Green Day and Queer Rebellion
American punk rock band Green Day has never been one to give in to conformity and expectations. Born out of Northern California in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s punk scene, the trio consists of Billie Joe Armstrong, Mike Dirnt, and Tré Cool. A success in their early scene, the band gained widespread popularity with their first major-label record, Dookie. The album resonated with teens who were disillusioned with the world around them. Themselves disillusioned, the band spoke their mind about the world as they experienced troubling political and social climates. This resulted in their fourth studio album, American Idiot, which spoke about the struggles of Bush-era America. Green Day, especially frontman Billie Joe Armstrong, are never one to shy away from being outspoken about their opposition. While this most often is targeted at politics, gender and sexuality are often targets of their liberal viewpoints as well.
Billie Joe Armstrong came out as bisexual in 1995 in an interview with The Advocate. Heterosexual monogamy is often considered the default when it comes to relationships, but Armstrong is already opposing this as the norm. He thought that everyone was born bisexual, and that we are taught to think of it as a bad thing when in reality it is beautiful. At the time of their first album Dookie in 1994, the world was not as accepting of queer people as it is today, and he faced homophobia for being open about his sexuality. This did not stop him from making his true self known. The song Coming Clean is a song about his bisexuality and how he was conflicted between what he wanted and the roles he was being shown. At seventeen, Armstrong felt “strung out on confusion, trapped inside a role of disillusion”. After finding out “what it takes to be a man”, he feels trapped in gender and sexuality roles.
Confusion about gender and sexuality roles can lead people to end up in unsafe situations. In one song off of Dookie, Pulling Teeth, abuse of a man at the hands of a woman is addressed. While the inspiration for the song is far less dark, the song tells the story of a man who is being physically abused. He is “all busted up, broken bones and nasty cuts” while “no one knows I’m locked in here, all I do is cry”. He hopes that someone will pass by and see that he is trapped, but no one does and he is left to cry until she comes back to check on him to make sure he is still on his knees. In order to pacify her, he keeps telling her that his love for her is true. This is a reversal of many songs women would sing in the earlier decades of the 1900s, where the abused woman would remind her husband of her love despite the abuse she faced. Abuse is not something that only women face, and while that is slowly being understood better in the modern world, in the ‘90s, it was not discussed like this. With the idea of men being dominant, being abused by a woman would often lead to ridicule rather than help. Crying would also be looked down upon, as men are expected to be tough and not show their emotions. Gender roles and expectations prevent men from speaking out about their experiences with abuse and their emotions. This is a less addressed issue regarding gender roles, and it leaves many men vulnerable. The safety of men is important, despite being so often overlooked.
Giving men the chance to explore and accept their sexuality and sexual preferences can help them find safe ways of expressing themselves. The men in Green Day have had time to figure out what they are looking for and have written many songs about their sex lives. There are a few songs where the members of Green Day sing about sexual encounters with a dominatrix.
The first of these songs appeared on their first album, Kerplunk! in the song Dominated Love Slave. Sung by drummer Tré Cool, the song delves into the masochistic desires of men. Traditionally, men are expected to be the sexually dominant gender, even physically abusive at times. In Dominated Love Slave, Cool lists his desire to be hurt by a dominatrix. Whether it be getting spanked when he does not behave, slapped and called naughty, or smacked in the forehead with a chain, Cool wants to be on the receiving end of the pain and “punished for his sins”.
This is also present in the song Blood, Sex and Booze. The song begins with a clip from the recording session where the band hired a dominatrix to record whip noises for the song. You can hear her giving instructions to them to keep their head down. The song then goes on to describe Armstrong “all dressed up and bound and gagged up to a chair”, waiting for the pain the dominatrix is going to give him. He mentions he is “in distress” and that he does not want to have to beg for more of it. While he is being hurt, he is still feeling pleasure from it.
Both of these songs describe sexual situations that are not considered common among men, who are taught to be dominant when it comes to sex. With Green Day singing about their desires to be the submissive ones in sexual encounters, it reminds us that not everyone fits into sexual categories based on gender. Bringing their desires to light normalizes the experience. In the modern world, you see a lot more support for submissive men, but with the homophobic culture of the ‘90s, especially for a bisexual man like Armstrong, that support was minimal.
In less graphic sexual detail, there are other instances of Armstrong’s sexuality influencing lyrics. In the song Basket Case, Armstrong mentions going to a whore, and chose he/him pronouns for the person in question. Men are not typically thought of when it comes to prostitution, as women are the ones objectified for jobs like that. However, Armstrong’s choice of going to a man makes his sexuality that much more normalized, as well as the reversal of gender norms when it comes to occupation.
This is not the only occupational gender role reversal we see in this song either. The song, written about Armstrong’s struggles with anxiety, mentions going to a shrink, who is referred to with she/her pronouns. Doctors are traditionally jobs occupied by men, but by changing the pronouns, the song works to normalize women being doctors as well. While it is far more common nowadays to see women being doctors, they are not often as common as men, and the stereotypes persist.
These casual gender reversals might be in part because of Green Day’s views on gender as a whole. In their song King for a Day, the topic of cross-dressing is brought up. Armstrong and the other members of Green Day are no strangers to cross-dressing, as they have been known to wear dresses and other non-traditionally masculine clothes. In the song, the desire to cross-dress is said to have started at the age of four, sneaking into mom’s closet while she is grocery shopping. The line “sugar and spice and everything nice wasn’t made for only girls” tells of how their ideas of gender norms shaped their fashion choices. As with Armstrong’s thoughts on bisexuality, they do not feel anyone should be limited in their choices. While cross-dressing was something that queer people have engaged in for decades, it was not accepted at the time of the song in the late ‘90s. Even today, people who cross-dress face transphobia for their fashion choices. In the words of the song, however, “don’t knock it until you’ve tried it”. Gender exploration is becoming more normalized in the modern world, something lyrics like these have worked for for decades.
Ever since their formation in the early ‘90s, Green Day has been challenging the norm. With their choice of Pansy Division as an opening band despite homophobic backlash to Billie being open about his sexuality to cross-dressing to getting political, nothing has stopped the band from speaking their mind and their truth. Even though the era earned them a lot of criticism and homophobia, they did not back down and held strong in their beliefs that people should be accepted for who they are. When faced with gender roles and expectations that do not fit who they are, they do what they want and take the backlash with a smile. This band gives many others the freedom to feel comfortable with themselves in the face of opposition, and their bravery in an era that wanted to punish them for being themselves paved the way for many others like them. Whether it be embracing your sexuality and sexual preferences, gender and gender expression, or belief in a better political and social climate, there are a large number of artists who have been inspired by them and follow in their footsteps of radical visibility.
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