Bud Light. Image rights: © Anheuser-Busch
Anyone who grew up with American popular culture and/or is enthusiastic about it has America always understood as a land of unlimited opportunities and a melting pot. The Constitution of the United States gives everyone a promise of happiness, everyone should be able to be happy there in their own way. But that in the USA but a culture war that has been raging for a number of years, branding exactly that as un-American, is becoming more and more disturbing. At the moment, the political right is on the offensive and well-known musicians are still fueling the Kulturkampf, like the current one controversy one Bud Light proves
No beer for transgender people?
As the leading in the US beer brand “Bud Light” an ad campaign featuring the transgender person Dylan Mulvaney begins, reactionaries run storm. Among them are three representatives of country and rock music. Kid Rock, who rose to stardom for once cleverly sampling the Lynyrd Skynyrd classic Sweet Home Alabama, doesn’t hesitate to post a video showing him shooting Bud Light cans. What a fatal picture! Many confused minds might feel called upon to go beyond beer cans and straight away aim their guns at transgender people. With the flood of shooting rampages in the USA, unfortunately not a very unrealistic scenario.
Meanwhile, country singer wants John Rich don’t sell Bud Light at his eatery, aptly named “Redneck Riviera.” and colleague Travis Tritt bans Bud Light from his tour bus and calls for a boycott. Wow, all of this because Bud Light is also targeting transgender people?
Zach Bryan and Sheryl Crow stand up for transgender people
Luckily, there are other voices in the country scene, too. Zach Bryan (27), who has been compared to Bob Dylan and Steve Earle as a representative of a new generation of country music, countered comments that offended transgender people after Travis Tritt announced he would boycott the Anheuser-Busch product to fight against the Mulvaney-Bud Light partnership: “I don’t like disrespect towards anyone, I don’t even have anything against @travistritt,” Bryan tweeted, continuing, “I just think insulting transgender people is totally wrong because we live in a country where we can all just be who we want to be. Shortly thereafter liked and thanked Sheryl Crow for Bryan’s comments.
And that’s no coincidence, because this one too tolerance hat Tradition in the Country music. It ranges from the band “Levander Country” around Patrick Haggerty, who died last year, to “Feed Jake” from the “Pirates of the Mississippi” to Garth Brooks and Dolly Parton, who stood up for the right to same-sex couples years ago used love.
Country music doesn’t belong to the reactionaries
So you may have smiled at these folk and tearjerkers and their songs about pick-ups, partying and patriotism. But these outbursts of hatred towards other life plans are simply misanthropic and encourage violence against them queer and Transgender. Sorry, but if Roger Waters isn’t supposed to perform here, then I beg you to also problematize Kid Rock’s next German tour. A gun-loving, toxic male misanthrope on German stages – a difficult idea to bear. I’m not talking about a ban here, but rather a public discussion of the content of this artist. Here’s layer in the pit with naïve southern rock romance.
People like Kid Rock, John Rich or Travis Tritt just don’t understand that America’s Constitution every human being promise of happiness and not just white, Anglo-Saxon, straight, binary-minded men.
And so they turn more and more militantly against other life plans, against rights and self-determination Womenvon Black, from queer and transgender. It’s a good thing that people in the country scene also contradict them. Country music must not be hijacked by the reactionaries.
