Muse: The Very Odd Future According to Sandra Coney
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Please enjoy the irony, but I know this is a topic that’s going to raise strong feelings on all sides. Make this an example of Public Address System at its very best – which is pretty awesome – especially if Sandra Coney and John Brockies accept my invitation to drop by.
1) Talk about the issues not each other.
2) Yes, discussion of misogyny/homophobia in Odd Future’s work specifically, and hip-hop/popular culture in general is in order. However PLEASE KEEP IN MIND THAT EXPLICIT LYRICS MAY BE TRIGGERING TO PUBLIC ADDRESS READERS AND USE CLEAR TRIGGER WARNINGS Failure to do so will lead to comments being redacted or deleted at moderator’s discretion.
3) This is not certain other blogs where racist, sexist or homophobic trolling is emabled. Not to put too fine a point on it, try it on and the Mallet of Loving Correction will be wrought like Thor on speed.
4) And if all else fails, I can turn the comments off. You all decide whether that’s necessary.
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3410,
What was the nature of the "discussion with BDO organisers," and did it involve any threat, explicit or implied, to rip up the BDO's contract to hire Mount Smart Stadium?
Wouldn't you want to find out the answer to this before describing Coney as a "self-appointed censor", because if there was no threat, then wouldn't she have been just exercising her right to free speech?
I mean, if there was a threat, then that's probably not cool, but do we even know that that was the case?
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I am willing to bet money that, as with the advocates of arts policies (and too many similar cases), discretion will prove the better part of valour.
As soon as I heard about this, I thought 'Ye gods, someone's as foolish as those fanatics who took Judas Priest to court for some kid blowing his own face off.'
And it turned out to be Sandra Coney. I mean, really? She wrote a good report once, but now seems to want to destroy the memory of that. Gobsmacked.
So wrong. On so many levels.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
Wouldn’t you want to find out the answer to this before describing Coney as a “self-appointed censor”, because if there was no threat, then wouldn’t she have been just exercising her right to free speech?
The decision appears to have been made as a consequence of her statements as a councillor. It's the lack of process here that concerns me.
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I presume Craig has already read the minutes of the commitee linked to?
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3410,
I presume Craig has already read the minutes of the commitee linked to?
Yeah, well, I'm kinda playing devil's advocate here.
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Craig Ranapia, in reply to
“I approached the CEO of Regional Facilities Auckland John Brockies with Calum's concerns and my own having watched Youtube,” she says.
“After a discussion with BDO organisers this group will no longer be appearing in BDO in NZ.”
If Cr. Coney wants to come here and assure me the quotes attributed to her are categorically false and/or she was totally unaware that Brokies would get Odd Future pulled from the BDO lineup, I will withdraw and apologize. Until then, I think calling her "a self-appointed censor" is not only accurate but downright restrained compared to my first draft.
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Craig Ranapia, in reply to
I presume Craig has already read the minutes of the commitee linked to?
I have, but I really really want to have missed a lot of something - and it's not beyond the realms of possibility that I have. If Coney went rogue, to coin a phrase, that's a whole other set of issues.
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I'm pretty sure I read that two members of odd future are openly gay... who are also dirty hip hop hipsters.. the whole point of their shit is to be "ironic" while riding their fixies and wearing their supreme hats. Something that is clearly lost on the self appointed spokespeople of all things gay, gaynz.com... (who sound as unconvincing as NZUSA claiming to speak on behalf of the entire homosexual community in NZ)
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I think it all comes down to the media effects that one attributes to particular cultural products or practices. Does hate media result in hate crimes? As an anti-censorship activist of many years standing, I'd have to say not. Sure, I find the misogyny, homophobia and advocacy of interpersonal violence within this musical genre to be deeply offensive, but like rape, hate crimes probably have many causal triggers.
But, hey, this isn't a positive musical genre. Wow, people of colour killing each other and doing the work of white supremacists for them...
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We have hate media now?
I wonder whether that is why so many people find this musical genre so positive and empowering. Like punk before it and rock and roll before that. Back to the music the slaves would make round their fires of an evening. That came from somewhere too.
No doubt that was them oppressing themselves as well. If only they had known.
According to the social historians of art, it is extremely difficult to judge a cultural product if you are not a member of the culture that produced it. Something to do with the knowledge required to inform that judgement as I recall.
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Craig Ranapia, in reply to
Namesake o' Mine: Did we agree on something? Stop it. Stop it now.
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Rich Lock, in reply to
I wonder whether that is why so many people find this musical genre so positive and empowering.
Same reason the (mainly male) kidz have been listening to music since ages ago: because it angries up the blood and gets you all ready to rumble and/or fuck and shit. Plus providing a convenient escape valve for all that oppression in your life from the olds.
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Jeremy Andrew, in reply to
Plus your parents will hate it!
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merc,
The reason you don't understand us is because you don't like us...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKv5n9F6frg NSFW, they swear and stuff.
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The morality and quality of Odd Future's music is a bit beside the point (although I am pretty sure I could make a limited defense of both.)
Surely the hugely creepy thing is Coney's ability to engage in censorship without any process being followed, any natural justice, any ability for people being affected by the decision to have input, etc. etc.
Bennachie is someone it would not be incorrect to say is professionally angry. I think it is massively concerning that the receipt of an email from a full time paid lobbyist, who is committed to working to restrict freedom of speech in New Zealand, is enough to get artistic speech censored.
What Coney did is barely better than book burning.
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Craig Ranapia, in reply to
Plus your parents will hate it!
Quite - I suspect there's a few punk scenesters out there who, back in the day, didn't have a neo-Nazi micron in the bodies but made some epically unfortunate accessorizing choices. Juvenile shock and awful tactics seldom end well, but I think you'd have to draw a very long bow to connect naive suburban kids trying to shock their parents and the NF. Gives the former far too much credit, and ironically enough conceals the deep and ugly roots of the later.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
But, hey, this isn’t a positive musical genre. Wow, people of colour killing each other and doing the work of white supremacists for them…
Is this your characterisation of all hip hop?
I really hope not, because that would be a patronising, ignorant and racist thing to say.
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DCBCauchi, in reply to
Those punk rock kids tended to grow up with their dads telling them the only good German is a dead German, which did not match the kids' experience of meeting Germans at all. Or so I have been told.
Even Kraftwerk dropped screaming electronic bombs on their fans. Before they became robots.
Keir's post is very quotable, especially the bit about natural justice. It really is outrageous. Even if the band were what they were made out to be. Everyone has the right to natural justice.
How basic is that? Natural justice.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
Does hate media result in hate crimes?
I'm not real comfortable with Odd Future being described as "hate media". The music's misanthropic and often offensive in its themes and language, but it's not the same thing as Beenieman's "coming to Jamaica to execute all the gays".
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Russell Brown, in reply to
Surely the hugely creepy thing is Coney’s ability to engage in censorship without any process being followed, any natural justice, any ability for people being affected by the decision to have input, etc. etc.
And there would have been input. There are smart, media aware young people in the local hip ho scene who would have been ready to argue a case. It would have been a debate worth hearing.
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Rich Lock, in reply to
I’m not real comfortable with Odd Future being described as “hate media”. The music’s misanthropic and often offensive in its themes and language, but it’s not the same thing as Beenieman’s “coming to Jamaica to execute all the gays”.
Fucking hate media, how does it work?
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Cr Coney rightly garnered public respect in her role in exposing the Unfortunate Experiment scandal. Since then, however, she seems to have gone slightly Dworkinite.
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I don’t want to put words in anyone’s mouth, but think it important not to be disingenuous.
I think the pro-censorship argument would be that ‘hate media’ (however it is defined), such as punks wearing Nazi symbols or hip hop songs about killing people, regardless of intention, gives succour and justification to those who genuinely think in such horrible ways.
I think this is a valid concern. However, I do not think banning things that might seem scary is the answer. People aren’t machines. And horrible people aren’t going to disappear by suppressing culture. Nor should people disappear. Not even horrible ones.
It’s not just a matter of changing the inputs to get different outputs, despite what theories might say. Just as making people say ‘chairperson’ didn’t eradicate sexism in meetings.
How is ‘hate media’ defined? Have I got the wrong end of the stick again?
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Russell, not all hip hop is. Certainly no *Polynesian* hiphop I've come across is.
However, there's a particular subgenre of such music that does have objectionable lyrics that condone violence against women, homophobic violence and intra-community gang violence. While I don't condone or endorse its censorship, I do have the right to disapprove of its content *without* urging its censorship. I have no problem at all with hiphop and rap lyrics that discuss poverty, experiences of institutional racism and other forms of social injustice within their lives- including Tiki Tane's attitude toward police officers, come to that.
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