Songs of Hate: A Case Study of Popular Music Parodies by the Westboro Baptist Church
By Anna Williams
[Content Warning: slurs]
One lovely day in February of this year when I am sure I had something important I was supposed to be doing, I was scrolling through TikTok. My “For You Page” pulled up a video by @williamcarvedpumpkins where he explains how he discovered that the Westboro Baptist Church posts homophobic parodies of popular songs on their website. The two songs he chose to share in the three videos he made are “Let it Go” from Disney’s Frozen and “I Write Sins Not Tragedies” by Panic! At the Disco.
In his videos, @williamcarvedpumpkins finds humor in the absurd lyrics, but I listened with growing concern as I realized how serious this issue actually is. One of the classes I was currently enrolled in was called “How Gender Has Mattered in Music History,” and our discussions about gender, sexuality, and otherness bore relevance to these Westboro Baptist Church songs. In my term paper, I described the history behind music being used to oppress specific groups of people and how these songs are a predictable outcome of centuries of oppression. This blog post will focus on the purpose for these WBC parodies and address how it is that they work to accomplish this purpose.
There are a handful of definitions of parody cited by Ian Brodie in MUSICultures. James Scott defines a parody as “part of the hidden transcripts of dissent within the cultural patterns of domination and submission.” Vladimir Propp has a more narrow definition as he explains that the purpose of parody is to contradict “‘the inner meaning of what is being parodied’” and to work as a “‘device for revealing an inner flaw in the person being parodied.’” If a parody criticizes something other than that, Propp considers it to be a “travesty.”
The WBC’s songs seem like they do a little of both. When they take songs by Queen, Sam Smith, or other queer artists and turn them into anti-LGBTQ+ propaganda, they are clearly criticizing what they perceive to be “an inner flaw” in those artists and turning their work into a weapon to use against them. Additionally, WBC songs like “God Hates America” (“God Bless America”) and “This Land is Fag Land” (This Land is Our Land”) are intended to criticize the meaning behind the original song. Other songs they create are less direct as they take popular songs and twist them to spread their unrelated message. Propp would consider these to be travesties rather than parodies. For the purpose of this discussion, the word parody will refer to both commentary on the artist and song meaning and also an unrelated distorted representation of the song.
Why did the WBC choose to parody well-known songs rather than compose entirely new ones? Brodie describes the advantage of parody as being a “short-cut” since the audience is already familiar with the tune. Even if a person only heard the parody once, it is likely that they next time they heard the original song, the homophobic lyrics would again be brought to mind. There is a reason that early childhood education involves so many songs. Children learn the alphabet, states and capitals, counting, colors, animal names, and more through song because they are “catchy” and help with memorization to really ingrain the words into their minds. When they hear the music, they remember the words. In his Varsity article on the topic, Bret Cameron describes this very thing in regards to their parody of the Disney song “Let it Go.”
To my horror, some of the lyrics have succeeded in being genuinely catchy. In my memory, the dominant version of Disney’s ‘Let It Go’ is the appalling, homophobic one whose lyrics include, “don’t give the fags any more” and “kick them out and slam the door”. The lyrics are abhorrent, imbecilic, crass and yet, in a small way, the Westboro Baptist Church has triumphed by infiltrating my psyche with their hate, calculatedly harnessing the catchiness of Disney’s award-winning song.
I don’t agree with a word of it, but here their words are, floating around my psyche, bumping out Idina Menzel’s joyous message of self-exoneration with a much more sinister alternative. Disney’s Frozen will forever, through no fault of its own, remind me of the homophobia of the Westboro Baptist Church.
The popularity of the songs, the catchy tunes, and the shocking lyrics work together to ensure that a listener will not forget the propaganda they have heard.
It is also likely that the WBC wanted to appeal to a wider audience by riding on the coattails of famous musicians. In fact, Cameron accuses them of “pander[ing] to a culture that they pretend to despise,” but their hypocrisy serves them well because now when a person searches for Ke$ha’s “We R Who We R” on the internet, the WBC’s “God Hates Who U R” will also appear as a search result. The WBC is famous for their picketing outside of funerals, concerts, and other events, and they tend to write songs based on who or what they are picketing. “God Hates Who U R” was written for a Nebraska protest outside of a 2013 Ke$ha concert. The group intended to condemn her for her bisexuality. The music videos they post online are comprised of footage from their protests where members are holding signs featuring horrific slogans such as “Thank God for AIDS” or “God sent the shooter” (referring to Omar Mateen, the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooter). While conducting research for his book Radicalism and Music: An Introduction to the Music Cultures of Al-Qa’ida, Racist Skinheads, Christian-Affiliated Radicals, and Eco-Animal Rights Militants, Jonathan Pieslak interviewed WBC member Margie Phelps about why they use music.
We also see that music/song is a sociological symbol, and it is a particularly strong one in this era. The airwaves are full of song: almost all of them filthy, idolatrous, blasphemous, and utterly catering to the flesh. Even faux-Christians use music to promote heresy. Music is a primary instrument for teaching sin. It is very fitting for us to take their symbols and parody them. Often the parody is a method by which we publish, with this or that media (especially social) outlet picking up one of these songs and playing them or reprinting the words. They land on the heart with force. We also observe on the streets that when we sing, they listen. They look at the signs, to be sure. And they listen to our spoken word. But in a unique way — not hit by the signs or the spoken word — they listen, and react, to the songs.
Another interview with WBC member Steve Drain revealed the same story: he tells Pieslak that “it is harder for you to turn your sensibilities off to it because you like the tune and you like the lyrics and the rhyme scheme.” In his 2007 Popular Music and Society article, Michael Wade wrote about Johnny Rebel, Skrewdriver, and how “hate music in both the U.K. and the U.S. is a useful barometer of the social pathologies engendered by rapid social change.”
The WBC is a small group with less than a hundred members, so why should scholars be concerned about their music parodies? The first reason is the far reach of the internet. The videos are not only uploaded to the WBC’s website, but also to YouTube which provides access to a massive potential audience. Their protests receive media attention and are filmed by reporters and bystanders alike to be shared on the news and internet. The second reason is the damaging effect these songs and videos can have on their now worldwide audience. In 2000, Eminem released the best-selling hip-hop record of the year entitled “The Marshall Mathers LP,” which featured what the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) called “the most blatantly offensive, homophobic lyrics the organization has seen in many years.” The concerns that GLAAD expressed regarding the lyrics were that they “would create even more bias and intolerance toward an entire community.” Their main concern was for Eminem’s young fanbase. Dr. Joyce Hunter, a research scientist specializing in gay youth, agrees, stating that “the lyrics incite violence against gay and lesbian people….It encourages young boys in schools to harass them.” Professor of human development at Penn State Tony D’Augelli explains that the homophobic lyrics create “a climate, as opposed to creating a smoking gun but it’s the climate that’s the problem.” (quotations taken from article by Anthony Decurtis available only on ProQuest.)Indeed these lyrics are a part of the fatal climate of homophobia that led to the murders of Pvt. Barry Winchell, Matthew Shepherd, and others.
A 2006 study on music and aggression found that “violent songs not only influence aggression-related variables but also directly affect actual aggressive behavior.” They specifically tested the effects of misogynistic lyrics and found that “misogynous music increases aggressive responses of men toward women.” Similarly, a Kentucky State University student Eduardo Alvarado conducted a study in conjunction with Professor Donald Saucier on the behaviors and attitudes elicited from a variety of song lyrics. They found that people who listened to patriotic songs, like the “Star-Spangled Banner,” became less empathetic and more close-minded due to the strong nationalist message. In contrast, people who listened to songs that they associate with their childhood, like the “Itsy Bitsy Spider,” reported becoming more prosocial, empathetic and generally reported more accepting attitudes towards other people. Considering this information, it is not a stretch to say that homophobic lyrics are dangerous and can have serious consequences.
While various journalists and researchers have expressed fear over the effects of these songs on audiences, the LGBTQ+ community has taken it in stride and used humor to cope with the hate that is directed towards them. Scrolling through the comment sections on YouTube reveals an assortment of hilarious comments declaring these songs to be “bops” and new gay “anthems.”
The LGBTQ+ community is no stranger to reappropriating aspects of culture that were designed to keep them in the position of outcasts. This can be seen recently in Lil Nas X’s “Call Me By Your Name (Montero)” song and music video where he reappropriates religious symbolism to tell a story about his own sexuality. But it goes back further than that; the community has reclaimed the word “queer” to be an inclusive label rather than a slur, and they also claimed disco culture as their own. In fact, John Gill, in his book Queer Noises: Male and Female Homosexuality in Twentieth Century Music, criticizes the community for dancing to music that “actively reinforce[s] [value] systems which are … busily oppressing queers the world over.” However, the LGBTQ+ community has clearly paid him little mind and continues responding with humor, perhaps coping in the best way that they can.
The WBC is not affiliated with any national Baptist organizations in the U.S. and has been denounced by a multitude of Christian conventions and organizations. They are monitored by the Anti-Defamation League and Southern Poverty Law Center and have faced a variety of lawsuits. Yet in spite of their notoriety and small numbers, the WBC persists with their protests and hate speech. The internet provides a way for them to spread their message beyond the confines of their cult through YouTube videos and media coverage of their protests. In conclusion, it is worth looking back on Coonan and Johnson’s closing words:
Popular music studies are telling us about the positive energies latent in the mundane, but the mundane as well as the banal may also be the locus of evil. Oppression and inequity frequently invade a society through apparently unremarkable shifts that seem harmless at the time. Disempowerment and oppression can be brutally imposed through state terror, but they are quietly naturalised through the channels of everyday life and through means barely registered at the moment of their implementation. And music is one of the most pervasive experiences of everyday life.
The pervasiveness of music as a part of society is exactly what can make it so dangerous. Pieslak’s research led him to the conclusion that “music can catalyze the process of social bonding ahead of ideological commitment.” Typically radical ideology is not what attracts members to cults or other extremist groups, but instead it is the social bond that is appealing. For the four types of radical groups he examined (which included the WBC), Pieslak determined that these social bonds are “initially forged through participation in the rituals of the musical subculture and attraction to the music through musiosonic elements.” Emphasizing this point, German law enforcement have referred to neo-Nazi “hate rock” as a “gateway drug to Far Right Extremism.” The WBC not only highlights a problem with religion and society, but also a problem with music. Musicians and scholars of music must be vigilant in fighting oppression of all kinds, including indoctrination and propaganda. This paper briefly touches on one group’s oppression of one marginalized people, but there are many more left to be researched.
References
Ian Brodie. “Parody: Intertextuality and Music.” MUSICultures 47, (2020): 1–10. http://login.ezproxy1.lib.asu.edu/login?url=https://www-proquest-com.ezproxy1.lib.asu.edu/scholarly-journals/parody-intertextuality-music/docview/2481239654/se-2?accountid=4485.
Bret Cameron. “Propaganda Lessons from the Westboro Baptist Church.” Varsity. October 2, 2015. https://www.varsity.co.uk/comment/8910.
Martin Cloonan and Bruce Johnson. “Killing Me Softly with His Song: An Initial Investigation into the use of Popular Music as a Tool of Oppression.” Popular Music 21, no. 1 (01, 2002): 27–39. http://login.ezproxy1.lib.asu.edu/login?url=https://www-proquest-com.ezproxy1.lib.asu.edu/scholarly-journals/killing-me-softly-with-his-song-initial/docview/1326485/se-2?accountid=4485.
Andrew R. Chow. “Lil Nas X Montero Video: Symbolism Explained by Historians.” Time. Time, March 30, 2021. https://time.com/5951024/lil-nas-x-montero-video-symbolism-explained/.
Suzanne G.Cusik. “‘You Are in a Place That is Out of This World….’ Music in the Detention Camps of the ‘Global War on Terror.’” Journal of the Society for American Music 2, №1 (02, 2008): 1–26. http://login.ezproxy1.lib.asu.edu/login?url=https://www-proquest- com.ezproxy1.lib.asu.edu/scholarly-journals/you-are-place-that-is-out-world-music-detention/docview/1571627/se-2?accountid=4485.
Anthony DeCurtis. “Rock & Roll: Eminem’s Hate Rhymes.” Rolling Stone, Aug 03, 2000, 17–18, 21, http://login.ezproxy1.lib.asu.edu/login?url=https://www-proquest-com. ezproxy1.lib.asu.edu/magazines/rock-roll-eminems-hate-rhymes/docview/1192238/se-2?accountid=4485.
Peter Fischer and Tobias Greitemeyer. “Music and Aggression: The Impact of Sexual-Aggressive Song Lyrics on Aggression-Related Thoughts, Emotions, and Behavior Toward the Same and the Opposite Sex.” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 32, no. 9 (2006): 1165–1176. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0146167206288670?casa_token=Qi_rgbWfjcwAAAAA:fd3ntDOOICt7l0XPBvt-afpGGQ2Uj3PDbMY0NWM2saN0IM2911m0fmfHxzjS_0ONZmvJO8fvcHNvRQ.
John Gill. Queer Noises : Male and Female Homosexuality in Twentieth-Century Music London: Cassell, 1995.
Kristin Hodges. “State Sophomore from Overland Park Researches the Positive and Negative Behaviors and Attitudes Elicited from Different Music Lyrics.” K-State, June 23, 2009. https://www.k-state.edu/media/newsreleases/jun09/ealvarado62309.html.
Jonathan Pieslak. Radicalism and Music : An Introduction to the Music Cultures of Al-Qa’ida, Racist Skinheads, Christian-Affiliated Radicals, and Eco-Animal Rights Militants. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2015. ProQuest Ebook Central. https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy1.lib.asu.edu/iimp/legacy docview/EBC/4006621?accountid=4485.
Southern Poverty Law Center. “Fighting Hate.” Southern Poverty Law Center. Accessed April 19, 2021. https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate.
Michael Wade. “Johnny Rebel and the Cajun Roots of Right-Wing Rock.” Popular Music and Society 30, no. 4 (10, 2007): 493–512. http://login.ezproxy1.lib.asu.edu/login?url=https://www-proquest-com.ezproxy1.lib.asu.edu/scholarly-journals/johnny-rebel-cajun-roots-right-wing-rock/docview/1337856/se-2?accountid=4485.
