In Defense Of Avril Lavigne

Dr. David Thorpe writes in a commentary at SomethingAwful.com: “Uttering the name ‘Avril Lavigne’ in most elitist music-snob circles will provoke a response not unlike that which might result from saying the name ‘George W. Bush’ on the quad of a liberal arts college. All conversation will fall silent. The eyes of those in attendance will fix on you, trying to work out whether you mentioned the name with a tone of spite or, heaven forbid, with a tone of approval. If the slightest barely-perceptible indicator betrays that you have anything but pure righteous hatred of the person named and all that he or she stands for, you’ll be bitterly (and at great length) harangued about, depending on the circumstances, the co-optation of ‘punk’ imagery by the mainstream or dead Iraqi babies. The Bush-Lavigne analogy falls apart when one considers the actual reasoning behind the hatred. Young liberals hate George W. Bush due to what they see as a clear history of quantifiable villainy, but musical elitists hate Avril Lavigne for a far more selfish reason: they hate her for what they think she’s taken away from them.” Read more.