A Very Rock n’ Roll Scandal
This week I’ve been thinking a lot about Dave Grohl and watching a lot of television about Prince Andrew, and thus pondering accountability culture, freedom of the press, and personal responsibility.
In case you are one of those extra healthy people who doesn’t use social media, you may need some backstory. I also can’t imagine how you found this blog, but context is the bread and butter of our lives, so I’ll provide some. Dave Grohl, of Foo Fighters fame, known for being one of the nicest guys in rock n’ roll, recently shattered his own image by announcing that he had fathered a child outside of his marriage. Those were pretty much his exact words.
The internet instantly jumped to conclusion, and of course, judgment. If I had a nickel for every post suggesting we “throw the whole man away” referring to Grohl, I’d have no more student loans. No suvh luck, I’m afraid.
However, I was lucky enough to be provided with a stark contrast, and thus, a context, for my feelings on the developing story. My knowledge of this announcement pretty perfectly lined up with the premier of the new season of A Very Royal Scandal, which covers the famous interview between Andrew, Duke Of York, and Emily Maitlis of the BBC. The interview was regarded, I gathered, as a “Take-down” of the Prince who has since been stripped of duties as a working royal due to his associations with Jeffrey Epstein, and the accusations brought against him related to that long-standing friendship.
The Prince never admitted guilt, and never issued an apology for what his accuser, and indeed all of Epstein’s victims, went through, and caused the British Royal Family a great deal of embarrassment as a result of his legal trouble and the interview with Maitlis.
Based on the treatment of Grohl’s confession and the posts I saw, I immediately started looking for some clue that in his fathering of the child, Grohl had committed a similar crime or broken the law. I looked up his name in connection with the continuing drama surrounding Diddy, and found nothing. The two events, now opposing goal posts in my mind, remain vastly different. Grohl voluntarily made the statement admitting to the betrayal of his wife, admitting that the child was his, and publicly promising to support both mom and baby. He didn’t break the law and he publicly acknowledged his failings and how they had manifested in a troubling but private family issue.
What I found bizarre, as I compared the two events and looked back on my highschool days that became city college days that became university days, and the slow creeping of “cancel culture” into all our lives, is that the public treated the events as exactly alike. This is, I believe, a step in the wrong direction.
The urge to jump to cancellation of public figures is fueled, even now, by a sense of justice that began rising in popularity with the collapse of the Weinstein empire. Several people who (in my opinion) should be in jail have gotten off scot free in the legal system but their careers did not survive the court of public opinion. Some names (Jared Leto, Kevin Spacey, Chris Brown, Ansel Elgort, Robin Thicke, and so many others) were widely popular and the blow to their fans felt significant. Others (Al Franken, Garrison Keillor, etc.) were relatively small names comparatively, and we canceled for wrongdoings that seemed such a far cry from the violent assaults committed by their hollywood counterparts.
Until recently, however, the trend of canceling people, and the court of public opinion rising up so strongly, was reserved for men against whom claims of non-consensual sexual acts had been made. The response to Grohl’s (admittedly startling) confession suggests that we are entering new territory- canceling celebrities for making choices and mistakes that we, as fans, do not like. Admittedly, he is just the latest example, but he is a strong one. Other examples of this trend have been more closely related to political ideology, which can be a reason to distance yourself from a once-loved actor or singer if their ideology is in favor of a direct violation of your rights. But I digress…
Dave Grohl didn’t announce that he was voting wrong in the next election. We didn’t find out that he was on Epstein’s plane. We didn’t see footage of him doing who-the-hell-knows-what with who-the-hell-knows-who-was-there at Diddy’s house. He admitted to an affair, and a child. Normally I love repetition as a method of planting a brand slogan or campaign platform into the minds of stakeholders, but this time, I keep repeating it because I am amazed that this is all it takes now.
I could go on and on about the signs we’ve seen of celebrity worship culture becoming more pervasive and more toxic, not only for them but for all of society, but the bottom line is this. The growing attitude in young adults that the general public can be held hostage to their mental health, is being projected onto the people they worship. And while Dave Grohl’s fans might not, broadly speaking, be young anymore, the attitude of entitlement is the same.
Unlike the disgraced second son of the late British Sovereign, he did not break the law. No one is making an accusation of harm. We are not married to him. We are not personal friends with him, and more relevant still to this attitude of disapproval, we are not personal friends with his wife. To offer anything other than kind but detached support is an unhealthy act of moral superiority that has no place in a world in which we ought to know better by now than to put people we do not know on pedestals. Not only are they doomed to fail by our impossible standards that we ourselves cannot meet, but we are doomed to a life of anger and disappointment in artists who have only ever professed to love what they do. Whether or not I personally approve of adultery is irrelevant, in the grand scheme of things. I just found the energy to get up tomorrow, because Everlong was playing on the radio. What more, then, do I really need?
Please feel free to take me down a peg in the comments on my socials, or just tell me what your favorite Foo Fighters song is.
Until next time,
Eliza J
