Symphonies are racist (NYT 2017), rock is racist, homophobic and misogynistic (NYT 1990)
Symphonies are racist (NYT 2017), rock is racist, homophobic and misogynistic (NYT 1990)

Trump Is Wrong if He Thinks Symphonies Are Superior (2017)
"""
“We write symphonies,” President Trump proclaimed on July 6 during a speech in Warsaw.
[...]
Alas, taken in context, Mr. Trump’s point was all too clear and dismaying. He was asserting that Western culture is fighting forces of “radical Islamic terrorism” bent on testing our resolve; he questioned whether the West has the “will to survive” the onslaught. During one riff, Mr. Trump extolled the richness, history and, indeed, the superiority of Western culture. “We write symphonies,” he proudly proclaimed, as if to prove his point.

Many commentators seized on the line as a clue to the president’s thinking, his “white-nationalist dog-whistling,” as Jonathan Capehart, a columnist at The Washington Post, bluntly put it.
[...]
Now, in truth, classical music bears some responsibility for propagating the idea that the art form is the greatest. That perception probably started with Beethoven. [...] That grandiosity transferred to the public consciousness and, eventually, to the president.
[...]
Mr. Trump “lightly bobbed his head along to the boisterous scherzo.” [to the tune of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony]. Did Beethoven’s Ninth, with its “Ode to Joy” choral finale, an affirmation that “all men are brothers,” have an impact on our president? I’d normally put my money on Beethoven. But Mr. Trump has in almost every way been a norm-shattering force.
"""
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/07/30/arts/music/trump-classical-music.html

POP VIEW; Rock vs. Disco: Who Really Won the War? (1990)
"""
The real reasons for rock fans' denunciations of disco were almost surely racial and social. Disco came [from] outsider cultures like gay, black and Latin. They represented disturbing big-city mores to a heartland that had only recently accepted (and co-opted) rock-and-roll. [...] Disco disk-burning was the revenge of the white majority against threatening armies at the portals. [...] Chief among those threats were homosexuals. [...] Disco music, along with an anti-rock cabaret style, was a gay sonic emblem. [...] Beyond homosexuals, another ground for prejudice against disco was simply misogyny:
"""
http://www.nytimes.com/1990/09/16/arts/pop-view-rock-vs-disco-who-really-won-the-war.html
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/07/30/arts/music/trump-classical-music.html

Labels: Oleg Zabluda

- posted by Oleg Zabluda @ 2:48 PM | permalink | | | technorati | bloglines | feedster