Born Villain Tour Analyses [Hey, Cruel World... & Twins Of Evil]

[S.D.]

I really wish sometimes it didn't take me a day or more to construct an analysis post. Not because I don't like taking my time, but because when I finally get it finished, the bare bones are usually already in the topic!
So, here was what I had pencilled together at the start of the week, some of you guys have mentioned a few bits-and-pieces since:-

I'm really, really glad the cake emblem has been picked up on, it's by no means a facile prop. On the contrary, there's a veritable goldmine of Manson references in one simple gesture...

I asked him about that and he clarified that it's specifically a birthday cake at every show

A birthday cake makes perfect sense, given the band are touring an album called Born Villain.

"And all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death.
Out, out brief candle. Life's but a walking shadow.
A poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more.
It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury...
Signifying nothing."



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The Macbeth quotation can easily be attributed to the superficial nature of fame, which The Dope Show also addresses. The candle motif has been present since the very first imagery we witnessed from Born Villain, both in the project's name, and short film.

He's also referring specifically to his own trend of self-destruction in order to be re-born. Manson's birthday has been immortalised by the number 15, so the symbolism of destroying a birthday cake by kicking it to pieces implies a furthering of that self-destruction. The Dope Show was a flagship single for Mechanical Animals, which introduced the 15/birthday concept fully. Later, Born Again would discuss issues of superficiality; "I'm someone else, I'm someone new, I'm someone stupid just like you".

He has embodied himself as a cake before, also. During Doppelherz we hear the following:-

"I am a birthday cake, that you light up, blow out, cut apart, devour, and forget."

Then compare:-

EAT ME, DRINK ME . Devour . "fuck, eat, kill, et cetera"

Following on from the birth motif, there's Putting Holes In Happiness also:-

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"Blow out the candles on all my Frankensteins
At least my death wish will come true
You taste like Valentine's
And we cry, you're like a birthday
I should've picked the photograph it lasted longer than you"

The candles on a birthday cake? How often now have candles been a key icon in Manson's lyrics or imagery? The "death wish" likely also refers to the tradition of blowing out candles on a birthday cake, at the same time making a secret wish to one's self in the hope it will come true; a 'birth wish' becomes 'death'.

I suppose, if we're considering the relationship between cake and The Dope Show, we can make the cognitive link between Cake And Sodomy and the homo-erotic nature of "the cops and queers", and pink-uniformed kissing in The Dope Show music video.

Didn't he also call Mechanical Animals the album a beautiful birthday cake at one point?

He did, although not in relation to Holy Wood, but The Golden Age Of Grotesque:-

"The new record brings out the dandy in me and accepting my life as my ultimate work of art as much as anything I create. Pushing the decadence to the limit. Much like I made the transition from Mechanical Animals, which was glamorous like a wonderful birthday cake.
But this is like leaving the cake outside and the worms get in it and it starts to stink a little bit. It's quite beautiful and grotesque and inspired by the depression era, Vaudeville, 30s Berlin."
Marilyn Manson, 2002 [BBC Radio 1 Rock Show]

Slightly jumbled because I am tired, but I hope these thoughts help.

[blue angel]

I'm not seeing the direct connection between the song, The Dope Show and a Birthday cake though.

[timoldbean]

I see it as a savoury extension of rockstars chucking the hotel's plasma TV out the balcony. That, in itself, is a good part of the Dope Show surely.

[NapalmHeart]

Her door is suddenly kicked in with half-assed drunken force and the President leans against the
frame for support. He leers at Coma incoherently with a birthday cake in one hand. The candles
make ugly shadows across his face. Coma tries to hide Adam's box and the music but her nightgown
just comes open in the process.

"What's that playing? That's not my song..." He loses his frame of thought for a moment staring
at her pale exposed belly and thighs. "Are you too big to love daddy, now? You're all grown up
my little princesss...let me see."

He stumbles toward her and with his free hand begins to grope her breasts. She resists, for what
seems like the first time, and rips open his silk shirt. What she sees beneath is more
disgusting than his pathetic molestation. His almost translucent skin is varicose and wrinkled.
On his shoulders and chest he wears prosthetic pads that are snapped onto his skin with tiny
stainless steel fasteners to augment his youthful, healthy shape. The material his fake muscles
are made of looks wet and gelatinous like raw chicken meat.

He is too drunk to be embarrassed, so he tears away the rest of his clothes stumbling toward her
with some sort of elastic garter that holds his veiny erection upright. The cake with her face
painted on it, smears down his leg onto the floor.

"Daddy, loves you. You know that's why we have to do this."

As he reaches for her arm, she pulls away and grabs a six inch tall marble statue of her father
from her desk. With all her strength and eighteen years of resentment she smashes his across the
forehead with it, breaking the statue and splitting open a large horizontal gash above his brow.
He falls, bleeding and covered in cake. The gaping wound seems to frown above his closed eyes.
She drops the statue, even though she knows he's still alive.

-- Holy Wood (novel)

[Saklas]

NapalmHeart, very nice contribution ;-)

This thread is awesome! I've missed you's guise!