An Analysis Of Adorno's American Idiot

1343 Words3 Pages

According to Theodore W. Adorno’s critical theory, culture, in its purest form, is protest. However, in his 1975 selection, “The Culture Industry Reconsidered,” Adorno discusses the dangers of commercialism being allowed to dictate culture and insists that if commercialism were to gain control, and he believes that it has, then society would obediently and unquestioningly conform to the standards and expectations set by those in charge, regardless of the situation. Both of these things can be seen in protest art today. For instance, in music, one of the most well-known protest albums of the 21st century is American Idiot by the punk rock band, Green Day. Before the early 2000’s, Green Day’s music tended to be less politically charged and …show more content…

In “Holiday” it was clear that the band disliked Bush, but “American Idiot” is a direct slight towards Bush’s presidential re-election campaign. One of the biggest critiques from Bush’s opposition was that they believed that he was perpetuating and even mongering the fear that followed 9/11. Subsequently, the lines “Don’t want nation under the new media and can you hear the sounds of hysteria?” and “Information age of hysteria, it’s calling out to idiot America,” as well as others, are directly correlated to those concerns. The band members have also admitted unabashedly on numerous occasions that the “American idiots” were Bush and his supporters. The song also lists the “Age of paranoia,” which is a reference to the government spying on its own people (under Bush’s jurisdiction). In addition to the anti-Bush message the song also has an anti-media message. The whole hook of the song discusses the media’s need to paint the world as a terrifying place in order to continue to turn a profit, so as a result they perpetuate stereotypes and create unnecessary hysteria, which many Americans found especially offensive when they fed off the fear and uneasiness following the events of

Open Document