6A — Monday, April 3, 2017
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

DAILY MUSIC COLUMN

The reason ‘emo’ just isn’t 
as sad as everyone thinks 

Every genre of music inevitably 

gets reduced to a stereotype in 
the eyes of the public. Hip hop is 
often cast as bluntly misogynistic 
party music. Jazz is thought 
to be impenetrable, highbrow 
virtuosity. The two words “heavy 
metal” immediately call to mind 
dudes with long beards, tattoos 
and leather jackets.

And for “emo” rock — a label 

now so derided that many bands 
who come close to the phrase will 
immediately disavow it — most 
people will picture immensely 
sad teenagers, the drama of their 
privileged lives so overwhelming 
that they can only find solace 
in overly emotional, directly 
relatable guitar music. You’ll 
hear the adjective “whiny” to 
describe every vocalist. The word 
“wristcutter” might be thrown 
around. 
It’s 
an 
unpleasant, 

derisive view of a subculture, 
and it’s no surprise that no band 
wants to be associated with it.

For 
this 
image, 
I 
blame 

Rivers Cuomo and Weezer. Of 
course, they didn’t invent emo 
(that dubious honor often gets 
awarded to ’80s D.C. hardcore 
band 
Rites 
of 
Spring), 
but 

Weezer parlayed its early success 
into 
1996’s 
Pinkerton. 
Their 

sophomore record was a vast 
departure from the often kid-
friendly, goofy image of The Blue 
Album, which propelled the band 
into stardom with hit singles like 
“Buddy Holly,” “My Name Is 
Jonas” and “The Sweater Song.”

Instead, Pinkerton followed in 

the footsteps of the first album’s 
“Say It Ain’t So,” a beautiful, 
personal 
ballad 
by 
Cuomo 

about his parents’ divorce, his 

stepfather and alcoholism. But 
where “Say It Ain’t So” felt 
perfectly crafted and poetic, 
these new songs were messy 
diary entries scrawled at 2 a.m., 
filled with awkward moments 
and way too much information. 
Pinkerton 
explores 
Cuomo’s 

Asian fetish, his infatuation with 
a lesbian and all of his deepest 
insecurities about fame and sex 
in the most painful detail.

While initial reaction was 

infamously negative, the record 
soon gained a cult following 
and an eventual reputation as 
the best Weezer album — which 
means that plenty of bands still 
cite it as an influence. Within 
less than ten years, emo went 
mainstream, 
as 
groups 
like 

Brand 
New, 
Paramore, 
My 

Chemical Romance and Simple 
Plan wrote catchy, overwrought 
anthems of the suffering caused 
by teenage hormones.

While I think all of these bands 

are great in their own right, 
their hit songs, coupled with the 
lesser efforts of trendy imitators, 
created the idea of the “emo 
aesthetic.” This label is perhaps 
best exemplified by Dashboard 
Confessional, whose frontman, 
Chris Carrabba, is the platonic 
ideal of emo. He’s a heavily 
tattooed, broodingly handsome 
acoustic-guitar 
strummer 

whose songs are almost always 
addressed to a beautiful female 
“you” who constantly gives him 
unbearable stress, hope, joy and 
pain.

Carrabba’s 2002 performance 

on on “MTV Unplugged” might 
be the defining moment of emo. 
He wasn’t an especially famous 
artist at that point in his career 
(Unplugged is his only album to 
go platinum), but Carrabba is 
surrounded by adoring young 

fans who sing every word back 
to him throughout the entire 
show, amplifying and validating 
all his most personal lyrics. It 
establishes 
this 

relative 
unknown 

as a great leader, 
a 
quasi-spiritual 

guide 
whose 

messages are filled 
with great meaning 
for his followers, 
and it opens your 
mind to how much 
impact a non-pop 
emo artist can have 
on 
people 
who 

understand 
what 

they’re saying.

As 
more 
and 

more kids became 
devoted 
to 
what 

these singers had to say, the 
oversharing 
and 
spitefulness 

of many emo rock artists soon 
spread to other genres. Kanye 
West’s 808s and Heartbreak and 
Yeezy’s general lack of a filter 
call to mind Pinkerton, while 
Drake’s tendency to name and 
describe his exes in vivid detail 
feels petty while also giving 
his songs an extra level of 
relatability. For many of these 
artists, authenticity is no longer 
the rejection of corporations 
or the cultivation of a “tough 
guy” image — it’s the revelation 
of their darkest secrets for the 
entertainment of a paying crowd.

But when painful emotions 

become a path to money, how do 
we actually deal with the pain?

In a piece for The Ringer from 

last year, Rachel Premack looked 
at the popular community of 
Tumblr users that suffer from 
depression. They post black-
and-white pictures of a sad, 
lonely looking Lana Del Rey, 
or quotes like: “It’s not that I 

Lo Theisen explores the misassociation of emo and angst

don’t enjoy being alive, but my 
favourite part of being alive 
is 
being 
asleep.” 
Premack’s 

piece 
explored 
the 
conflict 

and challenges of creating a 
community that accepts and 
destigmatizes 
mental 
illness 

without romanticizing it.

“It became cool to define 

yourself by mental illness (on 
Tumblr),” one user is quoted 
as saying. “Like, in order to be 
interesting or valid, you had to 
have some kind of it.”

In the same way, new emo 

artists 
are 
often 

judged by the depth 
of their backstories 
and pain of their 
past 
experiences. 

The 
traumas 
of 

songwriters 
make 

them 
interesting 

and cool. The worst 
thing 
that’s 
ever 

happened to them is 
the best thing they 
have to offer the 
public.

To quote fellow 

columnist 
Will 

Stewart, “When did 
hating yourself and 

feeling like you’re going to have 
a heart attack become a bragging 
right?”

But a new wave of bands is 

cutting against the trend of 
aestheticized pain, using their 
music as a path for real artistic 

catharsis and reminding us of 
its true power. Modern Baseball, 
originally a catchy band that 
whined about girls a lot, has 
matured a great deal and now use 
their platform for social activism 
and the destigmatization of 
mental illness. The Hotelier 
consistently has some of the 
best lyrics in rock, words that 
perfectly 
characterize 
the 

psychological 
fight 
against 

darkness. Meanwhile, Hop Along 
vocalist Frances Quinlan imbues 
every words she sings with 
nearly unfathomable emotion 
and power, and Kevin Abstract 
continued to tell heartfelt stories 
and create better representation 
for queer rappers with last year’s 
American Boyfriend.

Most recently, the punk band 

Sorority 
Noise 
has 
released 

You’re Not As_____As You Think, 
already one of the best records 
of the year and a potential 
landmark work in how we think 
about pain and art.

To get the elephant out of the 

room, yes, You’re Not As_____As 
You Think is “depressing.” In 
“Disappeared,” singer Cameron 
Boucher notes that “just this 
year I lost a basketball team to 
heaven,” and of this group, the 
suicide of a friend named Sean in 
particular hangs heavy over the 
music. The opening track sees 
Boucher forget that Sean is dead 
and make an impromptu visit to 

his old house. “I saw you in there 
/ But I was looking at myself,” 
he sings hauntingly. Each track 
that follows continues to explore 
Boucher’s isolation, the pain 
and the grief caused by these 
tragedies.

But Boucher is not simply a 

man wallowing in his sadness, 
looking for pity from fans. 
You’re 
Not 
As_____As 
You 

Think is a brief album, and each 
word he sings sounds carefully 
considered, straining to hold 
the weight of a thousand other 
sentiments 
left 
unsaid. 
He 

pictures these touching images 
of where his friends are now, 
imagining them listening to The 
Gaslight Anthem in heaven or 
“shooting jumpers with Jesus, 
Mary and Joseph.” He’s trying so 
hard to fight against numbness 
and 
anxiety 
and 
loneliness, 

searching for humanity and 
connection and reality.

All 
stereotypes 
are 

dehumanizing, and while some 
are more harmful than others, 
the idea of emo rock as a genre for 
privileged kids to whine about 
their lame problems has never 
been more untrue or unfair to its 
artists. These melodies and lyrics 
are vehicles for connection and 
sanity in a terrifying, sometimes 
awful world. At the core of emo 
isn’t a glamorization of sadness 
or death, but an all-out, high-
stakes battle for life.

LAUREN THEISEN
Daily Music Columnist

‘Turtle’ tells simple but 
enchanting tale of hope

SONY PICTURES CLASSICS

Still from animated film ‘The Red Turtle’

Most survival movies end 

in rescue. In “The Martian,” 
Matt Damon makes it home to 
tell his tale; in “127 Hours,” 
James Franco, albeit painfully, 
escapes 
the 
boulder 
that 

entraps him; in “Cast Away,” 
Tom Hanks makes it off that 
godforsaken 
island, 
sadly 

without Wilson. While these 
films 
follow 
the 
familiar 

structure of shipwreck, despair 
and rescue, “The Red Turtle,” 
directed by Michaël Dudok de 
Wit (“Father and Daughter”) 
details a similar narrative in 
completely 
different 
terms. 

There is no 
physical 
rescue 
in 

“The 
Red 

Turtle,” 
no 

return home, 
no 
grand 

welcome 
reception, 
no 
special 

on the news. 
The rescue is 
the life that 
our castaway 
makes on the island that 
imprisoned him. Perhaps what 
the film reveals is that survival 
is 
more 
about 
improving 

the 
present 
situation 
than 

escaping it. “The Red Turtle” 
is a beautifully animated film 
about survival, but moreso 
about life and the events that 

define it.

“The Red Turtle” begins 

with an unnamed castaway, 
thrust from his small boat 
onto an isolated island. He is 
frustrated, 
fed 

up and alone. He 
sets sail thrice 
on a handmade 
raft, 
but 
each 

time the raft is 
mysteriously 
hit from below 
and dismantled. 
Our castaway is 
then forced to 
swim back to the 
island, left alone yet again. He 
discovers that the source of 
his raft’s destruction is a large 
red turtle. The turtle makes 

its way to the 
island, and in 
a 
blind 
rage 

our 
castaway 

kills the turtle, 
leaving it for 
dead. 
Days 

pass 
and 
he 

feels 
remorse 

for 
killing 

the 
turtle; 

he 
attempts 

to 
revive 
it 

and fails. The 

turtle then transforms into a 
beautiful red-headed woman. 
Long story short, the castaway 
and 
turtle-turned-woman 

fall in love and have a baby, 
who 
possesses 
the 
human 

appearance of his father, but 
the aquatic (and turtle-like) 
capabilities of his mother. The 

son leaves to explore what else 
the world has to offer, leaving 
his parents alone on the island. 
Years pass and the couple has 
gone gray with age, our castaway 

dies in his sleep as 
an old man, lying 
next to his love. 
She wakes up to 
find 
him 
dead, 

cries over his body 
in mourning and 
turns 
back 
into 

the red turtle. The 
screen 
fades 
to 

black as she returns 
to her home in the 

ocean.

“The Red Turtle” is subtle 

both in narrative and animation. 
The film’s aesthetic is minimal, 
yet breathtaking. The simple, 
line-drawn characters contrast 
nicely with the deeply textured 
landscapes of the island and the 
ocean. The lack of dialogue, while 
sometimes slow, is a welcome 
change 
from 
the 
talkative 

anthropomorphic characters of 
animation’s past and present. 
The creatures in the film are 
full of personality without the 
need for excessive chatter. For 
example, 
the 
crabs 
develop 

their own dance through their 
charming actions and antics, like 
following our castaway around 
wherever he goes.

The narrative is simple, but 

with a magical, beautiful twist. 
“The Red Turtle” may be a tale 
of survival, but tells the story in 
a way that emphasizes thriving 
over surviving. 

BECKY PORTMAN

Daily Arts Writer

“The Red 
Turtle”

Sony Pictures 

Classics

The Michigan 

Theater

In an unusual tale of adaptation and transformation, 
animated film “The Red Turtle” enthralls and captivates

New emo 

artists are often 
judged by the 
depth of their 
backstories 
and pain of 
their past 
experiences

“The Red 

Turtle” is subtle 
in both narrative 
and animation

FILM REVIEW