TV review: Marilyn Manson Unmasked — a damning look past the shock-rock persona
'I never liked Manson, his music is terrible and his shock-rock persona is laughably bad. I dislike him a lot more after watching this.'
There is an eerie foreshadowing early in (Channel 4), when they get onto lunchboxes.
Goth r ock star Manson (real name Brian Hugh Warner) and his band carried childish lunchboxes as part of their shtick, so some younger female fans did the same.
They were called the Lunchbox Girls. One of them, 15 year-old Jennifer Pavao, rang the band’s hotline and Manson answered, starting a relationship of sorts where he used to ring her at home, telling her to call him Daddy.
I t might have been a sick joke, provocation to get attention, like when he refers to himself as ‘child-fucker’ at a live show. But even if it was, you don’t want to be around people with that sense of humour.
The band’s rise to infamy was propelled by the music press, even after he told he was ‘the child catcher in
H is career seemed on the rocks when people claimed he inspired the killers in the horrific Columbine high-school shooting, but he seemed to go through a re-birth at this point, convincingly defending his work as an act and defending his right to free speech.
His sex-with-minors ‘banter’ rile d up adult America and attract ed a young fan base with equal effect. The question remains – was Warner a sex-offender hiding in plain sight?
Manson fan, B ianca Allaine, will tell you that he was.
She appears throughout the documentary, claiming that he sexually abused her on a tour bus at the age of 16. Allaine filed a lawsuit, accusing Warner of grooming her and coercing her into sexual acts, accusations which are strenuously denied by Warner’s lawyer in this show.
But other women came forward in 2021 and accused him of sexual assault. As the investigating officer said in the Jeffrey Epstein case, it went from he-said she-said to he-said they-said. Manson was dropped by his agent, manager and record label.
The second episode of this three-parter features these women, including actress Evan Rachel Wood, who was Manson’s girlfriend after he split with his wife Dita Von Teese.
They paint the picture of a controlling man who intimidated younger women who came into his orbit.
Wood accuses him of raping her in front of a film crew during a sex scene they shot for a music video, something which his lawyer strenuously denies.
In the end, you get to decide.
I never liked Manson, his music is terrible and his shock-rock persona is laughably bad. I dislike him a lot more after watching this.
