First, Foxxy posted this:
quote:You didn't hear about that? Oh it was horrible - at Woodstock 99 there were several rapes that occured in the mosh pit during Limp Bizkit's set.
I'll be back with some info links.
And I thought, "A rape during a concert, I can see. But IN a mosh pit? No way!"
So I followed the links she posted.
Including this one, to Fabula Magazine.
which included the reaction:
quote:the male physical energy created by the spinning pit was used by a few fucked-up guys to create a mood and space where misogyny is OK, and then to protect the fucked up acts with the physical power of that space. In other words, most guys in a pit are focused on their interactions with other men there. The women are secondary or even interlopers. Some men might not notice, some might not care, some might support the brutality. According to the testimony, this was true-the women struggled and guys held them down.
The kind of thing described above seems impossible to me - mosh pits, for one thing, are a perfect staging ground for vigilante justice & retribution. The weak might get kicked out of a pit, but people will target someone who's overly abusive or acting unfairly. (In my limited experience.) They tend to be self-regulating systems.
Now, I have a friend (now departed) who went to Woodstock as an indie journalist. He was quite crazy to begin with (long story, but I use the word with full intent), but he came back even crazier. I remember his stories - candles during power outages, TV vans getting tipped over, looting of concession areas, fights, mobs, fires.
Reading this, though, I can't help but tag some sort of magic explanation onto the whole event. Something happened there that unleashed some kind of "evil forces," you know?
Call it return of the repressed, call it the Jungian shadow of the original festival or the antimatter version of the rave scene. Pent up anger against the capitalist system?
A lesson in controlling a captive market? (kids weren't allowed to bring in food and water, weren't allowed to leave and return, and compelled to buy extortionately high-priced food and water.)
The end result of oversaturation in bad, angry media?
Sunspots?
How else would you explain it?
Was this an anomaly or are there other festivals of chaos and violence? Is this related (as the article authors imply) to Columbine?
What's happening to youth culture? |
