Green Day releasing first book: Last of the American Girls

[Hermione]

24 minutes ago, papa said:

the whole damn thing should just be pulled. it's stupid. it's offensive. it's dumb. the end.

It's not though that's the thing . It's the lyrics of Last of the American Girls with illustrations. They just fucked up the description of it.

[papa]

1 minute ago, Hermione said:

It's not though that's the thing . It's the lyrics of Last of the American Girls with illustrations. They just fucked up the description of it.

oh i'm very aware of the situation and i still think it's dumb. 

[Hermione]

1 hour ago, papa said:

oh i'm very aware of the situation and i still think it's dumb. 

Fair enough! I'll wait until I see the whole book

[desertrose]

Green Day under fire for lacking female voice in feminist book

https://www.altpress.com/news/green-day-feminist-book-controversy/

 

5 Graphic Novels to Read Instead of Green Day’s Ill-Advised Attempt

https://www.flare.com/news/green-day-graphic-novel/

[BilIie Joe Armstrong]

Oh my god, how long will it take them to react to this.  This entire controversy was completely preventable but when it happened, it could be easily smoothed by having someone from the band repost the preview with a less shitty description and maybe doing a press release on it. Easy peasy lemon  squeezy when your publicist has two functioning brain cells.

[pacejunkie punk]

If nothing else you would think their new manager would be on the ball and be working some PR damage control even if the band are too busy to pay any attention to it.

[BilIie Joe Armstrong]

Yeah, it's not like their management doesn't have access to their accounts. A "band member" can repost it and explain without being bothered. It's not really the band's fault but their management's. I'm surprised the new one is no better at this than the old was.

[Guest]

Green Days management is really getting on my nerves lol. This whole thing was so easy  to prevent or fix and yet they don't do shit.  

[Billie Joes Eyelids]

17 hours ago, Beerjeezus said:

Oh my god, how long will it take them to react to this.  This entire controversy was completely preventable but when it happened, it could be easily smoothed by having someone from the band repost the preview with a less shitty description and maybe doing a press release on it. Easy peasy lemon  squeezy when your publicist has two functioning brain cells.

At this point my guess is that they’re going with the route of “ignore it and it will just blow over”. Maybe that’s the way to go. I don’t know enough about publicity. But if they were going to put out a statement I think that window has passed and I do think it’s starting to blow over. Remember, only 15% of the population uses Twitter. And it didn’t trend on there. So it’s a pretty small blowback in the scheme of things.

[BilIie Joe Armstrong]

1 minute ago, neverdone2000 said:

At this point my guess is that they’re going with the route of “ignore it and it will just blow over”. Maybe that’s the way to go. I don’t know enough about publicity. But if they were going to put out a statement I think that window has passed and I do think it’s starting to blow over. Remember, only 15% of the population uses Twitter. And it didn’t trend on there. So it’s a pretty small blowback in the scheme of things.

Yeah, I guess it will. They're not getting that much bad press about it except for those articles and they're not really that big for it to blow up so maybe not attracting more attention to it is a valid decision. We'll see what happens when the book comes out. They'd better change the way they promote it or it might come back to bite them in the ass.

[Billie Joes Eyelids]

4 minutes ago, Beerjeezus said:

They'd better change the way they promote it or it might come back to bite them in the ass.

Oh absolutely. If they don’t learn from this they deserve anything coming to them. 

[BilIie Joe Armstrong]

23 minutes ago, neverdone2000 said:

Oh absolutely. If they don’t learn from this they deserve anything coming to them. 

I don't wish them public backlash, but yes, if they don't learn from this mistake it's inevitable.

[pacejunkie punk]

If it helps I think that word “handbook” and cringy description were only used in the Rolling Stone article in a quote from the publisher. It’s not in the book description on Amazon or anywhere else I looked.  The book is described there as exactly what it is. The focus is on the song:

 

Description

Product description

From Green Day and co-authored and illustrated by artist Frank Caruso comes a timely, inspiring illustrated rendition of the Grammy winning band’s classic hit “Last of the American Girls”—the song Rolling Stone called “a fabulous left-wing love song to a rebel girl . . . when Armstrong sings, ‘she won’t cooperate,’ he’s giving her the highest compliment he can imagine.”

One of the most important and influential artists of their generation, the high-energy rock band Green Day has continued to inspire millions of fans worldwide with their music, political views, and iconoclastic conviction. Now, they transform their Billboard hit “Last of the American Girls” into a full-color illustrated book of the song's lyrics.

She’s a runaway of the establishment incorporated
She won’t cooperate
She will come in first
For the end of western civilization
She’s a natural disaster
She’s the last of the American girls

Since they exploded in the culture in 1994, Green Day has continued to surprise and energize its fans through the evolution of its music, songwriting, and artistic ambition. The band has long been ahead of its time, and “Last of the American Girls” is a testament to their vision. Released in 2010, the song about a spirited nonconformist young woman named Gloria embodies today’s cultural zeitgeist and is a salute and tribute to female empowerment and individuality. Celebrating true rebel girls—girls who push back, girls who use their voice, girls who say no—Last of the American Girls takes on both the establishment and the upwardly mobile, espousing an infectious spirit that has never been more relevant.

[BilIie Joe Armstrong]

Now that's a description that doesn't offend

[petros]

That description is almost as cringy and offensive as people using the word mansplaining.

[Billie Joes Eyelids]

The hills we die on are going to kill us. THIS is exactly what I’ve been trying to say in the Morrissey thread and I think it applies to this as well.

https://www.politicususa.com/2019/04/06/barack-obama-circular-firing-squad-hurting-movement.html/amp?__twitter_impression=true

[Slave To The Network]

That's a really good article. Thanks so much for posting it!

On the topic of this book, I'm not sure why the decision was made to do Last of the American Girls either. Such a "meh" song to choose.

I would love to see what they could've done with Dominated Love Slave or All By Myself. 

[BilIie Joe Armstrong]

I think LOTAG was chosen because the fEmiNiSt topic is currently a part of the zeitgeist. And why not use it - I'm glad they chose something else than one of the big hits. It's good to see a less known song get attention.

On another note omg imagine how cool would be an illustrated version of Forever Now.

[Squashie]

5 hours ago, Beerjeezus said:

On another note omg imagine how cool would be an illustrated version of Forever Now.

Id buy that book in a heart beat. 

[Rumpelstiltskin2000]

Whilst I know it wasn't what the publisher meant and that the description has nothing to do with the band there are a million and one ways to describe a rebel girl other than "... girls who say no ..."

Those four words are so offensive to anyone who has been the victim of violence, domestic abuse or sexual assault.

I don't say anything like this lightly.

They should have just factually said it was an illustration of the song lyrics and left it at that.

 

[DeJennsitized]

9 minutes ago, Rumpelstiltskin2000 said:

Whilst I know it wasn't what the publisher meant and that the description has nothing to do with the band there are a million and one ways to describe a rebel girl other than "... girls who say no ..."

Those four words are so offensive to anyone who has been the victim of violence, domestic abuse or sexual assault.

I don't say anything like this lightly.

They should have just factually said it was an illustration of the song lyrics and left it at that.

 

Agree 100%, and the description was clearly not written by a woman because I’m sure they’d have spotted how it comes across. 

[solongfromthestars]

They really would have been better off without the tRu ReBeL thing in general. It's a shame, because there's nothing wrong with the song or book at all, but a lazy attempt at marketing it as more Feminist and Empowering than it is will inevitably go wrong. Green Day look kind of washed up and desperate for financially beneficial woke points and that's not true. Too late now, but I guess it'll blow over. Unless the management don't learn from this, then things don't look too good  

[Yosuke Hanamura]

Y’know I almost bought the whole “No women worked on it, so it’ll be a total pile of shit” spiel, but then I remembered that Adrienne would beat Billie over the head with the book if anything remotely idiotic was in it.

[pacejunkie punk]

24 minutes ago, Yosuke Hanamura said:

Y’know I almost bought the whole “No women worked on it, so it’ll be a total pile of shit” spiel, but then I remembered that Adrienne would beat Billie over the head with the book if anything remotely idiotic was in it.

Exactly. Keep in mind it was Brit who first posted the proof book. They signed off. 

[solongfromthestars]

No one on GDC is bothered about the book itself though. I'm sure no one elsewhere would be without the bad description. If their wives agreed to those words I wouldn't be very impressed with them! But clearly it was an idiot in an office somewhere. It's them we're criticising and without realising that's who others are criticising too.