From the Archives XII

Mother Mother

Oct 17, 2022

Remember when rebellion meant fighting the establishment?

Mother Mother. Photo credit: aestheticmagazinetoronto.com

The Mother Mother concert was 97% fun. Mr Miller and I took Miss Miller and her friend Stella*—one the few old-fashioned straight girls in her friend group—to the show. In the car on the way, Stella even gushed about her upcoming dinner and movie date with a bonafide boy.

Ooh, I thought. More like that, honey.

Stella in fact was likely one of the only self-proclaimed straight girls at the show, full stop. Mother Mother are hugely popular with the queer crowd, which is ironic given that the lead singer, Ryan Guldemond is an Aryan confection of pure platinum whiteness Hitler could only dream about.

Even Mother Mother—those cis-heteronormative Canadian cuties—don't know why they became so popular among the trans community. And by trans community I mean nerdy straight white girls and young gay people (also mostly white girls) who identify as some shade of queer.

Perhaps their rise in status among the queer folk is due to song lyrics which arguably promote gender non-conformity (weirdly of the verboten autogynephilic variety), bodily detachment, self harm, suicide and anorexia. Also, their song “Hayloft I” is apparently a favorite backdrop on TikToks where young people announce shiny new gender identities.

If I were as cruel as some people probably believe, I would have taken surreptitious video of the crowd. But I didn’t have the heart to be that exploitative. In my head though, I was pretty unforgiving. Mr Miller and I actually bonded over our shared mean girl wonder.

“Are they trying to look as ugly as possible?” he said once we’d dispatched our teen charges into the main hall. I felt somehow vindicated after all our quarreling—like somehow their contrived ghoulishness proved I’ve been right all along—that our daughter and all these girls are in a cult. Of course that’s an irrational leap. Maybe I just relished our agreement.

“They’ve queered it all,” I lamented. “Even aesthetics are unsafe.”

The crowd consisted mostly of teenage girls, dressed according to established code: bellies on display, fitness be damned, some type of fishnet stocking or absurdly oversized jeans, badly dyed hair parted down the middle and twisted up in buns, Doc Martens and black lipstick slashes to punctuate the horror, brought to you by Hot Topic, where the soul of fashion goes to die.

Then there were the parents. We stood huddled together at the bar, safely cordoned off from the throng, plastic cups of overpriced beer or Diet Pepsi in hand, taking it all in. I wondered how many of them felt like I do about my kid. The concert seemed like the perfect opportunity to continue my research (ahem) with psychedelic therapy for my depression. I thought, upon ingesting a half gram of “research” that I might have a nifty experience given the lights and sounds. Admittedly I like the band even if I’m a minority fan—maybe even a little marginalized.

I swore I didn’t feel anything for a while. But then I got goofy. Mr M smiled at me as I blathered on about how happy I was that I’d worn comfortable shoes, and how that made me a rebel.

“I’ve never been this comfortable at a concert!” I crooned, giddy and bouncing.

I leaned against him and he put his hands around my waist. We made fun of how obedient the crowd was, waving their arms over their heads whenever prompted, more like fans at a Taylor Swift concert and nothing like the punks I used to see at shows in the 80s. And the phones. Once upon a time, people held up lighters and it took your breath away to behold in a stadium, while say, The Who was about to take the stage for an encore. (Brag: that Farewell Tour was my first concert in eighth grade.) Now the kids record TikToks and Instagram reels with their flashlights blazing. Talk about a buzz kill.

Just across the iron fencing partition that separated the over 21s from the rest of the crowd stood a small group of friends swaying and lip syncing at the ceiling. There were a couple plaid-clad young women, a towering buzz-cut in a damp black T-shirt and her boyfriend, a round but diminutive man wearing a colorfully striped short-sleeve button-down and cargo pants over tiny glittery Keds. His waxy cheeks offset the patchy beard and wire-rimmed glasses he sported, and his receding hairline seemed to dictate his shaved head.

We locked eyes as I realized he was not a diminutive middle aged man at all but a young woman. Did he see me recognize that he wasn’t a he? Did he care? Did she care that the testosterone made her look like George Castanza instead of Timothée Chalamet? Did she spend her days convincing herself she wanted to look this way? Was she happier now?

After I pointed her out to Mr Miller he came up with a theory. Just a few short years ago, he mused, it seemed like the most outlandish thing you could do with your appearance was to sport a pair of jumbo ear gauges. It wasn’t everyone. It was always that one friend in the group who took things to the extreme. While the majority had multiple piercings, only one had lobes like taffy. Now, with transgenderism, it’s the same. All the girls claim to be bi, pan or non-binary, but only one—maybe two—in a friend group are actually on T.

If this is true, then our transmasc daughter seems safe. She already knows two girls at school who take testosterone, and one is in her immediate group of friends. Both girls have enabling moms and dysfunctional dads. Miss Miller has neither. I called it a win and bopped my head to the music.

All the while, I waited for a psychedelic experience. What I found were brief hits of musical appreciation punctured by lulls of anticlimactic dismay. Mother Mother, as successful as they are, know how to cater (pander?) to an audience—and the popular culture. I remembered with a sigh how youth culture used to rebel against the establishment, not embody it.

Ryan preached from the stage between songs:

“Love who you want to love! Be who you want to be! Yeah that’s right! I’m talking about IDENTITY!”

The crowd cheered in soprano unison.

Later, he described pursuing a career as an indie rock artist rather than continuing with jazz guitar. His teacher apparently told him he wouldn’t make it in a band.

“When someone tells you you can’t be something, don’t listen!” he intoned.

The crowd roared.

“You can be anything you want to be! And when anyone tells you you can’t, FUCK ‘em!”

I imagined Miss Miller screaming herself hoarse somewhere in the crowd.

Ryan went on to commend everyone for showing up, after establishing that young people have so many troubles these days. The way he described it, attending a concert when you’re feeling down is a feat of heroism. And he thanked the audience for making his dream come true. “It’s all you! You’re the reason!” Then he threw a handful of guitar picks into the crowd.

It reminded me of participation trophies. Mr Miller didn’t share my view on that, but he did agree that Ryan was actively promoting the popular narrative that his audience is oppressed, held down by the homophobic and transphobic patriarchy.

But we all know—sound bytes shun nuance.

Not that rock concerts are the appropriate venue to have nuanced conversations, but still I fantasized about climbing onstage in my comfortable shoes. Amidst the tomatoes thrown my way, I would have offered this subtle distinction:

Hey kids! Of course you can love who you want to love and be who you want to be! Just take the responsibility for it! Don’t foist your identity onto everyone else to hold you up! That’s your job! Thank you Philadelphia! Good night!

After the show we collected the girls outside. Grinning and sweating, they held up their new thirty-dollar t-shirts. Miss Miller showed us her guitar pick, the one she scraped off the floor after Ryan threw it in the crowd.

“Pretty lucky, huh?” she croaked, her voice raspy.

A group of kids passed by. They looked more ragged than the rest of the crowd, with hollow eyes and ripped tights. The skinniest one had razor blade scars up and down her bicep. As they gathered on the sidewalk a few feet away, I turned and smiled at my daughter.

“That is lucky,” I agreed. Then we walked toward the car.

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