I wasn't going to post again about Bowie for a
while, but something I saw via Facebook caught my eye. A comment piece on the
Daily (who else?) Mail Online, where the headline was basically “I find this
hysteria a little over the top!” Of course this was on the Mail, because
surely only the Mail would put together a special subsection of their website
devoted to all things Dead Bowie, including (but not limited to): pictures of
his teenage child, speculation about fertility treatment, the nature of his
death, and even a slavering piece about a luxury house in the Caribbean,
complete with luxurious photographs and vomitorious copy… and then have a
columnist slating the reactions as over the top.
You could play Classic Bigotry Hypocrisy House
Price Mail Bingo with this stuff… while the self-serving nonsense coming from
the likes of Tony Blair and David Cameron deserves to be called out for what it
is, it’s in an uncomfortably similar vein to some of the stuff said of the
popular responses and the usual stuff that comes out every time someone famous
dies about how fans “should” respond. How we “should” feel. How we’re allowed
to feel.
‘Well it’s not like you knew him.’
‘Oh, well you’ve still got the music, so it’s
fine.’
‘Why are you so upset about a celebrity?’
(I’m paraphrasing real people and keeping them
anonymous, rather than sockpuppeting to make a point, I promise).
Some people speak from a genuine desire to provide
some small shred of comfort. Others speak to pass judgement.
I teetered on the brink of it on Monday: in my
anger at the media covering this like some fabulous special event, I sniped to
my friend Rachel about the mass of fans gathered in Brixton, and the flowers in
Heddon Street.
Then, gently prodded back to more level-headed
thinking by Rachel, I remembered something which is true no matter who died or
what they meant to you: nobody gets to tell anyone else how to grieve.
Let me be clear: fans don't trump family and
friends and I can’t think of a time when they should. My last post specifically
excluded any comment about the people who lost someone beyond the public
figure. I can't imagine what it’s like for them, because every person is
different and each individual grief is different, and I won’t insult them by
trying.
But fans occupy an uncertain space in this. We're
not the media, who have their own agenda, nor are we directly connected to the
deceased (Bowie is just the most recent). But that doesn't stop us feeling as
we do.
Some fans clearly wanted a communal experience and
wanted to share in a space relevant (sort of) to Bowie. I couldn't imagine
anything I'd like less, but as a Thin Lizzy and Doors fan, I've done community
grief and didn't find any comfort. Mass celebration, on the other hand, can be
magnificent. That’s my way, you have yours.
We fans have the right to our sorrow and our grief,
and no contemptuous bystanders can take it away.
Look, some folks can use music as background
colour. That's cool. Some folks can really like the music without any interest
in or connection to the man himself. Some of us love him for providing music
because it was not merely background. Bowie has been part of the fabric of our
cultural landscape for more than 45 years (longer if you were in the London
scene) and – more than most – practically formed the centre of an entire
subculture. If you found a place of belonging in the world, found pals and
lovers, all because of Bowie’s work, would you not feel something towards the
man himself?
For some people, he has been a more constant and
longstanding presence than wives, husbands, children, friends et cetera.
Bowie was there for us when we were scared children
and lonely misfits; when we were falling in love and out of it; when we danced,
when we laughed; when we cried; when we first felt stirrings of attraction and
lust, because just look at that beautiful, terrible creature and
listen to his voice…
We aspired to be like him; we crushed on him; we
wondered what the fuck he was thinking sometimes (ask a Bowie fan about
“Tonight”). Those who grew up at the same time are likely questioning their own
mortality this week. Those teenagers now discovering him as part of their own
‘who am I and what the hell is this world?’ experience have had the man himself
snatched away just as he started to mean something to them.
I can't personally say “Bowie saved my life!” as I
can for other musicians did with their work. Yet, there have been days when I
could face the world because his music buoyed me up just enough. When I could
smile, because Bowie. When I found common ground with others, because Bowie.
When I sat in a hairdresser getting the Thin White Duke haircut and feeling
that I looked a little more like myself than I did before I went in.
Just watch Bowie interviews, especially
2001-onwards and I defy you not to be charmed, to not like him at least a
little. Whether it's an act or not, maybe that doesn't matter so much. I say
this while truly acknowledging the underage groupies and fascism stuff lurking
in the background.
There are people jumping on the bandwagon, who
simply must be seen to be rending their garments because they want to be
seen to be sad, as if it confers some measure of cool… and there have
been times over the last few days where I’ve almost felt like I should be
taking a test to prove my credentials because of those folks…
They’re not helping matters, but it doesn’t alter
the fact that the rest of us are entitled to feel like there's something
missing, like a world is dimmer, sadder, whatever it is any of us feel… because
this means something to us.
Being a fan gets short shrift at the best of times,
especially when you’re female and it all gets seen through the mockery of
fangirls and crushes and all that stuff which might be true and might not. We
feel as we feel, for whatever reasons, and there is truth to that, whether
reciprocated or not, whether healthy, or not.
Fandom is not simple hero worship (ask Bowie fans
about Tin Machine) and it’s not the "break into their house"
obsession. It's also a more two-way experience than you might think: the people
on stage take a lot from us. It isn’t just some transactional thing: our
response to them feeds their own needs and wants (sometimes too literally), but
also to take inspiration, to meet, defy and exceed our expectations. And yeah,
often they make huge amounts of money.
Without fans they would be incomplete, and the
opposite is also true. Symbiosis, my friends. Maybe you don’t get it, and maybe
you think we’re idiots, but there’s probably stuff you do that we think is odd
or stupid… and if one more football fan ignores their tendency to go
over the top while they mock our pain? Let’s return to the Hypocrisy Bingo
card, kids!
We are entitled to our pain and loss and sorrow.
Some of us will be okay tomorrow. Some of us won’t be. Speak to Michael Jackson
fans and ask what their experience was; or Tupac/Kurt/Lennon fans, or… look,
music has a really high mortality rate so there’s plenty to choose from. Try
listening to us instead of mocking us for our reactions.
Try not to judge us. I don’t know if you’ve heard:
David Bowie died, and our world is changed from the world we knew on Sunday.
