pretty and could be rather effeminate) and then feel artistically and morally superior, as a fan of the band and it's members.

"You're fetishizing Paul by drawing him too pretty and effeminate!—" uhugh bitch, is you blind?

You wanna talk about fetishizing?

The spicy artwork? Spicy fanfiction of the Beatles? Artists who constantly draw fanart of them? Bloggers who post and reblog photos of the boys or their favorite boy constantly? The hyper fixation many if not ALMOST ALL OF US have on them? The obsession? The lusting? The fangirling?

Beatle-mania?

That's “fetishizing.”

Nobody in this damnable fandom is guiltless from “fetishizing” not just one boy, but all of them.

I've literally seen so many fanarts of John being overly feminized and turned into your “fetishized clingy-baby-boy-bottom,” and yet have not seen hide nor hair about that from these blithering-bitching hypocrites who bemoan about the “fetishizing” of Paul.

First off who the fuck gave you the fucking authority? Who the absolute FUCK are YOU?

No wonder so many artists are being driven out! Stop creating content for us and leave the online fandom!

Let people draw The Beatles however the Hell they want!

You don't like it?

Then fucking S T U F F IT and piss off!

Go find an artist you do like or maybe make your own bloody content, and stop acting like you have some goddamn higher authority over how the boys ought to be portrayed and drawn in goddamn fanart.

Jesus Christ on a bike, I personally dislike/squick a little at seeing overly-feminized-clearly-bottom John in fanart, and in fanfiction, but y'all don't see me going around tryin' to tell people they can't create content like that because it OfFeNdS me or because it's ““fetishizing”” John's vulnerable and soft side. Go around actin' like I'm somehow ~superior~ or some shit because I don't do that or write John “like that,” or what have you.

I know not everyone will draw or write the Beatles, or my favorite Beatle, how I might like and expect, and that's just how it's fucking gonna be! Oh well! ¡Que sera sera!

I just ಠ_ಠ and ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ and move on.

People are just trying to enjoy themselves and here I see y'all giving brownie points to a bunch of circle jerks who think because they draw Paul the "right" way, then any other way is “fetishizing” when they themselves literally fetishize the boys or their favorite Beatle every time they post fanart all the time or make posts fangirling and lusting/obsessing after them all day every day on their blogs.