“ I started to realize that people were looking at me even more peculiarly than usual. And then I started to get harassed by some of the people especially in gym class  they felt threatened because they were naked and I was supposedly gay so they’d either  better      cover up their penises or punch me or both. But then after that I started being  proud  of the fact that I was gay, even though I wasn’t. I really enjoy the conflict. I was  really excited because I almost found my identity.” “I had this personal vendetta  against them because they were so manly and macho and stupid..”

                        --Kurt Cobain in About a Son 20:39 & 18:12

17 years ago tomorrow

**picture urls in Credits! post

Kurt Cobain died on April 5th, 1994.  He was the lyricist and singer for Nirvana which had been together since 1989.  Nirvana was from the rural outskirts of Seattle but the city is credited with the band because they were under the label Sub Pop.  Nirvana fronted the genre grunge, a 90’s branch influenced by punk.  Kurt Cobain’s vision for Nirvana was a punk influence band that brought back melody to the rock song with originality.  He wanted to embody pop-like songs with heavy sound.  Kurt Cobain was a weird public figure who gave people the attitude of not caring what anyone thinks.  While he embodied a careless attitude, he did so while being very conscientious of himself.  While obscure statements like cross dressing seemed crazy, his statements meant something to him and had purpose.  His views built up from his childhood and were probably amplified by his hard drug use.  In his youth, Cobain opposed hegemonic masculinity which resonated into his famous years in, his statements in interviews, writing, and cross dressing.  Over the years his rejection of binary sexuality views and intolerance were told in his words and actions.

What else could I say? Everyone is gay.

 Headbanger's Ball MTV, 1991.

     That Cobain was seen in his youth as feminine influenced his identity later.  He was bullied with homophobic name calling, which led to his later defiance of hegemonic masculinity.   As previously stated by Cobain, he saw the manly boys who were his peers as idiotic mostly as a result of him being an outcast.  In addition, thinking they were idiotic made him more of an outcast.  His rejection of gender roles started his feminist message.  According to Pierre Tramblay researcher and author on LGBT issues, in his book The Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Factor in the Youth Suicide Problem, in school Cobain came out to his peers as gay which got him beaten and called very homophobic names (115).  The darkness of bullying in Cobain’s youth led to the pain in his lyrics and influenced his passion for women’s and gay people’s rights. Cobain knew what it was to be a victim.



  0:23 , 1:03

“I used to pretend I was gay just to fuck with people."

Vibe, October 1993

Cobain is an example of sexuality and gender being more gray while dominant culture suggests both are black and white.  Interviews and speculation weaved different stories, and Cobain’s sexuality was ambiguous.  Tramblay wrote that Cobain confessed to being bisexual which was also brought up in the interview between Cobain and The Advocate, a world famous LGBT news publication.  Cobain said “I used to pretend I was gay just to fuck with people.  I've had the reputation of being a homosexual every since I was 14” (56).  Although he puts it harshly, his peers already labeled him as homosexual.  He was in a way experimenting with society.  Cobain was setting himself apart from what was popular at his school to reject normalcy which led to his understanding of oppressed people, including women.  By being “gay” he could not get confused  by his peers as being apart of the general male population at his school that in the same interview he labeled as “really confused fucked-up guys” (55).  His diagnosis for the bullies? “There’s not much hope for them,”  he said commenting on how Axl Rose was like the boys at school (56). Cobain found his identity from being an outcast, but the price was being a victim. In his career his background made him an advocate.

Disgust

The cover art was painted by Cobain, who is credited as Kurdt Kobain in the liner notes.

    Cobain’s feminism is stated in his intolerance for rape against women.  Incesticide, Nirvana’s first compilation album (the only one done while Cobain was still alive) came out in America on December 15, 1992.  The liner notes have become pretty well known for what Cobain wrote on sexism and homophobia. At the end, Cobain writes:

    At this point I have a request for our fans.  If any of you in any way hate homosexuals, people of different color, or women, please do this one favor for us - leave us the fuck alone!  Don't come to our shows and don't buy our records.

    Last year, a girl was raped by two wastes of sperm and eggs while they sang the lyrics to our song "Polly."  I have a hard time carrying on knowing there are plankton like that in our audience.  Sorry to be so anally P.C. but that's the way I feel.

    Love,
    Kurt (the blonde one)

Cobain wasn’t kidding; if his intolerance of rape, sexism, and homophobia lost him fans, it was for the better.  He would rather lose his fame and reputation as an artist than have fans who oppressed people for their gender, sex, or sexuality.  Cobain’s views that rapists are pathetic and worthless is blaring in his use of the word “plankton”  and “...wastes of sperm and eggs”. That they are “wastes” implies that their heinous behavior has taken away their humanness.  This liner note defined for fans that Cobain wasn’t half hearted about being an advocate for women’s struggle.

Let me clip your dirty wings

1991

Cobain’s lyrics convey that women who are stronger than the male that abuses them in the song “Polly”.  “Polly” is a reference to a rapist holding a woman hostage and the lyrics convey the rapist as a sick person and the feminine victim as strong and elastic.  Focusing on the last line of the last stanza reveals the song’s deeper meaning-- before the last chorus of “Polly” on the 1991 record, Nevermind, Cobain sings, “It amazes me the will of the instinct.”  This line is  the reason for the song: awe for the resilience of women.

Do it and do it again

Getty Images In Utero tour 1993

The next album, In Utero, was released in September 1993 and included “Rape Me” -- another song where the offender is worthless and the female who is also the victim is strong. The media wanted to know more about the song; it seemed to have been inspired by the rape Cobain heard of and wrote in Incesticide’s liner notes. When asked about “Rape Me” Cobain told Spin in 1993, “It's like she's saying, 'Rape me, go ahead, rape me, beat me. You'll never kill me. I'll survive this and I'm gonna fucking rape you one of these days and you won't even know it” (74). Cobain saw the power in women who survived rape and abuse and was inspired by their resilience.   The song has also been speculated to be about the music industry or capitalism in general, but Cobain also had the literal meaning in mind.

Time for goodbye

The Face Cover 1993

In conclusion, Kurt Cobain felt strongly about sexism, homophobia, and hegemonic masculinity and used is fame to speak out against hate. We should most importantly remember what he said in interviews because that’s when he let his guard down to speak. Additionally, his more subtle actions of cross dressing even revealed the oppression of women’s formalwear. Cobain’s recurring female-victims in his music are a reflection of himself being the victim of very masculine peers compared to the strength of women who are in much worse situations. Cobain’s music came out during a flourish of feminist punk rock also known as the Riot Grrrl movement in the midst of the ongoing third wave of feminism. Since Cobain’s time gay rights have spread-- a few states allowing domestic partnership and civil unions, but advocacy against homophobia is still very necessary.  Young suicides gain attention in the media of kids who are bullied to death, and Cobain’s is a story that is nothing new. In some ways it’s lucky that someone who lived through that as a gay person grew up to act against hate, while in other ways he ended up like the other bullied victims when he took his own life at the age of twenty-seven.
 

Recent photo of Cobain as a fashion statement

Credits!

Works Cited:

Allman, Kevin. "Nirvana's Front Man Shoots From The Hip." The Advocate Feb. 1993: 55-58. Print.

Cobain, Kurt. Incesticide. David Geffen Company/Sub Pop, 1992. CD.

Cobain, Kurt. "Polly." Rec. 1989. Nevermind. Nirvana. Butch Vig, 1991. CD.

Cobain, Kurt. "Rape Me." In Utero. Nirvana. David Geffen/Sub Pop, 1993. CD.

Kurt Cobain: About a Son. Dir. AJ Schnack. Perf. Kurt Cobain. Bonfire Films of America, 2006.     DVD.

Tremblay, Pierre J. The Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Factor in the Youth Suicide Problem:     Submitted to the Honourable Halvar Jonson, Minister of Education, Government of Alberta. S.l.: S.n., 1994. Print.


URL's to Photos by post name:

17 years ago tomorrow 1

 17 years ago tomorrow 2

What else could I say?

"I used to pretend" 1

"I used to pretend" 2

Disgust

Let me clip your dirty wings

Do it and do it again

Time for goodbye 1

Time for goodbye 2

Interview:

Gian Pogliano, partner of Emily LeClaire, was interviewed. Pogliano is very knowledgeable on a wide variety of pop culture, especially music. Pogliano also holds the same views as Cobain and can relate well to his message. The interview was between emails on 28 March 2011. Other people were questioned with no reply.

How did Riot Girrrl artists and audiences view Cobain and his statements
against sexism, homophobia, and hegemonic masculinity?

What was their reaction, if any, to Nirvana cross dressing?



http://www.enjoy-your-style.com/courtney-love.html
Under "Early 90s" section: Love vs. riot grrl

http://feministmusicgeek.com/2010/01/24/gillian-gaar-daphne-brooks-nirvana-jeff-buckley/

http://dieyoungzine.blogspot.com/2010/07/kurt-cobain-in-dress.html

From Tobi Vail Wikipedia
From July to October 1990, Vail dated her friend, Nirvana frontman
Kurt Cobain, with whom she had collaborated during her tenure in The
Go Team on another side project called The Bathtub is Real. [3] Some
inaccurate information may have been circulated about the relationship
between Vail and Cobain. It has been purported that neither Vail or
Cobain ever spoke publicly of their relationship. There is, therefore,
a possibility that Nirvana biographers and rock journalists may have
relied, in part, on second-hand information, rumors, and other
misinformation stating that information as fact. Vail's friend Jenny
Toomey relates, "Tobi refuses to speak publicly and participate in the
exploitation of the Cobain myth by hack journalists trying to make a
career, record companies trying to sell records, and feeble attempts
made by ex-"friends" to mark their place in history."[22] The only
interview she's ever given on the subject of Cobain was for Everett
True.[citation needed] True is the only biographer who actually knew
both of them and he has derided Cross' book as the
"Courtney-sanctioned version of history."[23]

http://everetttrue2.blogspot.com/2009/07/riot-grrrl-entire-series.html