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Woodstock 99: A Marxist
Analysis of What Went Wrong
By
Doug Vandenboom There
are several differences between the youth culture of the 1960’s and the
youth culture of today. These
differences can range anywhere from fashion, to music, to lifestyle, to
political views, but are these two culture’s really all that different
in terms of popular culture and the structure that binds them to it.
According to Storey (1998), “Marx argues that each significant
period in history is constructed around a particular mode of production;
that is, the way in a society is organized” (p. 101).
Obviously the mode of American production is capitalism and it is
arranged on the basis of class. The
analysis of class and its relationship to structure is essential for any
analysis of popular culture, especially in the case of Marxism. The case of Woodstock 99 is an excellent example of how
Marxian theory can be used to explain the struggles associated with a
capitalist economy. In
order to critically analyze Woodstock 99 within a Marxist framework, I
think it is important to explain what Woodstock 99 was, as well as
Marxism. Woodstock 99 was a
giant rock concert that was held in Rome, New York.
The concert took place at the former Griffiss Air Force, in the
middle of nowhere, during late July.
There was also an intense heat wave occurring up the east coast
that summer that sent temperatures above 100 degrees and claimed several
lives (Caldwell, 1999). The concert was set, much like the original Woodstock, to
have the biggest names in rock and roll performing.
Limp Bizkit, Kid Rock, Korn, and Rage Against the Machine were just
a few of the star-studded line up. Aside
from its rowdy performers, whose music is embedded with overtones of
violence, and anti-government sentiments, were also artists like Sheryl
Crow, James Brown, which posed a much more mellow sound that is more in
line with what the message of the original Woodstock was.
The concert was arranged with several small stages and one major
stage going at the same time, with the larger more prominent acts drawing
a huge crowd at the end of every night.
Because of the tremendous amount of entertainment at the concert,
ticket prices began at $150.00, which only covered the cost of admission
to the shows. It didn’t
account for food, water, or a sleeping area in the campground.
Woodstock 99 was similar to the original in its message of “Peace
– Love – and –Understanding”, but it was anything but similar in
regards to the capitalist overtones of the ticket prices and the other
hidden costs. I say hidden
because the people attending the concert didn’t know that a bottle of
water was going to cost them $5.00, a burrito $10.00, and a mini-pizza
$12.00. These are just a few
of the things that could have potentially led to Woodstock 99 violent end,
or what Marx would refer to as a social revolution.
A
general description of Marx’s political philosophy would be to say that,
the longer the lower and middle class people are exploited, the more the
likelihood that they will revolt and rise up against their oppressors.
In my analysis of the Woodstock 99 incident, I will discuss the
ideological aspects class and the justice system to try and explain why
some of these things my have happened, as well as an overall framework of
the Marxist philosophy. According
to Reiman (2001), “Law in capitalism is the official recognition of the
fact of the economic relations in which the exchangers stand to one
another” (215). Basically, what this means is that law in capitalism is the
system by which the upper/dominant class maintains control and dominance
over the lower and middle class. Although
one has to seriously analyze the events at Woodstock 99 to see this
dominance, it should be quite clear to the student of popular culture.
The
first aspect of Woodstock that I would like to look at is the audience.
According to Storey (1998), “Popular music operates in a kind of
blurred dialectic: to consume it demands inattention and distraction,
while its consumption produces in the consumer inattention and
distraction. Basically what
this means is that popular music demands it audience to be passive.
However, this may not be true all of the time. For example, Rage Against The Machine, “who ended their set
on the eve of the riots with the novel send off: Fuck you I won’t do
what you tell me” (Caldwell, 1999, p. 30), and Limp Bizkit, two of
popular culture’s most aggressive bands, have very anti-establishment
messages in their music. And,
coincidentally, both of them played at Woodstock 99, Limp Bizkit was even
accused of in sighting a riot at the music festival.
My question is, then, is it possible for the music to be active and
the audience to be active at the same time?
I think that, in the case of Woodstock 99, the audience was not
passive, due mostly in part to the performers actually being in person and
delivering a message with the music that one does not normally receive
when listening to a CD. However,
it is important to remember that there were undoubtedly more circumstances
that contributed to the mayhem that occurred on the final night.
The
content of an event such as Woodstock 99 is very important to analyze when
assessing the causes of destruction that took place.
As I stated before, the pretext of the event was “Peace – Love
– and Understanding”, but the message the audience sent and received
from the entertainers, such as Korn and Metallica, was a far cry from
tranquil. According to Kim Hughes, music reporter for NOW magazine,
“I mean Limp Bizkit, the most aggressive band, actually asked the crowd
to be violent” (Elias and Somerville, 1999, p. 1).
The entertainers knew that the fans were irritated over ticket
prices, concessions pricing, and the overall conditions of the facilities,
and they sympathized with them. The
performers began to associate with the fan’s sense of betrayal, which
came in the form of high prices, poor facilities, and the promoter’s
failure to remedy any of the problems.
The performers began to encourage the crowd to get excited, to get
angry, and most importantly, to subtlety fight back against anything, as
was evident from Limp Bizkit’s request for violence.
The next obvious question is why did the performers act this way?
Obviously they stood to face sanctions both monetarily and
criminally if they were found to be responsible for anything that
occurred, so what would make them act like that?
According to a Marxist analysis, it could be argued that they too
are feeling the oppression of the dominant elite class, the promoters and
recording labels that got them there in the first place.
These are the people that are having their interest served by
putting on these events. It
is their ideology that decides what will take place and under what
circumstances it will take place. “The
ideology of capitalism is the illusion that capitalism is uncoercive” (Reiman,
2001, p. 214). Basically what
this means is that performers and fans alike are being made to think that
they have a choice in everything that is going on.
Although
it is important to look at the audience and the content of the event, I
believe that the most important aspect in analyzing Woodstock 99 is the
context in which it took place. One
of the most amazing things that came to my mind when I was researching the
Woodstock 99 mayhem was not the riots or the looting, but the hypocrisy
surrounding the event. I think Reiman’s (2001) argument that uncoercive illusion
of capitalism can be best explained by a statement from Woodstock 99
promoter Michael Lang when he said, “I don’t think the kids were
making an anti-Woodstock statement. I
think it was an anti-establishment, anti-everything statement”
(Caldwell, 1999, p. 30). The
irony in Lang’s and the rest of the sixties “Peace – Love – and
– Understanding” generation is the fact that Woodstock 99 was the
establishment. This concert
was a capitalist machine. It exploited every single person that purchased
a ticket, bought a bottle of water, bought a CD of the concert, or even
performed for that matter. …It is no accident that the hippies at Woodstock called their philosophy the “counter-culture.” It was a culture defined in terms of what it was against. The hippies were against property rights and capitalism – so they trampled neighboring farmers’ fields, destroyed property, and stormed through the festival’s ticket booths without paying. The hippies were against any “inhibitions” – or standards – concerning sex and nudity; many acted on these views, taking off their clothes and engaging in orgies of indiscriminate sex. They were against moral responsibility – their crude motto was: “if it feels good, do it.” They were against civilization and favored a primitive, tribal lifestyle – and they proceeded to look act like savages, smearing their bodies with mud and immersing themselves in a mindless, wriggling mass of 500,000 people… (Tracinski, 1999, p. 1) Basically what I am trying to say here is that Woodstock 99 was really no different than its original predecessor. The kids at Woodstock 99 acted the same way that the original Woodstockee’s against capitalist oppression. They looted truck trailers, destroyed property, and broke every moral and social virtue imaginable. The only discernible difference between the two events was the means of expression, which can easily be attributed to two different socially constructed generations. According to Morrow (1999), “what happened at Woodstock 99 (arson, pillaging, freelance mayhem) was much in the spirit of the must and of the occasion itself, which, for all the tie-dyed shirts, peace signs, long hair and dope, was only a venal shadow of an irrecoverable ghost” (p. 83). This I think is where the hypocrisy lies in the entire Woodstock genre. According to Rivera (1999), “any connection between the original Woodstock and the violence at Woodstock 99 directly contradicts what is possibly the most deeply held conviction of my generation: the Myth of Woodstock” (p. 2). It would be naive for me to believe that all of the baby boomers feel this way about Woodstock 99 because not all of them do, but there is a exorbitant amount of literature that suggests the majority does feel this way. The boomers feel as if my generation is from a different planet, they think we are here to destroy everything they have worked so hard to build. Are we really that different though? Obviously we are now, but how different are we when compared to the baby boomers at our age, the same group who argued against and later prescribed to capitalism? “Fifty-two-year-old Tom Fall of Putney, Vt., had been at the original Woodstock, and he relived old memories while working as a vendor at the 1999 one. He professed himself shocked at the turn events took. “This was supposed to be peace, love and harmony,” he said. But he was wrong, too. This was not about peace, love, and harmony. It was about making tons of dough for the Woodstock generation by exploiting the Woodstock generation’s children” (Caldwell, 1999, p. 30). According to Marx, the reason that the OG Woodstock generation exploited their children is that the capitalist structure of economy demands conformity. Conformity is necessary for one to progress and succeed in capitalism, or at least the dominant ideologies tell us so. That being true, is it possible for my generation and younger ones to follow in the Woodstock generation’s footsteps of conformity and exploitation? I, much like a Neo-Marxist would, believe that our economy is so dependent upon and our society is deeply rooted in capitalism that it is virtually impossible for us to advance onto anything else. At best, we can hope that people will begin to see the systematic inequalities and biases that capitalism, and events like Woodstock 99, possess and be able to correct them in some way shape or form. Until then, we are doomed to follow in the footsteps of those radicals from the sixties generation that tried but were subdued.
Works
Cited Caldwell, C. (08/30/99).
When in Rome. National Review, 51, (16), 29-30. Morrow, L. (08/09/99).
The Madness of Crowds. Time, 154, (6), 82-83.
Elias, C. & Somerville B. (03/18/99). After
the Flames: Woodstock 99 in review.
UWO
Gazette, 93, (X), 1-3. Reiman, J. (2001).
The
Rich Get Richer And The Poor Get Prison. Rivera,
R. (1999). Why Things Went Wrong At Woodstock. International Storey,
J. (1998). An Introduction To Cultural Theory & Popular Culture.
Tracinski,
R.W. (09/99). What Woodstock Really Stands For, A Symbol of a
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