The so-called “classic rock fandom” loves to objectify this man.
Let’s just get this out of the way first. The ones grossly drooling over him and other older musicians are not real fans in any way, shape, or form. They are soulless assholes who don’t really give one single fuck about the music or the people creating it, and they have no business calling themselves fans. They are a small but vocal minority of assholes, and they probably really don’t exist outside of Tumblr. But they piss me off, and I want to offer a counterpoint to their obnoxious fuckery by humanizing the people they so love to objectify.
I’ve been a fan of AC/DC since 1977, and have always felt extremely protective towards Angus. He’s kind of a vulnerable person, particularly these days. He’s experienced a great deal of loss. He had to watch the person he was closest to deteriorate over the course of ten years and then die.
For those who don’t know, Angus’ older brother Malcolm was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 2008 at the age of 55. He died November 18, 2017 at the age of 64. At the time of his death, he did not remember how to play the songs he wrote, he did not know the people he had been closest to in life, he didn’t remember how to speak, he couldn’t walk, and he couldn’t take care of his own basic needs, such as going to the bathroom or bathing himself.
I do know from personal experience what Angus went through watching this, and it is fucking horrible. It leaves you with a hole in your heart that can never be filled. Losing someone to dementia is like losing them multiple times. Glen Campbell’s wife said that it’s better to die some other way, and she is 1000% right.
A few weeks prior to losing Malcolm, Angus also lost his brother George.
My dear friend and fellow blogger @kamidiox created this sweet image in honor of the three Young brothers. I’ve been reluctant to share it because I wouldn’t want the gross creepers to get their hands on it, but I’d like to share it now because it deserves to be seen.
When I think of Angus these days, I also tend to think of these images of him carrying Malcolm’s guitar at Malcolm’s funeral. My heart breaks for him.
I’m not saying that people can’t think Angus is attractive. I think he’s cute as can be. I’m not saying it isn’t possible to have feelings for a person you haven’t met. That does happen. I understand that. However, it’s completely possible to have such feelings without objectifying the person.
My problem with what these young women are doing is not that they find a person who is actually even older than me appealing. It’s the fact that they completely erase the humanity of the people they’re objectifying. Just because Angus looked like this in a picture from close to 40 years ago does not mean it’s okay to objectify him.
Angus Young is a performer and people are multi-faceted. The performance persona is not the same as the actual flesh and blood person who has complex feelings and thoughts.
Angus is a brother, a husband, an uncle, a great-uncle, possibly even a great-great uncle. He didn’t have any children of his own, but he and his wife have children of the furry and feathered variety that they dote on. He is an interesting, intelligent, compassionate, sensitive, creative person. He is not a piece of ass. It is fine to acknowledge finding him attractive. It is not fine to objectify him or anybody else.
2 comments:
People are strange. Those who are objectifying tend to be very shallow generally and really aren't worth the trouble. So sorry to hear about his losses.
Agreed, Liz. It's an odd trend and I don't understand it at all. It's not that I never found performers much older than me attractive. My father was a great fan of big band and swing music. I thought the likes of Frank Sinatra, Glenn Miller, and Stan Kenton were very handsome, but I never would have spoken about them the way these young women do about the likes of Angus Young. I would have considered it extremely disrespectful.
I'm honestly not hoping to change these girls' minds. When you're dealing with fools, the mob rules. I think writing this is more cathartic for me than anything else. Perhaps it also might change the mind of someone who didn't see the problem with this behavior when they were only looking at images, but once they see a real person behind the image they might see that it's not okay to treat them as a thing to be objectified. Who knows?
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