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[-] GenderNeutralBro@lemmy.sdf.org 230 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

For context, original lyrics:

Don't wanna be an American idiot
Don't want a nation under the new media
And can you hear the sound of hysteria?
The subliminal mind fuck America

Welcome to a new kind of tension
All across the alienation
Where everything isn't meant to be okay
Television dreams of tomorrow
We're not the ones who're meant to follow
For that's enough to argue

Well maybe I'm the faggot America
I'm not a part of a redneck agenda
Now everybody do the propaganda
And sing along to the age of paranoia

Welcome to a new kind of tension
All across the alienation
Where everything isn't meant to be okay
Television dreams of tomorrow
We're not the ones who're meant to follow
For that's enough to argue

Don't want to be an American idiot
One nation controlled by the media
Information age of hysteria
It's calling out to idiot America

Welcome to a new kind of tension
All across the alienation
Where everything isn't meant to be okay
Television dreams of tomorrow
We're not the ones who're meant to follow
For that's enough to argue

Super tame.

In the New Year's show, they changed "a redneck agenda" to "the MAGA agenda". Okay, little bit more explicitly partisan, but basically the same thing.

[-] pyromaster55@lemmy.world 146 points 10 months ago

And yet, as a leftist redneck, I whole heartedly approve of the change.

Feel a little more seen, even if it doesn't mean anything.

[-] ZoopZeZoop@lemmy.world 20 points 10 months ago

I've known many rednecks who were good people. If you aren't hurting people, you do you, friend! Also, chunk those punkins!

[-] chrishazfun@lemmy.world 5 points 10 months ago

In my experience, rednecks (chavs and bogans too) are at worst just really callous, well intentioned and imo would rather consider their opinion on something and try to make conversation to understand than someone intentionally aligning themselves with people who're literally using some Austrian with a shitty staches manual.

[-] rickyrigatoni@lemm.ee 1 points 10 months ago

Don't talk shit about the chaplin stache.

[-] TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world 128 points 10 months ago

“a redneck agenda” to “the MAGA agenda”

If MAGA as a name for these people had existed then, they would have used it. They're the same people.

[-] somethingsnappy@lemmy.world 13 points 10 months ago

Hashtagnotallrednecks.

[-] AlienInAMask@lemmy.sdf.org 25 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

I think part of the problem (aside from people that don't ever listen to the words in songs) is less that the song/green day is apolitical in their interpretation, but more that for a lot of people the word "politics" means partisan politics. Being explicitly about a party or one of their core issues is what makes something 𝓅𝑜𝓁𝒾𝓉𝒾𝒸𝒶𝓁 to them.

[-] hex_m_hell@slrpnk.net 11 points 10 months ago

What is and is not political is defined by oppressors. Their crosses, punisher skulls, and blue lives matter stickers are not political. The atheist symbol, antifa arrows, and black lives matter stickers are political. A keffiyeh is a political statement, but an IDF shirt isn't. "Political" functionally means "talking about your oppression or the oppression of others."

[-] Catoblepas 6 points 10 months ago

JSYK, using special characters to write “political” like that doesn’t work with screen readers. Best case scenario it skips the word entirely, worst case it reads out the name of each special character individually.

[-] aStonedSanta@lemm.ee 3 points 10 months ago

Yeah. It’s fucking sad.

[-] tdawg@lemmy.world 23 points 10 months ago

It's tame by today's standards but at the time it got quite a few people in a tizzy

[-] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 6 points 10 months ago

Yeah it was before bush was re-elected during the age of prime jingoism

[-] Aviandelight@mander.xyz 15 points 10 months ago

Well that change in lyrics certainly got the point across. 😂

[-] edgemaster72@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago

Have they changed the removed part yet? It's uh, pretty not great.

[-] AnxiousOtter@lemmy.world 26 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Its usage in the song is not derogatory. It's meant to highlight the offensiveness of it and to cast the speaker as one of the disenfranchised of America.

It's controversial, I suppose, but it's meant to make a point. Changing it would just diminish it.

[-] freebread@lemm.ee 17 points 10 months ago

Also, notable that the songwriter/singer has been out as bi since the early 90's

[-] meowMix2525@lemm.ee 21 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

As the other commenter said, it's not derogatory. He's taking a word that's been used to belittle and dismiss him and people that share his views, owning it, and using it to fire back against those that would use it against him in that way.

Basically, "Call me gay* (ok, like that's supposed to be a bad thing? Watch me call myself gay lol) but at least I'm not a dumb idiot follower of the redneck/MAGA agenda."

To me, it's like a more sophisticated "I know you are but what am I?", if you will. He's so unphased by the label that he uses it for himself with little hesitation, thus stripping its power as an insult against him. Hence why he fires back with a new, more critical put-down. It's meant to hit them (someone that would call someone else gay or a faggot* as an insult) where it hurts, in the same way that person has meant to hurt others by using those terms derogatorily. He's literally naming and shaming the bigotry of the time.

*And yes I know the term faggot has some nasty origins, but it was colloquially just a much more rude/derogatory way to say "gay person" when this song came out. I highly doubt the majority of people that used it were actually thinking that critically about it. The song itself at least very clearly does not mean it in the original sense.

[-] Hadriscus@lemm.ee 5 points 10 months ago
[-] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 4 points 10 months ago

The guy singing it is openly bisexual so it’s not bad imo

[-] wolfshadowheart@leminal.space 3 points 10 months ago

You should hear him sing King for a Day.

[-] brbposting@sh.itjust.works 1 points 10 months ago

Was f##got broadcast uncensored over the air?

[-] JJROKCZ@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago
this post was submitted on 02 Jan 2024
1210 points (100.0% liked)

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