American Idiot, arguably Green Day’s most famous album, is one of the best example of and the most well-known musical protest of George W Bush. The album marked a milestone for Green Day, the benchmark where they became a political band. In the earlier albums, Armstrong wrote about anxiety, relationships, panic attacks, etc., looking inwards as a muse. However, in American Idiot, Armstrong does a complete 180, writing about politics and the “alienation and anger he felt during the presidency of George W Bush” (Orange). The album was meant to be provocative, to incite a response out of the public. Armstrong states that by being so political, it felt like we “tapped into the culture a bit” (purple). Before American Idiot, Green Day’s “social …show more content…
Although the song was written in response to Billie Joe Armstrong’s father’s death, the music video preached a different message. It became a “Sympathy for the Soldiers” campaign. The video follows a young man and girl in love. At the beginning, they sit in a field where the boy promises the girl that he will never leave her. Their relationship evolves and the video shows the young couple getting married, still very much in love with each other. However, the boy sees very little future at home and decides to enlist. He deceives his bride and joins the marines. His wife finds out and confronts him, hysterical, where he admits that he did enlist and defends his decision shouting, “I did this for us! I did this for us! This was supposed to make it easier! I thought you’d be proud of me!” However, the girl sees it as him breaking his promise to never leave her. Subsequently, he is shipped off the Iraq and after that, the music video continues, flashing back between the young man as a soldier and his wife waiting for him to return home. The boy and his unit stand before two children and their mother. The unit walks through a destroyed town where they undergo fire, a bomb being fired at the soldiers. Gunfire is exchanged with more bombs going off, and soldiers drag other wounded soldiers to cover. The video ends with a final close-up shot of the young man, under fire and terrified, clutching his gun and then flashes to his wife, at home, waiting for her husband. It presumed that he never returns home to his wife. The message of the video was so serious that it “commits the cardinal sin of interrupting the song midway through for more dialogue”. The question to enlist was a common conflict amongst many of Green Day’s college fans at that time and Green Day really hit home with that message. However, the video itself “hedges its bets politically; saying nothing explicitly for or against the
This song reminisces about the loss of Private Rodger Young and reminds soldiers to push forward through the loss. Since death was something typically seen on the battle field Losser took this sad moment and turned it in to a rally together moment to get the job done. Loesser reflects the idea that America is tired of the war and are ready to keep progressing in life. While this song may not have been the most popular of the time period, Life magazine at the time felt like it was vital to print the music in the worlds for all to
From this quote alone it is apparent that Moore structured Bowling For Columbine in a way that would rally the people of America behind tighter gun control. It’s because of this that it becomes even more apparent that Bowling For Columbine was structured in away to provoke emotion and from that promotes the idea that many of its scenes were structured. This is the clearest indication of Moore’s influence as a filmmaker with in the documentary. However although probably the biggest ethical issues, he certainly raises debate with his lack of empathy when interviewing people.
Pathos: The emotions that are really being played on the most are anger. People have so much anger when they can not understand the world or what is going on in it. The audience becomes furious to all the killing and death in the world and they need someone there to sympathize with them. Anti-Flag gets the listener angry by exposing the faults of the world. The listener appreciates this because Anti-Flag will not sell into the wrongs of the world. It uses the emotion of finding comfort in that there is someone else out there that has the same views as the listener does. The band uses punk rock music as a common ground with the listeners and expresses their views through their songs. This relates back to the author because this is a great way to protest through music.
Men zoom by on a sled. Cheerful music plays in the background, and a voice chimes, “You want fast action?” A man floats along on water skis. “Outdoors action?” the voice calls. A man climbs up a tall, dangerous mountain. “Real man-sized action?” the voice proclaims. “Well, here’s action that tops them all, in the combat branches of today’s Army,” the voice finishes (Quitney). It was not uncommon to see the Army or military glamorized in Vietnam recruitment commercials, much like the one described previously. Despite the decorated ideals of the military life and duties, the Vietnam War would prove to be far from idealistic for U.S. soldiers. Many of the soldiers who were drafted into the war did not have a choice in the matter and did not want to go. During training camp, the privates were often mistreated and suffered physical and mental punishments. American soldiers committed war crimes repeatedly without any second thought. Because of the brutality that occurred during the Vietnam War, many soldiers suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, which frequently led to suicide and depression. The goal was to win the war, but those who were forced to kill without conscience cannot close their mind to the anguish they placed upon themselves and so many people.
When civilians look at the men and women in the military, they think of strength, courage, and freedom. When those same men and women get out, civilians should treat them with respect, honor, and dignity. In their own minds however, it may be a different story. A loss of strength, a lack of courage, and a never-ending battle within that keeps them all but free. In the music video “Wrong Side of Heaven”, FFDP successfully argues that homeless veterans and veterans with PTSD need assistance. Through the use of visual aspects, literary devices, and symbolism, FFDP shows that their music video holds a strong argument.
While the songs written for the American Revolutionary war were somewhat speculative, and depending on the song, poked fun at their enemies. The songs written and sung about the war in Iraq were anything but. They outlined the issues and say everything that they feel is true regarding the situation the United States is in. For example in the song written by Neil Young "Lets Impeach the President." The lyrics in this song are deep and correlate directly with the feelings of many American citizens. For example “Let 's impeach the President for lying and misleading our country into war” (YouTube) these lyrics as well as the video depict a propaganda style. Following life changing events, such as a new life experience or a national crisis, songs are written to show and demonstrate its impact. Whether it is in the 18th century or the 21st century the premise is still the same and can be seen throughout the
Popular artist began to record songs that reflected people’s disapproval overt the war and eventually became a new method of protest.
The Song “American Idiot” by Green Day uses techniques to engage the audience to interoperate the issues. Green day through their style of music convey issues such as the medias over powering effect on society, greed and the division of the United States of American over political issues. Green Day’s negative stance on the issues through these techniques conveys the audience to agree with the main issues being focused.
John Marwood Cleese, an English actor, comedian, writer and film producer said, “If I can get you to laugh with me, you like me better, which makes you more open to my ideas. And if I can persuade you to laugh at the particular point I make, by laughing at it you acknowledge its truth”. The point he brings up is the ideology of satire. Satire, by definition, is a technique utilized by writers to expose and criticize foolishness and corruption of an individual or a society. This can be done by using humor, irony, exaggeration or ridicule ("Satire - Definition and Examples", para.1). Often times, the humor used opens the audiences’ minds to the underlying problem that the writer is trying to reveal. By examining the purpose and methods of satire, dissecting literary works, and displaying examples in the media, satire is shown to be a valuable tool.
...t of people around you. The images are really helped clarify what the singer really wants to talk about. Without the images in the video some many things could have been interpreted from the song itself. Before I watched the video I just thought the author was talking about war, and specially the wars America was fighting at the time of the song’s release. The music in combination with the instrumentals and video create a piece of art that enlightens the soul.
Music has been around for thousands of years. Music has progressed since that time and has slowly become what it is today. Though music has been around for such a long time, protest music just started to develop in the Vietnam Era, the year 1954. The war started the era of protest which, in turn, created a new form of music which incorporated a specific type of lyric that was a way of expressing protest through the song. Since music in this era was already a big thing, artists thought it would be a good idea to get their political viewpoints out there. They did it through something that affected everybody in that time and space. The artists view spread quickly through the country because of the catchy tune and the viewpoints that are listed. In the United States of America, it is a very common thing to conform to others in a group (Conformity…). Since conformity is such a common occurrence in a large group, all the artist has to do is find a couple of people in the group, group being an audience, who agree with the artist and the rest will unfold on its own. The artist will keep on performing while the word of him and his music will spread from person to person. Conformity will ultimately bring people together on the same viewpoint until eventually, there are thousands of people there with the artist to protest. These artists have grown over time along with the style of music that they bring along with them. Protest music still exists today and is one of the most effective forms of protest that we have.
When watching this I caught on to the meaning of the storyline, and how yeah everything may be all happy and nice because everyone got what they wanted in the end, but that only fixed their problems, not the world, not the reality of what was really happening behind all the glitz and glam that was occurring in their own world. Throughout the song the scene shows American soldiers getting shipped off to war and everyone is so happy and proud that America is in the war and going to win, it then changes to the soldiers marching in the rain trying to stay strong and hold on for dear life as they get battled down. Eventually those who have made it out through the war alive, they become veterans with medals that don’t do much justice to recognize the sacrifice they have made and then turn into forgotten men of the war. I found connections with the economy and war which showed how the president failed his country even with bringing in ideas such as The New Deal that clearly did not work out according to plan. Poverty was a common thing during the depression, and reflecting back to the girls in the scene where they are in their conjoined beds due to lack of furniture and stealing milk from neighbors and soldiers
I see the form of Pathos in the album cover because at this time there was the Cold War going on, and we had just gotten out of southeast asia, so there was lots of patriotism that was being portrayed here. The way the thumb is pointed up seems that America is on the climb, and that everyone in America should feel that sense of, “America is a great country, and I am proud to live here.” Also, in the music video for this song, the “American Dream” seems to be portrayed very well because it shows, I can get a great new car and I can get a pretty girl to love me. Also you just seem to feel the patriotism from the video from how happy everyone seems and all the scenes happening, there are people dancing, and celebrating birthdays and playing lots of
The 1960s was the era of rebellion. It was a time when views of many people started to change dramatically as unexpected things were happening from the Cold War to the assassinations of nation’s leaders. So within this disturbed era, many citizens started to rebel and question the authorities saying that they were ruining the country. The younger generation, especially, stood firmly in front to lead the action to change the ideas of the older generation. One of the main methods they used to speak their opinions was through music and we can see the power it had on the people through one of the main protest anthems called “Fortunate Son” by Creedence Clearwater Revival in 1969. The song speaks out to the elite controlled America and becomes one of many instances of the younger generation questioning and rebelling against the authority in the late 1960s. They send people a message that the citizens of United States do not live in a fair world and the authorities are not doing their jobs. By creating images through the comparative and descriptive lyrics such as who “waves the flag” , and “some folks are born with silver spoons in hand”, its repetition of the chorus “it ain’t me” and the instrumentation of the song which sounds like the cry of the working class to signify that the Vietnam War is a rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight, this song by the Creedence Clearwater Revival shouts to the world that the elite-controlled America is unfair as it can get; and becomes a big part of the counterculture movement. However, contrary to the message of the song, challenges to authority and privilege did not come exclusively from the working class. Rather, members of the upper class were also involved in opposition movements, for instance vi...
You can interpret this song in more than one way. The song was mainly written about Billie Joel Armstrong’s father who passed away in September. He left his father’s funeral early and his mother tried talking to him about his father. But he kept responding with “Wake Me up When September Ends.” The song is also a military tribute to those who were serving in Iraq, and about those who lost their lives in 9/11. The music video for the song is about a couple. The girl finds out her boyfriend got drafted to serve in Iraq, and it shows the man fighting in Iraq, that is where the military and 9/11 tribute come into play. Even though these songs are completely opposite they have a few similarities and