MovieChat Forums > The Decline of Western Civilization Discussion > Help, please

Help, please

posted 9 years ago by Countess_Loripalooza
7 replies | jump to latest

I'm too young to know about the punk scene so what I am about to say comes only from my impressions formed from watching this movie. It seems that the punks were pretty intolerant and down right racist. The N word was used more than once as was "wet back" (by Darby Crash, no less), and some derogatory remarks about Jewish people were made. Gays were also disparaged in the film. Is this truly representative of the punk attitude or is it merely these particular people? It is very suprising to me especially since Pat Smear, co-founder under of the Germs, is part African American. Is or was that a little known fact? And, not to mention, Darby was gay. I guess that why he was deeply closeted.

NOT posted from my iPhone.

[–] 9 years ago

[deleted]

[–] JasonIK75 9 years ago

It's what led to San Francisco's the Dead Kennedys to record a song called "Nazi Punks *Beep* Off". (A song I'd extend to the morons who wear Che Guevara shirts.)

"May the Force be with you."
"I can do anything. Is America."

mariafan

[–] Countess_Loripalooza 9 years ago

Thanks for the reply. Great information and obviously stuff I did not know. So odd that Pat Smear was (is?) a Punk. Seems like that would be difficult. Same for Darby.

NOT posted from my iPhone.

[–] 9 years ago

[deleted]

[–] oldpantsnewjersey 8 years ago

Well, for the band Fear, at least, being boneheaded and trolling the audience was intentionally part of their act. I'm sure many of the others used words like that in attempt to shock as well, particularly on camera. That doesn't excuse any of it, but it also makes it tough to truly get an idea of attitudes.

[–] Druff (1446) 5 years ago

A lot of it in general was trolling. Things like the little shit Eugene talking about how he "gets chased by n****ers in LA," that was not trolling. Darby using the term "wet back," that was trolling. At least, according to the Lexicon Devil book about the Germs. Darby claimed he said stuff like that occasionally not because he was racist, but only because it offended people. 9 times out of 10 when you see a punk wearing a swastika, it wasn't because they believed in nazism. It was because they got their kicks seeing "old people" get offended and freak out.

Personally, I get it. My parents did a fantastic job of teaching me to not be a hateful prejudiced bigot. But if they tried to teach me that it's not fun to make uptight assholes lose their shit over nothing, they failed miserably at that.

[–] eastenn 7 years ago

This was 35 years ago. Big difference. Even hippies back then called gays faqqots.

"All right... we'll give some land to the n;ggers and the ch;nks. But we don't want the Irish!"